Kathmandu

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Hi everyone!

Well, we've been a week and a half here now and there's plenty to tell you about. To begin with, we've moved hotels to the Kathmandu Guest House, which is so much nicer than the other hotel - beautiful gardens, shops, money changing, restaurant, electricity almost all of the time, and 24 hour hot water!!! So obviously Phil is loving that! And it's cheaper too.

We've been out and about around the KTM Valley over the last week, beginning with the Monkey Temple (Swayambunath), where as some of you will already have heard, Phil was attacked by a monkey trying to steal her drink carton (seriously, it was quite scary)!!. The temple is up 365 steps, which was a long walk, but worth it for the views at the top (see photos on facebook). It's a Buddhist Stupa, but is sacred to both Hindus and Buddhists so there are countless other temples at the top of the hill too. We've also been to Pashupatinath, a sacred Hindu site where many of the royal family were cremated after they were massacred by Prince Dipendra in 2001. From there we walked to Bodnath, another stupa, where we met some monks in the Samtenling Gompa, who were very friendly and invited us to see the main prayer hall. The monk who showed us round gave us both prayer scarves.

We've also been to the two other cities in the Kathmandu Valley, Patan and Bhaktapur, which have Durbar Squares like in Kathmandu and lots and lots of temples. Yesterday we walked from Kirtipur to Chobar and to Chobar Gorge, which Phil loved as there were some very interesting rocks for her to bore Sarah with!!! However, Sarah did not like this experience as much due to the swinging of the suspension bridge (made in Aberdeen!) as we walked over the gorge!!! The views from Chobar were amazing, we could see right over into the Himalayas to the Langtang Range and to the Ganesh Himal near Pokhara.

We've discovered the delights of Tibetan momos (dumplings) now, although we weren't really sure what we were getting the first time we ordered them!!! It was Lhosar (Tibetan New Year) a couple of days ago so they had dancing and street celebrations. We're still eating our daily mars bars to supplement our diets, although unfortunately that might have to stop when we leave Kathmandu. We're off to Chitwan National Park tomorrow (at 6.30am!!!!) to go on a jungle safari and then to Butwal in the plains to visit Phil's aunt and uncle. Think we'll get some hotter weather there.

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Comments

[Rachel]

Cool!!
Wow, it looks fab out there guys! Ur pictures are amazing, not what i expected the buildings to be like actually for Nepal, some of the temples look similar to the designs of the pics i saw from Mum and Dad's trip to Thailand....(wow, sorry that was a long ramble!) Just glad to hear you're both doing well and getting into the way of things, great that u have a Mars bar supply and Sa noticed ur anticipated delight knowing that there's a McDonalds soon to be on the route!! LOL! The jungle safari sounds ace too, defo get pics on for that when u can, want to hear all about it! Keep having fun...in comparison to Derby events that isn't too hard...it's all work, work, work back here but all good really! Lots of love, oh and Happy Valentine's Day...hope u've got that candlelit table for two booked! x