Wednesday 03 December 2008
Brekkie in the hotel for an early start. The breakfast is nice, but service is extremely slow, although it does mean you don’t rush the start of the day.
We headed off to Durbar Square, which is located in the old town and shows off the tradiditonal architecture. The square is made of several buildings based on terraced platforms which used to be the Royal Palace (until 100 years ago when it moved). It was hawker heaven, you couldn’t stand still without someone trying to sell, beg or provide some service you didn’t need, particularly on Maya Deval when they just wait for you to descend with no escape route available. The “holymen” were doing their best to convince you that you needed their photo, for a price of course. Still it was a fascinating place. Even though it is a world heritage listed site, there appears to be little restoration work going on and in some places it sorely needs it.
There was an exhibition of photos showing climate change (we just cannot escape it!) which showed the differences between the 1950’s and now. The Nepalese glaciers are melting at 6 times the global average. This actually put a lot of things into perspective, mainly how hard these first trekkers and climbers did it.
We got our tickets to the Square extended for a few days so we can come and go as we please, so we can watch the different people and happenings.
From the Square we walked across the River Bagmati which flows into the River Ganges so all the waste from here continues down to India. We headed to Swayambhunath Stupa, which is a gigantic Bhuddist temple at the top of a very steep hill. The steps here beat Jacob’s Ladder in Perth hands down! We made it to the top past all the hawkers and mini stupas without having heart attacks (good signs for the trekking to come) (Tracy thinks that her personal training sessions might have paid off). The Temple is also known as the monkey temple, evident from the plethora of monkeys inhabiting the temple; our thoughts returned to the fact that we chose not get the rabies innoculations before we left Australia. This temple was originally built about 2000 years ago and was definately worth the climb (the view from the top, through the haze, is also worth the effort). We spent a few hours meandering through the different temples surrounding the stupa then finally descended the tricky stairs. The Nepalese have small feet, even I had to walk down at an angle.
Walking back into Thamel (the main tourist area of Kathmandu) for a lovely plate of steamed momos and coffee to get rejuvenated for a hike through Thamel to check out some prices for the upcoming trek. Things here are sooo much cheaper than at home and if you cannot find it, you can have it made and have the genuine logo placed wherever you like on your new designer-brand jacket! We can get “genuine” Oakley sunglasses for AUD$16 without even bargaining, not to mention all the North Face gear which is everywhere. We headed back to the hotel for an chill-out and siesta before heading out before sunset.
We wandered back to Durbar Square to try to get the photos in the afternoon light that weren’t that good in the morning light. Weaving our way through the afternoon rush-hour traffic we finally arrived at the Square in the first shadows of sunset; we will go back earlier in the afternoon tomorrow to get the photos. The Square was a little less hyper-active than earlier in the day although it was still pretty hecttic. We wandered back through the main part of Thamel to find a place for dinner; settling on a little place tucked away off the main street. As we were waiting for the delivery of our food we discovered our little restaurant had a pretty good review in the Lonely Planet for its Nepalese-Tibetan cum world food. We have missed the foods of Daramsala (India, 2006) so we tucked into steaming bowls of thukpa (Tibetan noodle soup) and Kotay (half steamed/half fried vegetable dumplings); this food is always good. Full to the brim for only a few dollars, we wandered back to the hotel for an early night. A quick check of the email (would be made quicker if people actually shared the limited internet resources) and then its another early night before another early start tomorrow.
- Durbar Square, Kathmandu, Nepal