Best Kathmandu Travel Guides
Getting to Nepal from Europe, North America and Australasia Kathmandu ― trekking preparations and what to see Where to stay and eat ― Kathmandu and along the trails Employing a guide or porter in Nepal The environment ― how to minimize your impact on a fragile region and still take hot ‘green' showers Health and safety 60 route maps and village plans Plus – 30 color photos.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I really get the feel that he truly loves the Himalaya by the way the book is written, with both factual information as well as info on trekking responsibly. In addition, he offers a great deal more detail in his route descriptions and talks about some less-used trails and minor scrambling peaks that no other book mentions."
"The read is a good read for understanding the trek to Everest Base Camp, which I will be doing in October 2017."
"This is a great guide if you play to do Everest Base Camp, Gokyo Lake or the 3 Pass Trek."
"Excellent book."
"Everest base camp."
"excellent book."
"Great book to get associated with taking the EBC and other treks in the Everest Region of Nepal."
"I have used other Trailblazer guides before and have found them to be extremely helpful in planning for a trek."
"Suzanne's memoir is an intelligent, insightful, wise, and hilarious account of what it means to be a cancer survivor. A native of Tuscaloosa Alabama, Suzanne has lived in Charlotte, NC since 1986.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"this story of Suzanne journey with cancer and her journey with group of stranger who are also cancer suvivors to Nepal."
"My personal fave: Chapter 11: "I'd Rather Be Doing Stand-Up, Naked", Flying into the World's Most Dangerous Airport...My head reverberates from the explosion of my worst imaginable nightmare, "Oh my God, no way!"
"It is rare for an author to tap into so many emotions in one book but Suzanne Link has accomplished this unique feat."
"Suzanne shares her heart in many ways, i.e., childhood experiences, dealing with cancer, & the challenge of trekking a mountain in Nepal."
"She not only had chemo and radiation, but also ended up with an infected port, blood clot in her neck and deteriorated teeth requiring $10,000 in dental work. But that’s not before she totes a bottle of booze bought in a duty-free store around an airline terminal while en route to Asia in a failed attempt to calm her anxiety. Other memorable passages include accidentally turning her white boxers into tie-dye underwear while hanging them to dry on a string of paper flags, hitching a ride with a dumpy mountain horse she calls “Sweet Pea” and perfecting the royal wave while astride her, and being utterly lost on the streets of Kathmandu after taking a wrong turn to find an ATM."
"I love how Suzanne took us on her journey with her, she will make you cry, laugh, and want to be standing on that mountain top right beside her."
"Suzanne and the other cancer survivors went through so much, and then choose those hardships involved to trek the Himalayas!"
"An inspiring story filled with a mountain range of emotions - hope and perseverance shining brightly at the peak of it all."
One of the greatest cities of the Himalaya, Kathmandu, Nepal, is a unique blend of thousand-year-old cultural practices and accelerated urban development. Looping through centuries and slaloming between journalism, history memoir, mythology, and gossip, Tom Bell has written a portrait of Kathmandu like no other, taking us from Manjushree to the Maoists via witches, colonial Orientalists, LSD cults, spies wars, and old Serge Gainsbourg movies. In this lucid, clever, thorough and beautifully written book, Tom Bell does this for us, recounting the gripping history of the fascinating city with equal measures of verve and care.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"A nice mix of journalism and history."
"Hoping to travel to Kathmandu with friends in the future."
"Disconnected at many places because as the writer confessed in one of the chapters, he wrote this book after picking up pieces from so many books and paper work that contains years of research."
"A 101 course for any first time visitor to Kathmandu."
"The area is described in the book as “a jewel of the art world, a carnival of sexual license, a hotbed of communist revolution, a paradigm of failed democracy, a case study in bungled western intervention, and an environmental catastrophe” in the compelling words of Bell so there is some excitement for all here, then, and it is a great read! Bell describes Kathmandu with an imagery which can never be considered purple patch writing about a place using phrases such as where “the layered development of the city can be seen in the successive generations of its gods and goddesses” with “its comfort in the caste system and ethos of aristocracy and kingship” and “the recent destabilizing effects of consumerist approaches and the push for egalitarianism and democracy”. It is a lovely, beautifully researched and presented book and most certainly gives us a comprehensive look at “a top global destination” for that is what Kathmandu is- and it’s “an entertaining and accessible chronicle for anyone eager to learn more about this fascinating city.""
"Read it for the magic of Kathmandu's lush and living urban culture and for biting analysis of the inept and corrupt governance that so plagues Nepal."
Best General Nepal Travel Guides
As he turned to begin the perilous descent from 29,028 feet (roughly the cruising altitude of an Airbus jetliner), twenty other climbers were still pushing doggedly to the top, unaware that the sky had begun to roil with clouds... Since the 1980s, more and more "marginally qualified dreamers" have attempted the ascent of Everest, as guided commercial expeditions have dangled the possibility of reaching the roof of the world in front of anyone wealthy enough to pay for the privilege. By writing and reading Into Thin Air , Krakauer may have hoped to exorcise some of his own demons and lay to rest some of the painful questions that still surround the event. He takes great pains to provide a balanced picture of the people and events he witnessed and gives due credit to the tireless and dedicated Sherpas. Clearly, Krakauer remains haunted by the disaster, and although he relates a number of incidents in which he acted selflessly and even heroically, he seems unable to view those instances objectively. Heroism and sacrifice triumph over foolishness, fatal error, and human frailty in this bone-chilling narrative in which the author recounts his experiences on last year's ill-fated, deadly climb.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"The recent release of Everest (or reinterpretation) prompted me to read this as well as other books about the climbing season in question."
"Gripping story of the tragic Everest ascent on which many members of various climbing groups lost their lives."
"I believe Krakauer did an excellent job of backing up his facts and represented what happened at Everest as best as he could."
"one of the most amazing, exciting, horrifying, detailed adventures I've ever read about."
"It is a great and exciting story, with tragedy, nobility, humanity, and a lot to say about the modern era playing out in an ultimately unforgiving environment."
"I found this book to be engaging, interest, and well-written. I didn't realize when I bought the book, that it is highly controversial."
"Definitively a good book to read for all who knows a bit about survival in cold environments, and maybe just a dramatic story for those who have never had any experience with it."
"There are two very important lessons that I will take away from this book, and to Mr. Krakauer I am eternally grateful because he allowed me to learn them from the warmth of my home, rather than in a -150F gale on top of the world. If you make rash decisions (and you will, Krakauer notes repeatedly thought this work that lucidity is nigh impossible above 28,000 feet) it is very likely that you will die. Hundreds of horrifically under-qualified individuals attempt this climb without specific glacier navigation experience, relying on the skill and knowledge of world class guides to make up for their considerable shortcomings. Indeed, several family members of the deceased have decried Krakauer's prose, both in private and through the media, as speculative, misleading and downright slanderous. Much of this is a matter of perspective, but for my part it seems as though this book's narrative was written by an objective observer who reported his perceptions with as little subjective judgment as possible."