Blogs from Patan, Nepal, Asia
March 18th 2011
Last weekend two other volunteers and I made a day trip to Patan's Durbar Square. This was much closer to home than Pokhara, in fact just a five minute walk from where we have to change buses to get into Kathmandu from Godavari, so we stayed in the village until Saturday morning. It seemed that the square was slightly smaller than Bhaktapur's Durbar Square - or there were more temples in Patan, as there was less open space. The collection of temples was still pretty impressive though, and as well as the usual tiered pagoda style wooden temples, there were a number of ornately carved stone ones. The Patan museum (housed where the old palace used to be) was excellent - so much more informative than the one we visited in Bhaktapur (although it was much ... read more
November 15th 2010
November 15, 2010 My initial idea was to have one single entry about Kathmandu, but now, looking through the photos, I see that Patan may be devoted a separate entry; this will make it easier and faster for me to complete the narrative about Nepal. I will also write several other separate entries to make perception of the whole story easier. The trip to Patan would not have occurred if weather in Lukla were fine on the morning of November 15. But, sadly, the weather was bad and the flights were cancelled and our trek to Everest Base Camp was to be changed for the Annapurna Base Camp. I think it was a very good substitute, though. After several hours of useless waiting and vain hopes at the Kathmandu domestic terminal, we went back to the ... read more
March 29th 2010
There are 6 gorgeous boys here at Happy Home. The eldest is David, then Sushil, Ram, Ashok, Pemba and Bishant is the youngest. For the "boys only" day out we took them to the Tika school playground where we played frisbee, football, catch and went on the climbing frame for a few hours. They were all so excited - the kids work really hard at school and back at the orphanage so any time that they get to run around and act as children is very valued. We all ate loads. The kids went kind of crazy over coca cola and ate chocolate at an incredible pace. The next day the kids were due to start their exams, but got an impromptu holiday as the corrupt/genius/passionate/evil (depending on who you talk to) important government guy died. ... read more
March 20th 2010
It's now our second and a half week at Happy Home....blog entries are a little bit all over the place because of the extremely temperamental power supply. Anyway, we will try and do our best to keep them coming. We started our second week with a pretty standard day and the early morning chorus of "Good morning auntie", to which we have to reply, "Good morning, how are you?". So they then sing, "I'm fine thank you and you?", followed by "I'm fine thank you" and finally..."Thank you auntie". All sung. It's very sweet, if a little monotonous! Kop khuns were being very uncooporative. After walking all the kids to school (Bishant, the little 3/4 year old, had a backpack which was literally the same size as him and covered his entire body and legs.. It ... read more
March 15th 2010
We met at Delhi airport, both fairly tired and gross looking. Clare had just endured an 8 hour flight on her own after a really crap time waiting for her flight in Heathrow airport. Rosie had just encountered India in a very full on form and was slightly disheveled, but totally in love with the country. It was such a Hollywood film moment, looking through Delhi security gates at eachother, screaming and attracting yet more attention!! Are flight landed in Kathmandu after seeing the Himalayas and "my supermodel baby" from/on the plane and any sadness about leaving home completely vanished. Getting visas took ages, but we finally found Bishwa and Damche who had been waiting for us for 2 hours. We drove to the orphanage, totally knackered and entered the house to the sound of lots ... read more
December 23rd 2009
Patan is one of the major cities of Nepal. It is one of the sub-metropolitan cities of Nepal located in the south-western part of Kathmandu valley. It is best known for its rich cultural heritage, particularly its tradition of arts and crafts. It is also called as city of festival and feast, fine ancient art, making of metallic and stone carving statue. It is very like Bhaktapur, another lovely place to walk around.... read more
June 25th 2009
So as I'm deeply immersed in my first week of teaching, I'm starting to understand just what it is like to be a teacher. Firstly, you are given a subject which you know little to nothing about and asked to teach it to a bunch of kids. You may or may not know how old these kids are, where they are from, what they already know, how long you have to teach them, how many of them there are, or even where they will be at what time. After finding all this out and doing enough research to realize that this topic is WAY bigger than you originally thought, you have too little time to put together your lesson plan (this is when the stress starts to kick in). Then you actually get to start teaching ... read more
June 18th 2009
Today I was witness to something that is unbelieveably difficult to describe. I say that only because, being there, all I could think was that "this could only ever happen in Nepal!" Imagine the narrow semi-paved streets of many central Asian countries. Their tiny packed-in storefronts below colourful residential buildings, interspersed with greenspaces, behind lately-added and akward looking elecrical poles with their long rubbery wires. Then take those strees and pack them full - FULL - of people. At least 5000 per city block. This was the scene that myself and my seven companions were greeted with on our journey to see Machindranat. We couldn't see it yet, but after about ten minutes of crowd-navigating, we rounded a corner to see a sight which caused us all to do somewhat of a doubletake. In our present ... read more
June 17th 2009
Today I had the pleasure of getting to know my supervisor, Sidhi, a little better. We were taken to a few of the schools that we are to teach at, and we saw some of the projects which had been undertaken by ECCA (our organization - Environmental Camps for Conservation Awareness). What really impressed me about today, however, was when Sidhi took us to Patan Durbar Square. Somewhat similar to Kathmandu Durbar Square, the central square of Patan (the former seat of the king of the area) is smaller and quieter, and alltogether more pleasant than its Kathmandu cousin. While it lacks the size, the grandure of the temples and palace to which it is home is not lacking. Sidhi took us around for a bit, and then invited us to "take rest" while we enjoyed ... read more
Would the Real Durbar Square Please Stand Up?
Published: May 30th 2009Asia » Nepal » Patan » Durbar Square
May 25th 2009
25.05.09 - We got a taxi early from Kathmandu to Patan and checked into Cafe de Patan, well placed about ten seconds from Durbar Square. Unfortunately we arrived in some pretty persistent rain, which we thought in the usual Nepalese style would settle down after a while. It didn't. Therefore after going to our room (and killing a cockroach, which I swear are following us - we killed three in Bandipur!), we headed out to the square in the rain. Sans raincoats or umbrellas. Pretty soon we were harassed by a "student" who didn't want to be a guide but only to practise his English, which seemed to consist of an incredibly well rehearsed guide-like patter. To rid ourselves from him, we headed into the amazing Patan Museum. We spent about five hours there, including time ... read more
