B-B-B-B-B-B-Bhaktapur...

June 15, 2012

This is our second day in Kathmandu, and we wake quite rested...we're told there was an impressive lightning storm last night and we're having trouble believing it...we never heard a thing! Our itinerary today includes going to a small village and temple in the hills outside of Kathmandu, and then to Bhaktapur, one of the three cities in the Kathmandu Valley.

As we head out of town on the van, we take a few photos of the views...the first is a golf course that is owned by the Nepalese Army, and apparently you have to exercise caution when you play on this course because there are monkeys living on the course who steal golf balls and can get rather aggressive toward golfers.

Here's a clip of what the sights are like as we drive out of Kathmandu on the main highway...

 

Once we're out of Kathmandu city, we see more rural settings and fields ready for rice to be planted. The monsoon season is almost here, and the farmers don't plant rice until the right before the monsoons so that the rice can benefit from all of the rains...



Every so often we see a home that just doesn't fit in with the rest of the neighborhood...

We reach our first stop high on a hill overlooking the Kathmandu Valley...it is a temple and small village of artisans. The Changunarayan Temple is considered the oldest temple in Nepal, and is a special place for Hindus because it is dedicated to Lord Vishnu.

The local artisans make various things, but many make wood masks. As we strolled by one shop we thought we saw a striking resemblance with someone we all know quite well...hmmmmm...

This is another one of those places that only allows Hindus to go inside the temple, so we tour the outside and the courtyard around it. Again we see the intricate carvings that so lavishly adorn the temples here in Nepal.

This guy was happy to find some shade, but even in the shade it was getting pretty warm and humid...

A school trip was also at the temple when we were making our way through, so we helped with the group shot...

We found the head for the goddess statue...!

We've known of a while that we are a "special" group, but this confirms it...all along our journey we've seen lonely shepherds driving hundreds of sheep across vast plains, and here we are giving it a try and even with five of them trying to be shepherds they still can't get the sheep to move...

Next, we're off for a quick drive to Bhaktapur which is one of the three ancient cities that make up greater Kathmandu today. Bhaktapur was once the capital of Nepal, and it was situated along the trade routes with India and Tibet. We walk through the old city, and it certainly does look old...the streets are very narrow, the brick buildings are leaning and bowed and look like they may give way due to old age. Steve stopped and talked to an older woman resident who was trying to draw water out of a nearly dry well...

OK, we need to take a time-out to talk about these vehicles...

These tractor vehicles are everywhere...and we mean EVERYWHERE...in Asia, and are often referred to as the workhorse that built Asia. They are odd looking contraptions, but that's because they are built to be simple, strong, and versatile. First, they start with a very strong gas engine and put it on two wheels with long control arms...like a very heavy duty roto tiller. But they then make it possible to swap out what gets attached...tiller, trailer, etc. We typically saw these with a cart attached that consisted of a drivers seat (hardly a seat, but it serves the purpose) and a cargo bed with or without sides. In the configuration shown, these things are slow but powerful utility carts that are perfect for toting goods to and from market, people, livestock, nearly anything! They are slow and unwieldy to maneuver, but that doesn't stop people from driving them down highways and through city streets.

We continue our walk through the old town on our way to the main square, Durbar Square. Around one corner we catch a "shopkeeper" taking a little nap behind the counter...

We duck into a small temple and in addition to the typical windows and carvings we see something that Michael is most familiar with...a donor wall! It's a list recognizing the individual's and groups who contributed to the renovation of the temple...Michael takes a moment and gathers the names of several major donors...

Some people don't have a tractor, or even a pack animal, so they cart things the old-fashioned way...

We turn a corner and see piles of used and broken bricks strewn across the street...upon closer examination we see that they are repaving the street with new bricks, and they just haven't gotten around to cleaning up after themselves.

This is the Bhaktapur version of "Cheers"....

We continue to wind our way through the maze of this old city, and we reach an intersection where there is a pretty good sized shrine at which women are leaving offerings...and then there are these guys who are making mud balls right in the street...they are part of the crew that is putting a new tile roof on the building across the street, and they are mixing dirt and water and rice husks to make the bedding for the new tiles that will go on top of this building...the mud balls are hauled up to the roof in baskets on ropes..

