Finally I recovered from my 3 days in bed after having a drink with ice cubes made with bad water. Yesterday we went to The Himalayan Blues Festival held in the Garden of Dreams (the nicest place you can find in Kathmandu) 5 minutes from our Hotel. We went there with some friends we met in Kathmandu, quite early to be sure to enter.
When you are in the park, you don’t realize that you are in Kathmandu. It’s completely amazing what they manage to do with this old park. The restoration took many years and they opened it 2 years ago only. It’s the place to visit in Kathmandu! Spend an afternoon there to relax and enjoy life again when you are tired of the busy streets of the city and (or) your last trek.

The blues festival started 2 days ago, but it was for sure the best evening in the Garden of Dreams. For us it was more like the Garden of Heaven. I’ll explain what heaven is when you spent a month in Nepal. Imagine you’ve been here, eating everyday or almost rice with something else. You’ve been out in the mountains for weeks, eating either dehydrated food or Dal bhat. Even if it sounds nice to have Asian food every day, well after a while you really get tired of it, and you don’t even know what to choose for lunch or dinner anymore... You are desperate to get some food that you are used to, something you know you really like! Then, you hear that there is a blues festival and it will be held in the nicest park in Kathmandu (because you have already been there). It sounds already fantastic. You suppose that it will be crowed but when you arrive there, there aren’t that much people (around 150 during the evening). You walk around to enjoy the park again and finally settle down on the grass. The sunset comes and finally the lights get on in the park. On top of that, you add some blues music with really good groups... And then the welcome drink is coming, guess what it can be in Nepal??? Any idea... Well some whisky!!! We were astonished.
After this we had some wine, we couldn’t resist for some Chilean red wine. More over some snacks from the BBQ. I ordered some chicken and got beef, but that’s the Nepali style as we say with Gilles (you don’t understand how they are so so so bad to remember things). And quite late in the evening when we were really hungry, the buffet opened. And there it is! The most amazing buffet you can imagine in Nepal, we couldn’t even dream to have such food here: Tomatoes-Mozzarella, Potatoes mayonnaise, olives, filets mignon, super good chicken, fish with butter and lemon, green beans with coconut milk, eggplant with garlic, pasta cooked on demand with tomatoes sauces, chocolate fudge brownies, apple pie, fruits... We ate so much, we couldn’t move anymore! We were all in heaven while eating all of this and listening to the blues with the glass of wine in one hand.
Even sick, I would have gone there to eat, no matter that would happen with my stomach afterward. When the evening ended, we didn’t want to go back in the streets of Kathmandu. We wished to stay in our little paradise for the night.

You can find all the photos in the album Blues Festival Garden of Dreams