Nepal Adventure Day 2 Kathmandu

Monday April 25^th

The weather here is much cooler than Delhi. Last evening and this morning it was about twenty, and I was wearing my fleece. So, it's a welcome relief from the forties of India.

I enjoyed a cereal and omelette breakfast in the hotel this morning before we met up in the hotel lobby for our tour of Kathmandu. The hotel is simpler than the last tour, but nice and clean, and has a good restaurant and patio. So that's good, as I will be staying here for a couple days after the tour too.

As we drove through the city, the first thing noticed was the air pollution. The sky is very hazy and a lot of people wear masks.

The other thing I have learned already is that electricity delivery here is a big problem. The city endures up to 14 hours a day of no electricity, as there are rotating blackouts. Because it is the dry season, the water levels are low in the rivers and they can't produce enough electricity for their needs. Anil explained to me that the people suffer a lot because they don't have electricity. They have refrigerators, but can't use them for perishable foods, just for cooling drinks. Restaurants and hotels have back up generators which run on diesel and I'm sure that is part of the problem with the air pollution. Amir also said that they have shortages of gas, kerosene and diesel fuels. And he alluded to the fact that the government is not very stable here and is not spending more on the infrastructure that they need to, for example hydro generation. I'll find out more about all that later.

The first stop was at the Shufa in Kathmandu. This is a World Heritage Buddhist religious site on top of a hill. We climbed about 300 very steep steps to get to it. There were resumes monkeys there. There is a couple of Buddhist temples there and a monastery. Anil explained that monasteries are basically schools for teaching monks about religion.

Then we got back in our van and drove for an hour or so, to Bhaktapur City, another World Heritage site. This is a medieval era city that is mostly as it was back them. We walked through the narrow streets to Durbar Square where we saw several Hindu temples built in the pagoda style that originated here in Nepal. Then we walked to Taumadhi Square where we saw the largest one in the country with its five levels of roofs. The Nepalese celebrated their new year ten days ago and there were a large wooden chariot in the square that the local people traditionally fight over. The people from the 'upper' part of the city compete with the people from the 'lower' part as they try to win the right to keep the chariot in their neighbourhood in a community tug of war.

Then it started to rain. We went to a restaurant and had lunch. After lunch, while everyone sheltered in the restaurant, I went down to the square and stood under the overhang of a temple and people watched and soaked up the atmosphere of the place, while the weather got worse and developed into a heavy thunderstorm. The temperature, which had been quite warm (upper twenties) dropped to about twenty and it was quite chilly and I wasn't dressed properly. When it finally let up, we set out again, but you could see it was going to start again, so we curtailed our visit and headed back to the van. I've resolved to revisit this site again on my free days after the tour. I'd like to come back and explore it some more and get some sunnier photos.

Back at the hotel by five and I napped for a couple of hours, before blogging and stuff, then to bed.