Elysia Visit's Kathmandu's Durbar Square

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Elysia: My body couldn't stand to lie in bed a moment longer, and I was feeling a bit better (not perfect though), but I decided to get out and went shopping in Thamel with Katie. I didn't want to take my chances going to the hospital in case I felt sick and had to make my long, hot and bumpy way back by taxi again. So off we went shopping.

Katie was looking for some souvenirs and we were also searching for some nice jewellery. It's hard to know what kind of quality you're buying. Because its off season here, the stores are not getting as many customers, so it's easy to get a good bargain out of them. We looked for necklaces in a few stores but finally found a store that looked like it had better quality. We both found necklaces we liked, they are of a more local style here — something that's very different for me. We managed to bargain the woman down to 2600 rupees per necklace, which is approximately 30 bucks Canadian. We think we got a good deal anyways.

After buying our necklaces, we walked our way towards the Kathmandu Durbar Square. Durbar Square here is absolutely hectic like the rest of the city. Foreigners have to stop and pay a fee to get into the area, but locals are free to come and go as they please. There are a ton of locals just hanging around the temples and lots of traffic going through this UNESCO world heritage site. Durbar square is the area where the royal palace of the old kingdom of kathmandu was located.

Back in the 18th century, there were three kingdoms in the Kathmandu Valley; Kathmandu, Patan and Bhaktapur. They all have their own Durbar Squares with their respective palaces and temples. They were all built around the Middle Ages (between the 14th and 18th centuries). We spent some time wandering around the outside of the temples, looking at the different symbols (Katie is very good at identifying symbols and their meanings). We went into the royal palace there, which had been turned into a museum about the Nepal royal family in the 1900s. It wasn't all that exciting — just a bunch of photographs and newspaper clippings, along with propaganda-like descriptions. After the museum we were getting hungry (well, I was starting to feel a bit sick, which I took to mean hunger because I hadn't really eaten anything since the day before), and it was getting really hot so we went to a restaurant just outside of Durbar Square. We sat on the patio and watched the chaos below. After this we did a bit of shopping and then decided to head back towards the hotel so I can have a bit of a rest because I was feeling weak. On our way back we took our first rickshaw ride back up to Thamel. It was a bit scary because we couldn't sit properly on our seats, the back of the seat was jamming into my back and he was going fast weaving in and out of the traffic and pedestrians. We were on it for just long enough I think.

When we got off the rickshaw, two young nepali guys met us there. I think they were targeting us to buy a trek from them but we had already paid for our trek from the hotel in the morning. They were fine with that though, and they asked if we wanted to join them for coffee and we obliged. They were really bored because this is the off season and there's not as much business. They are students and this is what they do to make money when they come home for the summer. Normally i wouldn't go with strangers for coffee, but Nepali people are so friendly and not threatening in any way. You have to use your judgement though.

So we had a friendly cup of coffee with the guys (I just had juice). We probably sat and chatted with them for about an hour. One of the guys is studying chemistry at a local university and the other guy wanted to be a doctor, but I think he became a doctor's assistant or something (couldn't fully understand). The doctor's assistant guy likes to sing in English, so he started showing off his singing talent to us. He actually was quite good, and it was hard to hear his accent. We were joking with him that he could be the newest singing sensation right outside of Nepal. He told us about this youtube video he recorded of him singing a song called "This is a Disco Party". You never know when a new voice may be discovered- so we posted his video on our facebooks (might as well spread the word!) His friend preferred to sing Nepali songs. It was interesting to talk to them about life because they were probably close to our age. Unfortunately since I was feeling sick, I couldn't enjoy the whole conversation and we had to head back to the hotel so I could lie down for a bit.

In the evening, I gathered up all the strength I could and we headed back to the yoga studio with another U of T med student, Graham, to do some yoga. I thought I could stretch out my sore muscles from lying in bed so long. Unfortunately Katie had gotten the time mixed up and we were an hour early. We couldn't stay for the class though because we were meeting some friends of hers from Louisiana that she had met at the Leprosy hospital for dinner. We went to the K-too steakhouse for dinner and it smelled really yummy, but unfortunately all I could eat was bland soup. The conversation was super interesting though- learned lots I never knew about Louisiana.

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Photos

Our View from the Rickshaw
Man, these guys dart through traffic!

Comments

[lucie]

Nice necklaces!!!