Our first true day of sightseeing here in Kathmandu was on Sunday. After talking with the management office about the noise early Sunday morning, we left the apartment a little before Noon. We took our time and went to Durbar Square. This is the heart of the city and the temples and palaces were mainly built in the 1500s and 1600s. There are more than 50 temples in Durbar Square and it is rather stunning to walk the grounds and consider the history of the location.
We were very fortunate upon arrival to the square to meet Dikesh, who is a guide in Kathmandu. He offered to give us a one-hour tour. First, we were hungry and Dikesh took us up to one of the rooftop cafes and we had small snacks and juices. Dikesh took us all around the square and educated us about many of the temples and their history. He took us to a school for thangka paintings and gave us a lot of background on the process and the meaning of some of the iconography, with an emphasis on the wheel of time and mandala. Thangka paintings represent Buddhist teachings and can also be used for meditation. Higher quality thangkas can include 24-carat gold paint. “Thang” means cotton and “ka” means images. The brush used for the paintings is made from the hair of a yak’s tail and some of the intricate details in the painting can be done using a single yak hair as the thread. The artwork was brilliant.
Once the tour was finished (he spent more like three hours with us instead of one, which was great), we went to Kumari’s Palace. Kumari is a living goddess. She is selected through a rigorous process at the age of three and is Kumari until she reaches puberty. At that time, she returns to civilian life and the next Kumari is selected. It is an intriguing tradition and there is a book that I want to read called From Goddess to Mortal written by a former Kumari goddess. The current Kumari makes appearances at the courtyard inside the palace and we had the chance to go inside and wait for several minutes. The 9-year old goddess finally appeared at the balcony, looked rather exasperated, and after about 30 seconds, went back to whatever cartoon or video game she must have been enjoying. She had a big day planned for the next day because once each year, she heads out on her chariot to travel around for the day in the Kathmandu Valley. Her feet are not allowed to touch the ground – she either needs to be carried or walk on carpet. So interesting. After the square, we walked to the Thamel area and had dinner at Café Mitra, which was excellent. Great service and great food. We had chips and guacamole, Greek salads, fruit juices, and a sizzling brownie with vanilla ice cream for dessert. Unfortunately, Sarah’s system was feeling the impacts of 24 hours of travel. She was a real trooper all day dealing with her stomach cramps and watching us eat food. While we were eating, the rain poured down and the restaurant courtyard flooded. We asked for some to-go bags and tied them over our shoes and it worked perfectly to get us out of the flooded area, without getting our feet wet, so we could get a taxi back to the apartment.
Monday, we once again had breakfast in the apartment and then walked to the Naraynhiti Royal Palace. You can’t take anything into the palace with you so no pictures. It was very interesting to tour the palace, the grounds, and the former royal family’s private residence. It’s all basically in the same state as when the family lived here. The last king lived here until 2008. In 2001, the king’s son arrived a little late to the usual Friday evening family gathering and was seemingly drunk and belligerent. He got into an altercation with another family member. His younger brother took him back to the private living quarters. The older son spoke with his girlfriend on the phone and said he was going to bed. Instead, he took one of his guns back to the dinner party and killed nine of his family members including his father, mother, and siblings among others before turning the gun on himself. The slain king’s brother assumed the throne and ruled until 2008 but he was very unpopular. This led to the transition to a democracy in Nepal. There is still speculation about what really happened and what the motives were. I want to learn more and there are some YouTube videos that look interesting. Overall, I thought it was definitely worth the couple of hours we toured the palace grounds. Seeing where foreign dignitaries stayed and where ceremonies took place and the private living quarters of the family, which were rather subdued compared to what one might think.
After the palace, we went across the street to get brunch at one of the Himalayan Java coffee locations. We each had breakfast items – Eggs Benedict for me, an omelet for Sarah, and quinoa salad for Sandy along with fruit juices for each of us – either pineapple or papaya. We walked from the restaurant to Seeing Hands Massage, which we first found in Phnom Penh, Cambodia more than 15 years ago. We were excited to see that they have locations here in Kathmandu. The franchise is staffed by therapists who are blind and they do an excellent job. We’d highly recommend supporting the business if you have the chance. Prices are more than fair and the skill level is top notch. We each had 120-minute massages and then, totally relaxed, walked a short distance to a restaurant called Roadhouse Café. They have multiple locations – we went to the one in the Thamel neighborhood. We shared momos, which are Nepal’s version of buuz from Mongolia or dumplings. These had either veggies inside or buffalo meat. Sandy and I had a delicious Margherita pizza and Sarah had chicken tandoori sliders. After dinner, we took a taxi home and Sarah did some research on other things she would like to do while she is here.
