In the following section you will find some useful tips and tricks to help you adjusting to our place. We hope that our tips will help you to feel home at our hostel and in the new environment around you.
If you have further questions, feel free to Send Us A Message.
If you need more information about our hostel,
please check out Our Accommodation, Our Exact Location and Living As A Family.
Tips for staying at our accommodation
Our hostel is equipped with basic kitchen devices and a drinking water dispenser. You can refill your drinking bottle in our kitchen. You can also use all items in the kitchen at any time, e.g. boiling water for tea or coffee.
It is Nepalese customs not to bring shoes that you have worn outside into the house. Thus, an extra pair of slippers might be of good use for home.
If you need to wash your clothes, there is a spot on the rooftop where you can do your work. You can also hang your clothes on the clothesline up there. If you bring your own clothesline, you can hang smaller stuff like underwear and socks inside your room. But please make sure that you have squeezed out almost all water from your clothes. We don’t want the rooms filled with water on the floors. T-Shirts, pants, towels, etc. need to be hung on the rooftop!
Even when you are not planning to go for trekking, bringing your sleeping bag might be a good idea during the winter season. The winter season starts from November to beginning of March. Although the weather seems very nice (clear, blue sky and almost no rain), it might be quiet chilly if you are walking in the shade. Especially during the evenings it is getting colder very fast. The buildings in Nepal are not very well isolated. Therefore, it might get inside a building as cold as outside. Having a sleeping bag will help you through the night. But you can also just wear more or warm clothes or ask us for extra blankets.
Tips for a good hostel community
Your satisfaction depends not only on the great service that we provide at our place, but also on the people around you. Only if you feel comfortable at the hostel, you will feel home. A strong hostel community feeling is important. And you can make a contribution to create this feeling of home.
Sharing is the best way to strengthen the community. We will have breakfast and dinner together, sharing the same food on the table. If you buy fruits for example, you can buy some more, sharing it with the other guests instead of just getting one apple for yourself. You will see, if you do it, others will follow as well.
If you need something special at the hostel to have some variety to the food that we offer you, you can get together with the other guests to buy it. Chocolate spread and jam for breakfast, or paneer for dinner are good examples.
The evenings in our neighbourhood are quiet.
Don’t forget that you are not staying at the tourist center. Most of the evenings you will be at the hostel. But it can be fun too. Bring some card games, learn about Nepalese culture, share your travel experiences or just talk about you and your life at home. We are always interested to get to know you better.
Exploring Nepal together is also a good chance to get to know the other guests. All travellers want to see as much as possible during their stay in Nepal. Sometimes it is more convenient to explore sites together in a group. Exploring Kathmandu Valley using local busses is a great experience and very adventurous too. Talk with the others and make mutual plans. And if we have time, we would like to join and guide you as well.
Tips for money and your security
You do not need money directly when you arrive at the airport. We will pick you up and take you back to the hostel. You can exchange money later in one of the many money exchange offices around Boudha. If you use credit cards, you can easily find many ATMs throughout the city, especially at the supermarket or around the tourist areas.
If you stay for a longer period of time, you should bring an extra phone so we can get you a Nepalese Sim Card. To get a Sim Card you have to bring a passport picture. We will help you to get you your own number on day one.
Our accommodation is based in a building where also three families live. The front door of the building will be locked from the inside during the night. If you come back late, please let us know.
Our neighbourhood is quiet safe. Nevertheless, it can get a little scary during evening times. It will get dark very quickly in Nepal. And as soon as it gets dark, there will not be many people on the streets. Walking on your own when it is dark is still fine though! Nevertheless, we would like to ask you to return back home not too late in the evening.
There are a couple of street dogs in each area of Kathmandu. Most of them are calm, just few are aggressive. Especially during the night you have to get used to the noise. If you encounter an aggressive one, don’t panic. It will growl and bark as hell and it might follow you, but you need to stay calm. Do not run away or make any hectic movements. As long as you do not come to close to the dog or even touch it, it will not bite you.
Tips for our neighbourhood
Theoretically, you can get everything around our neighbourhood. There are plenty of small shops, local restaurants, a bakery, a fruit shop, a stationery and a pharmacy in our area. Many people, especially the younger generation, speak English very well! So do not be afraid to interact with those people in our neighbourhood. We would like to encourage you whenever it is possible to support the local shops instead of going to the huge supermarket at the main street.
Our accommodation is situated in a quiet local area. It is important to us that you are not wearing too short clothes, especially our female guests. You are part of our community now and you should try to behave accordingly and respect our culture. We are not in Thamel where tourists behave like they own the place.
You need to get to know your neighbourhood.
There are several different ways to get to a place. If you are here for the first time, everything might look the same. Try to find focal points to find your way home.
If you take a taxi from somewhere to get home, you need to tell the driver to take you to the area and you will guide him in. Or you use a focal point that every taxi driver knows. For example, you can ask the taxi to take you to the supermarket Bhat Bhateni. Since there are many Bhat Bhateni’s around Kathmandu, it is very important to mention that it is the store near Boudha. So if you need a taxi back home, you can tell the driver to take you to “Bhat Bhateni Boudha”.
If you need more information about our hostel,
please check out Our Accommodation, Our Exact Location and Living As A Family.