We settled back into our old hotel in Kathmandu and then moved the next morning because despite our booking and returning patronage, they still saw fit only to keep the bad room for us. A trip round the corner though and we were settled into our new digs with joy of joys, a TV with English language channels. This was the first time in nearly three months we could watch uncensored news from the real world, following our previous captivity to China's CCTV (irony?) network.
We had a busy few days ahead of us, taking in all the sights we had missed on our first visit to the city. First up was the Monkey Temple. Sitting atop a hill at one end of the town, the small but lofty complex contains a couple of monasteries, several stupas, countless prayer wheels, Pilgrims and monkeys. The monkeys are quite sedate compared to some we have previously met on the trip, owing in part perhaps to the recent cull on a bunch that had been deemed out of hand. We took a walk to the hill from our corner of town, calculating that 30 minutes or so should have been substantial time to get round the back of the hill and tackle the steps and souvenir sellers. About an hour into our perambulations we wondered how a reasonably high hill could hide itself so successfully in an otherwise flat town. A wander across a bridge to look back revealed we had already brushed the foot of it once before and soon enough we were standing at the ticket office waiting for the girl to get change so we could pay and enter - a considerable problem when the ATM's denominations are big and the prices of most things are not.
We took a wander to an older district of the city too called Durbar Square. Actually the square is just a part of the district but it is a common location as most towns in Nepal have a Durbar Square. These are usually fairly open spaces with various old style buildings and stupas or towers which are often ascendable for a fee. Durbar Square in Kathmandu was starting to warm up with local colour as the first days of the Dashain festival were approaching. This Hindu festival lasts for 15 days but peaks in the middle when everyone returns home for a couple of days and sacrifices a goat for the occasion. We started to notice more and more goats in town and suspected they were not long for the world.
Quite by chance we found a lovely little garden tucked away behind a wall and a ticket office which was once the estate of a chap who made his fortune in a card game with the king. His estate though had lain forgotten about and had become jungle and ruin until it was rediscovered and re-landscaped again to become quite the retreat complete with wi-fi and coming soon, restaurants and bars.
It was now time to step out of Kathmandu again, but only for a couple of hours while we visited the nearby town of Bhaktapur, a well preserved insight into how Nepalese towns used to look. There is no modern architecture and the roads are closed to traffic here giving a sense of stepping back in time. Some of the narrow alleys felt very medieval as people leaned out of boxed windows and threw pails of manky water out onto the ground. The walls bulged and loomed over, threatening to collapse at any time, a few taking the precaution of having wooden poles jutted into place to hold them up. We had a nice day travelling back in time and then when the rain came we popped into a taxi and went home again.
It was now almost time to leave Kathmandu but there was one more corner of the town left which we wanted to see first. Bodnath is home to most of Nepal's Tibetan immigrants and the town is awash with prayer flags and robed monks. The monasteries are bright and well kept and there is even the odd picture of the Dalai Lama smiling from within his picture frame. Bodnath is also home to one of the world's biggest Stupas (big conical shrine thing). It takes a full 5 minutes to walk around the stupa and it is similar in height to maybe a 10 story building. Another of the common sights here, much more so than anywhere else was large German tour groups who had a habit of booking up all the tables in the restaurants before we got there. Many people come here to study Tibetan Buddhism and there are lots of courses run here by the various monasteries.
It wasn't a deliberate strategy, but this being a Buddhist enclave, we later decided that it was probably a good place to be to avoid the goat sacrificing and fire cracker excitement going on in the Hindu corners of town. We also stumbled upon the Hyatt-Regency while we were there, and after a moment of consideration we decided we were due a treat and promptly settled in for a night of luxury. So proceeded a reminiscent scene of us entering by the back door, which was nearer our last hotel, and pushing past the lunch time buffet table with all our bags and attachments as we smiled politely at the open mouths and stares that followed us across the cavernous restaurant. Actually, in truth that didn't really happen. No-one seemed to notice us or blink twice at our bags. We were doing posh, but not Ritz-Carlton posh. We made the most of our two hours of free drinks and nibbles though, splashed in the pool and sauna a bit and before you could say "Where's our butler?" our time was up and we had to check out. All was now done and seen in Kathmandu and we were ready to set off to the second biggest town, via a very small one on the way. It would be an early start though so one more night was necessary back in Thamel, beside the snake charmers, before we were on the bus and out of town.
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