After our great afternoon of touring Durbar Square with Dikesh on Sunday, we arranged for a day trip with him for Tuesday. We left the apartment at 10:30am and our first stop was Swayambunath Temple. This is also called the monkey temple because of the number of monkeys at the top of this hill overlooking Kathmandu.
The views were great and the temples and shrines at the hill were beautiful. We also stopped at a shop to learn about the singing bowls. They are used for various kinds of therapy and are pretty impressive. We can’t add something like that to our luggage right now but it is something we will keep in mind for when we are less nomadic. This site was west of Kathmandu and our next site for the day was on the east side, so we drove across town to the Bodhnath Stupa. This is in a neat square that reminded me a lot of some European squares – in particular Warsaw for some reason. Anyway, the stupa is considered one of the largest stupas in the world and it is big – more than 300 feet across (that’s a football field) and more than 120 feet tall. The neighborhood around the stupa is primarily Tibetan Buddhists who have left Tibet for various reasons. We all had a fantastic lunch at Nani’s Kitchen overlooking the stupa and square. This was our first sampling of the traditional Nepal dish called Dal Bhat. Sandy and I normally don’t mix our foods, but this dish almost requires it. It is rice surrounded by various ingredients and when you mix them together, it is awesome. Hopefully I don’t eat so much of it in our first few days here that I don’t want it later during our time here. That’s kind of what happened with some of our dishes in Morocco and Mongolia.
Next up was a stop at the Pashupathinath Temple. Wow – what an interesting experience. This is also known as the cremation complex because it is the main place in Kathmandu where families bring their deceased loved ones within a day of their death to be cremated. It’s all done out in the open along the river. You are able to observe all steps of the process – the family saying their goodbyes, the body carried on a decorated stretcher of sorts to the platform, the lighting of the body, the burning (takes around two hours), and the removal of the ashes into the river. Some of the bodies are decorated with jewelry and there are people in the river who try to find the jewelry once the ashes are dumped into the river. It’s all an amazing experience and so different from anything we have experienced.
After the cremation complex, Dikesh invited us to a dinner celebration that the tour guide association was having at a restaurant in Durbar Square. Today was the last day of the big Indra Jatra festival, which is one of the biggest festivals of the year in Nepal. It celebrates the end of the monsoon season and Indra, the rain goddess and its culmination is a huge party in the square.
At the restaurant, we enjoyed local cuisine and wine. The buffalo was pretty spicy, but overall, the food was good and it was nice to be invited to a celebration where I think we were the only foreigners.
After eating, we ventured into the square and it was continually getting more and more crowded. Sandy and Sarah joined some of the locals dancing near one of the temples.
We met Dikesh’s friend, Ravi, and he joined us for the rest of the evening.
The five of us were waiting for the Mask of Seto Bhairab to start distributing alcohol and as we waited, the area became more and more packed.
We finally made the decision that it wasn’t safe to stay in that spot and we managed to push our way through the crowd into a more open area. We didn’t need to stay for the alcohol to flow – we grabbed a taxi and called it a day. It was a very long, but very fantastic day.
With another day trip planned for Wednesday, we were up early again. We were thrilled to learn that Umesh, our driver from yesterday, was able to join us again today. So our party of five first headed out to the east of Kathmandu and the hilltop monastery at Namobuddha.
It was a couple of hours of driving through the small villages and up the hills. Namobuddha has a couple of great lookout spots to see the Himalayan Mountains. On a clear day, you can see Everest, but ours was not a clear day. We could see other peaks from the mountain range and their majesty is evident even among the clouds. Walking the area included a stop for a quick spicy cucumber snack.
We enjoyed lunch at the restaurant by the monastery – sharing various versions of momos and I had chicken dal bhat while Sandy and Sarah each had noodle egg soup. After walking around the monastery and some of its temples, we headed back down the hill to the car to the medieval city-state of Bhaktapur. At one time in Nepal’s history, there were three city-states at the same time and they rivaled each other for power – Kathmandu, Patan, and Bhaktapur. We really enjoyed Bhaktapur – relatively quiet city that retains much of its medieval feel. It includes three beautiful squares with a palace and temples from more than 500 years ago, gorgeous pottery, and a fascinating paper factory owned by a really nice (and very educated – I think they had eight higher level degrees between the four of them) family. The paper factory and their home have these columns that have beautiful carvings – very impressive.
Foodwise, we enjoyed two things this Newari city is known for – Bara-wo, which is like a pancake with various ingredients and fresh yogurt – both were awesome.
We were late, so we went through the city quick (around three hours), but Dikesh showed us enough of it to know that we’d like to come back and spend a couple of days here. After Bhaktapur, we headed back to the apartment in Kathmandu – another outstanding day.
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