A couple more shots of street life as we make our way to lunch...and a nice photo of the Nyatapola Temple...

For lunch, we eat at a restaurant that is in the upper floor of a building that sits in the square, so it gives us a great view down onto the square...and a cold Everest Beer goes down quickly...

After lunch, we continue our walk and make our way to the former royal palace, where they've got some impressive lions protecting the entrance...and a guy with four arms standing on top of another guy who doesn't look too comfortable...

Do not make this guy upset...while this looks a little gruesome as the ugly guy disembowels the upside-down guy, it was explained to us that this is a fairly common image that portrays a protector figure defeating a demon.

Inside one courtyard there is this pond and water feature where water used to run out of a cobra head on the far side...it is quite impressive with the cobra rising out of the water...

...and, of course, Ted was all over it with his camera (but today he's using his "little" one...),

Parental Warning: some of the carvings in Durbar Square are suitable only for adult audiences. And there are many of these carvings, it's not like there was one rogue carver with an active and pornographic imagination. This one was replicated throughout the rafters of one temple...these guys really should have worn some sort of support...

Not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing...We guess it depends on the mood and intentions of the person in the middle...

At the edge of the square, on our way to our van, we come upon this special event...a sanitation market exhibition...as a group that has encountered its fair share of "sanitation" challenges along the course of our travels, we have a heightened sense of interest...

OK...these are nice, they're new, and seem to have nice foot grips on either side of the hole, but we know from experience that aim and a good flush are more important than a shiny new blue floor plate...

As with all of our sightseeing stops, there is an opportunity to learn something we did not know before...so we share it wil you to expand your knowledge as well...it will help you calculate how many square ropanis of land you can turn into a vegetable garden and have all the free fertilizer you need!

Apparently it is possible for a single household to turn its waste into drinking water...but the odd thing was, no one was demonstrating the drinkability, and we weren't going to step up...!

On the drive back from Bhaktapur to our hotel, here's a quick vid of what it looks like on the sidewalks of Kathmandu from the window of our van...

After another long, hot, humid, noisy, wonderful day, the whole gang converges on the bar for Happy Hour...Here's the thing, not only does the heat and humidity take its toll, but by now our heads are swimming with more Buddhist and Hindu legend, beliefs, characters, rituals, word translations, history and traditions that we can possibly process...so we seek the help of a little Bombay and Tonic ( the good tonic - with quinine - that makes all the difference to a gin and tonic).

For dinner, we head back once again into the Thamel district. Supposedly because of our age, we are assigned to ride in a small red and white Jeep-type vehicle driven by the driver from Steve's cottages, while the rest of the group rode in Steve's nice new air-conditioned SUV. The driver, let's call him Mario, is "spirited" in his driving style, and apparently is used to the unforgiving suspension system through which this little red and white box is attached to the wheels. As we wind our way through this dimly lit, narrow maze of streets jammed with people, merchandise hanging from awnings and poles, motorcycles weaving in all directions, and homes honking all the time, it feels like we are in an old Bond movie and we are in the car that is trying to "tail" someone as they attempt to escape into an old Turkish bazaar...we didn't get a photo of our actual car, but here's what it must have looked like when it was new...

The one bright spot of the ride is that we are accompanied by Steve's 14 year old daughter, and she is a delightful distraction from the damage being done to our spines and kidneys...We arrive at the Thamel House Restaurant and are seated in the open air courtyard for dinner.

As a dedicated student of foreign cultures, we are always looking to try the local customs to enhance our understanding of the people and their lives...and usually we're even more dedicated if it involves some sort of locally produced alcohol...The servers come around our table with what looks like a small teapot with a very narrow spout, and they pour out a clear rice wine into a shallow dish no larger than a poker chip, and do so from about two feet above the dish...and they never missed or spilled a drop. Steve informs us that the way you test for quality is to dip your finger in the wine and then light it on fire in the candle...so of course Michael has to try it...voila!

During dinner we are treated to a show of various local traditional dances, and Neil (foreground with the camera raised) again becomes infatuated with one of the local Nawari girls in the dance troupe...we did not get her name, but we were all clear that whe was "second from the left"...

After dinner we returned to the hotel in the little red and white springboard with a motor with Mario at the wheel trying to set a new best time, and we're happy to conclude our second day in Kathmandu.