Wow - what a flight!

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Our first glimpse of Nepal was out of the plane window. Like any other flight we were flying over a sea of white clouds, but about 15 minutes before landing the mountains broke though and sat magnificently on the horizon. Our first real sight of the great Himalaya.

Kathmandu, although very touristy in Thamel, is a great place. The people are lovely and so much less pushy than in Kolkata, its a whole much more laid back city.

By complete chance we ended up in a really nice hotel called Hotel Florid, and for $8 a night we get a very smart, clean room looking over the beautiful garden. Our room also has a HOT shower and a toilet even 'Ma Beaton' would be proud of!

Thamel is full of very 'samey' touristy shops selling lots of clothes, trekking equipment and so called antiques. Most anoying have to be the little men who follow you around playing small, squeaky violins who then try to flog then to you (Richard was offered one for the bargain price of 5GBP, the same as we would pay for a night in our hotel!).

We took a walk up to the Buddist temple of Swoyambhunath (monkey temple) that looks over the whole city of Kathmandu and is suprisingly home to a small group of very mischievious monkeys. To get to the top (the temple is on the top of a large hill) we had to climb a huge amount of steps which gradually got steeper until the last dozen were almost vertical. Im sure some god somewhere was having a good giggle at our expense. Once at the top we were rewarded with a fantastic view over the city.

Over the past few days we have just mulled around kathmandu checking out the sites and walking miles in the process. Today we took the Luxuary of a taxi over to Patan, the second largest city in Nepal, which sits just south of Kathmandu. We took the Lonely Planet's advice and took the walking tour from the city gates to Durbar Square. To Richard's surprise I got us beginning to end with my newly discovered map reading skills and uncanny natural sense of direction (not quite sure who I inherited that from!). We wandered through winding backstreets and courtyards and saw sites that we would of completely missed if we had followed the main road.

Durbar Square is packed with temples and amazing buildings. We took the opportunity to look around the city museum, situated within the palace grounds. This helped to explain the traditions of Hinduism and Buddhism. Now the statues and religious monuments make a bit more sense.

Heading off to Pokhara tomorrow, will fill you in at a later date.

Hope you like the photos.

B and R
xxxxxxx

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Photos

Great View
Kathmandu city as seen from Monkey Temple (shame about the smog).

Stupa
The golden Stupa at Monkey Temple is Kathmandu's most famous landmark.

Prayer Wheels
People spin the prayer wheels as they walk past. It is said to send your prayers up to the gods.

Kathmandu Durbar Square
Every city in Nepal has a Durbar Square, This is one of the buildings in Kathmandu's.

Enjoying a well earned beer!
Note that we are both well wrapped up, it may be sunny during the day, but when the sun goes down its freezing!

Patan Walking Tour
A hidden gem, down a back street.

Patan Durbar Square
Taken from the window of the Museum.

Our lunchtime View
From the cafe you could watch the renovation work on the temples, check out the bamboo scafolding.

Comments

[Jeniffer]

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