Swayambhunath

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  Kathmandu, Nepal
Sunday, February 17, 2008

Today I decided to do a walk that is in the Lonely Planet. From Thamel to Durbar Square and Basantapur. The walk is about 2.5 hours and takes in some interesting places and the book gives a short history. Some of the places we went to were 1700 years old and many were mearly a century old. Every where you go here there is a statue or shrine or something like that that most museums would love to have and here they are just ho hum. They use most of the shrines every day for morning and arvo puja so they do get used but there are soooo many.
Any way back to the walk. we started at the Neshwar temple near Chhetrappati (where we are staying) Im not going to bore you with the details you can look at the pics at the bottom.
Durbar Sq is world heratige listed (as are the other two Durbar Sq) and full of temples. It is also the home of the Kumari. The Kumari is the living incarnation of a goddess ( cant remember which one) and lives there while she is Kumari. She has to have certain features, is chosen at about 8 years old and is Kumari till she bleeds, either by cut or naturally. She can sometimes be seen behind the window.
After that walk we decided to head to Swayambhunath, the monkey temple. It was a long walk, I think we covered the best part of 20km today. In the pic below you might be able to see the tall lighthouse looking building, just to the left of that is a big tree and a 3 roof building. That building is Basantapur so that will give you some idea of have far we walked. Who needs treking. Check out the stairs, they seemed to go on for ever and I dont mind admitting it took me a few go's to get to the top. They always build Stupa's, Temples and Gompa's on top of a hill for a few reasons. In the old days it was for protection, you could see the enemy coming and it was easy to defend high ground. They also believe the harder you work in this life the easier you will get it in the next life. I've got another theory.....After the climb to the top the gullible tourists are too tired to get away from the trinket sellers. The view was outstanding shame about the markets at the top.
It has been a long day and my legs are killing me. Looking forward to the bus ride tomorrow on the roof to Kirtipur.
Im living on Dahl Baht and MoMo's the staple of backpackers. Momo's are tibettan dumplings and cost as little as 20Rp (40cents) for a meal and Dahl Baht is rice Green lentle slop, curry veg and curry buffalo MMMMMM.
The weather has been warm in the arvo, t shirts, but freezing cold when the sun goes down and it takes a while to warm up in the morning.
Gotta go p/up my air ticket from Delhi to KTM tomorrow. Thats gonna be a hell trip home. Leave Delhi at 3 pm and arrive home at midnite the next day, 33 hours. Lookin forward to that   NOT.

Post your own travel photos for friends and family Pictures

Thahiti tole stupa 15th century	nateshwar temple	Kathesimbhu Stupa	They say the first glass windows in KTM
Sikha Narayan temple	coins nailed to stump for toothache god	Haku Bahal	'Just' a window
Seto Machhendranath temple	Annapurna temple	cant remember	Basantapur
Basantapur Durbar	again	Basantapur	Kumari house
Shive Parvati temple	more temples in Durbar Sq	more temples	Swayambhunath
bottom of stairs	bottom of stairs	stairway to heaven	Monkey temple
more stairs	view from the top	the stupa at the top

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