Blogs from Kathmandu Valley, Nepal, Asia - page 8

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“Coming Thursday is a public holiday. Let’s go somewhere,” Subash proposed on a rainy Saturday afternoon. We, the five school buddies (Anup, Subash, Marut, Mahdukar and me), were having some snacks at Anup’s place when Subash came up with the proposal. Lately, we have discovered the joys of traveling to places on the outskirts of the Kathmandu Valley. Whenever it is public holiday, we make sure that we travel somewhere. These journeys not only help us unwind our work tensions accrued over the week, but also provide us an opportunity to know about new places, people living there and their lifestyle. Soon we were busy selecting destination for the day. Fulchowki, Bhimdhunga, Kakani, Tika Bhairav and Lakuri Bhanjyang were some of the places that we discussed. Finally, we selected Tika Bhairav – the ancient Newari town ... read more

Nepal continues to treat us with thrilling new experiences and we have yet to leave the Kathmandu valley. After the excitement of the Indra Jatra finale we thought we’d escape the crowds, noise and pollution of Thamel to explore some of the other historic sites in the valley. Our first stop was Bodhnath and its incredible stupa. Normally visited as a day trip from Kathmandu, we decided to spend the night at a guesthouse in the area as a quieter alternative to Thamel. It turns out that our evening was neither quiet nor very restful as it was here that we experienced what one newspaper described as the strongest earthquake to hit Nepal in nearly 8 decades. At dusk we went up to a roof-top patio restaurant overlooking the stupa to have some dinner while we ... read more

Today, on our last full day in Nepal, we went to Hanuman Dhoka, or Durbar Square, the ancient royal residence quarter. Here we visit a street called Freak Street, so named for the many hippies that flocked to this place in the 60's and 70's. There are still shops with those reminders and we actually saw a couple of old hippies still there walking around. We ran into a local parade of girls and boys in traditional Kathmandu Valley costume playing traditional instruments leading a wedding car with the groom. We visited Kumari Ghen, the house of the Kumari, a little girl worshipped as the reincarnation of Dourga. She is selected when she is 4 or 5 and lives here until she has her first period. Then she is no longer considered pure and another girl ... read more