Days 23-25 Bhaktapur & Khatmandu

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Today I visited Bhaktapur which lies around 40 mins away to the East of Kathmandu.

Bhaktapur is an ancient Newar town in the east corner of the Kathmandu Valley. It is the third largest city in Kathmandu valley and was once the capital of Nepal during the great Malla Kingdom until the second half of the 15th century.

Bhaktapur is known for its fabulous culture and indigeneous lifestyle. It is listed as a World Heritage by UNESCO for its abundant rich culture, temples, artworks in wood, metal and stone.

Again I got the bus from near the park, it was difficult to find the bus though I had to ask about 4 people before someone eventually pointed me in the right direction.

Bhaktapur was really nice to walk around as there was limited traffic allowed around the streets, there was supposed to be no traffic at all but the motorbikes tend to do what they want most of the time.

Kathmandu like the rest of Nepal has no electricity for more than half of the day, this must be what Scotland is like, at least the food is much better here though:-)

On the way back to the hotel all the traffic was stopped in the centre of Kathmandu due to a political march - bloody students:-)

I had a pleasant night out with an American called Mike, it could have gone better though as I saw my football team get beaten again.

Now might be a good time to talk about beer as this is one of the most important considerations when travelling.

In India there isn't much choice beer wise its basically Kingfisher, you could buy imported beers but they are out of the range of a backpacker budget. Kingfisher costs around 120 Rs or about 1 pound 80p and tastes pretty poor in my opinion.

In Nepal there is much more choice, and they all cost around 250 Nepalese Rs or 2 pound 30 which is extortionate!!! The beers here are Everest (of course) Tuborg, Nepal Ice, Gurkha and San Miguel which is my favourite. I think all the beers here taste better than the Indian ones as the water they are using is straight from the mountains rather than rivers full of corpses of animals:-)

In Nepal their most famous dish are Momos which are dumplings filled with whatever you want but I had veg of course. They can be steamed or deep fried and come with a curry dip - very nice.

Next day chilling out before leaving for Delhi

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Photos

A 5 tiered temple
There are only 3 of these In Nepal