Kathmandu Experience |
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My short trip to Nepal. I didn't stay that long but it was worth the long flight. You fly to the top of the sky and scrape the mountains just to get into this land. It just seemd like vast asian wilderness never ended.
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My trip was a blast to my senses. The smells, the sites, the culture. It was the street that made the biggest impression on me. They felt so old, so worn, so different then anything I had experience. The people lived in the streets. Their lives seem to revolve around being in the street. I stayed in a hotel in the center of the city. It was clean. It was the Ritz but it was contrasted to the outdoors. I still feel like I wasn't there long enough to even absorb everything.
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Buddha stupa. Thamel was a great place to pick up trinkets. Freak St just because it was famous.
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The trip I took up into the mountains was beautiful with the terraces.
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Kathmandu's festive calendar is hectic. Dasain, celebrated nationwide in October, is the most important of all Nepalese celebrations and features the biggest animal sacrifice of the year. Running a close second is Tihar (November), but unlike Daisan, animals are honoured rather than slaughtered. Other festivals celebrated nationally include the water-tinged Holi (March) and Chaitra Daisan (April), which is yet another bad day for animals. Hindu festivals include the Gai Jatra (August) and Buddhist celebrations include Buddha Jayanti (May).
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Very much the centre of old Kathmandu, Durbar Square is a huddle of temples and shrines, with intricately carved roofs, doors and windows. Many buildings are ancient, having survived the great earthquake of 1933; others have been completely rebuilt, not always in their original form.
A good place to begin exploring is the unprepossessing Kasthamandap, purportedly the oldest building in the valley. Although its history is uncertain, it was believed to have been built around the 12th century. At first it was a community centre, then a temple to the god Gorakhnath, and more recently, a gathering place for porters trolling for customers. Nearby is the Maju Deval, a Shiva temple with platform steps that are ideal for watching hawkers, rickshaw wallahs and souvenir sellers offering all sorts of services to credulous tourists.
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Published on Monday October 11th, 2004 by unurban
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