Blogs from Bhaktapur, Nepal, Asia

Today I had agreed to meet up with my guide from yesterday to go for a hike. As hiking is not something I do regularly (cough cough), I’ve rocked up, fully prepared in active wear, hiking shoes and fully stocked backpack. Roshan turns up in jeans and converse. To be fair, it was probably more like a casual stroll to him, to me….I’m hiking the Himalayas bitches! We started the day by stopping for breakfast. We had agreed to meet at before my guesthouse opens for breakfast so I needed food. We stopped at a coffee shop that sold very nice coffee. A little luxury I did not expect here. But I’ll take it. We then hoped into a taxi and took off to Changu Narayan. The taxi dropped us in a little village (whose name ... read more

For the first time ever I had the best seat in economy. Front row, looking down the aisle into premium economy. Ie Lots of leg room. It was a great flight, I read, I watched movies, I slept. Awesome (perhaps Singapore air wanted to make up for the BestJet fiasco) The flight was late getting into Singapore although I still had an hours to make my connection to Kathmandu. Which was late leaving so it all worked out fine. The second flight I booked a window seat thinking I’d be able to see the Himilayas as we came into Kathmandu. I don’t know what I was thinking because it was dark when we touched down, so I spent 5 hours crammed in a window seat to see the lights from above!! Once down, negotiating the airport ... read more

One of the pre-planned episodes of this trip was a morning plane flight over mount Everest and the surrounding Himalayas, which is pretty much unmissable unless you have a complete aversion to mountain vistas. The choice of airline was Buddha Air, and the early morning check-in at Kathmandu's domestic terminal revealed that this excursion rides high in the popularity stakes. As you might expect, each passenger has a window seat, and unlike any other airline you might have flown with in the past, an invitation to join the pilot in the cockpit is part of the package. The Himalayas are an expansive mountain range, and many peaks appear to vie with Everest in the 'scrape the sky' sense, so it is very indicative when the pilot and cabin crew point out which of the peaks is ... read more

On the day I arrived in Dhulikhel, a small university town 36 kms. to the southeast of Kathmandu, a truck was dumping a load of rocks in front of the staircase that leads to my lodgings at Kathmandu University Law School.The pile was so big it nearly blocked the staircase that leads up to the complex. Over the next two weeks I watched the pile slowly diminish. At first an old man sat on top of it with a small sledge hammer, breaking the big stones into more manageable pieces. And then for a time he wasn't there and nothing seemed to be happening. I wondered if they were just using the space as a dumping ground. Then last week a crew of three young men arrived to carry the stones up the stairs in cone-shaped ... read more

On the third day of our Nepal sojourn, our new friend San came to fetch us at our hotel, and we went in his car to travel to Bhaktapur. The journey normally takes less than an hour, but San drove at a leisurely pace to give us the opportunity to see the countryside, saying he would stop at a couple of places on the way back. The town of Bhaktapur itself is an old imperial city full of interesting sights, and Durbar Square is situated just outside the town (Nepal has 3 Durbar Squares, the other two being in Kathmandu and Patan). And so Durbar Square is where we went first. The entrance fee was US$10 for all foreigners, except citizens of certain east Asian countries. I thought this was a little unfair, but this is ... read more