Another Day, Another Durbar

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After rainy Patan, the weather fortuitously cleared up and so we headed to Bhaktapur. We spent a small fortune on the metered taxi to get there (I'm sure something was suspect as it went up every 8 seconds if we were moving, which seems a bit much!), and were therefore cross to notice the NR750 fee to get in to Bhaktapur (it is only NR50 for citizens of countries like India and other SAARC countries - we felt that the degree of uplift was a bit unreasonable, and it was also a lot more expensive than the other Durbar Squares to get into!)

However, eventually we settled in to a hotel and then set about exploring.

The Durbar Square itself was nice enough. It had a Golden Gate, which isn't really gold, many interesting temples with the usual menagerie of elephants and other animals flanking their steps. It had a few temples with erotic roof struts - I think that whoever designed roof struts back in the day must have had serious issues, as they are often graphically pornographic in style! It also housed the National Museum. The museum was a disappointment. You had to pay entry and then more for cameras (which we didn't do and which wouldn't have been worth it), and there wasn't a great deal there anyway. The explanations were very lacklustre and it compared particularly unfavourably to Patan which we'd seen so recently before. There was also a nice courtyard in the former Royal Palace, with its many intricate windows, which had a lovely bathing pond flanked by nagas (snakes)

We then set about exploring the other squares within Bhaktapur. Taumadhi Tole had the rather awesome Nyatapola, a towering five storey temple with wrestlers flanking the steps. Tachupal Tole had a few plain temples as well as the famous 'peacock window' - known as the best example of woodwork in Nepal. Potters Square I was underwhelmed with. Whilst it did remain true to name in housing lots of pottery, there were no potters using traditional production methods, as our two guidebooks had led us to believe.

After we'd seen the sights in Bhaktapur, we headed up into the hills to the Changu Narayan temple. This was quite a nice temple (although not necessarily worth going out of your way for) with colourful decorations on the temple. It is most famed for the ancient stone statues which circle the temple in its courtyard, and these were undoubtedly the highlight of the visit.

From there we went to Boudnath.

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