The thing that I'm really glad I took was my GPS. Why? Because it has helped me find things. It turns out that Google maps is a blank because I DIDN'T buy a local simple card. Instead I went International Service with AT&The for 50 bucks. It gives me 2Gs o for dated and unllimited texting.
I have a handheld GPS used for geocaching where you hand enter the coodinates. I also obtained a free tourist map at the airport that gives longitudemail and latitude so I just found where I wanted to go and entered the coordinates and started walking.
Today I walked from Thamel to Durber Square and back To Thamel and then to Swambouth Temple or the monkey temple.. There were a few dice parts but I got there OK.
I have two guidebooks that give really interesting tips on things to see but the problem is getting oriented to where they start. There are no street names listed. Traffic is insane, often there are no sidewalks and then there are constantly people hawking and soliciting you for everything so it's hard to think and read about where you are. For me the little arrow on my GPS pointing me the way worked best as I could walk fast but still look around.
I ended up with a guide for 750 nrs or roughly 7 bucks that was good. At the monkey temple I managed to avoid them. When I got home I found that I had missed some things outside the square but even after going there it wasn't clear where they were talking about.
I'm not saying avoiding the simple cardesign was better , I'm just saying what I did.
