| 2. The Culture Experience | ||
| During my stay I visited many interesting places in and around Kathmandu. You can find a great variety of fantastic sites, and if you manage to keep away from the worst traffic, the capital itself has a lot to show as well. However: My favourite place is Bhaktapur, a one hour bus ride east of Kathmandu, the ancient center of another kingdom in the valley, home of the finest wood carving artists, as can be seen in the beautiful brick-red and wood-black facades throughout the entire city. |
 Red bricks and dark wood: The face of Bhaktapur |
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 View of my favourite place: The Nyatapola Square. Left the five-storey pyramid of the main temple that gave the name to the place. There are many nice reastaurants and cafes around, so you can sit and relax and take in the scenic setting. Later in the year, after the last of the monsoon clouds are gone, one can see the snow-covered peaks of the near Himalaya behind the local, around 2000m high green ranges |
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 The Golden Gate at the Durbar Square (the main place) of Bhaktapur |
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 A beautiful bronze lion guarding the entrance of a palace. |
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 In the bazar quarters of Kathmandu. You can shop yourself to death with pretty stuff, useful or not, as gift or for yourself. Of course you can walk around and only look, instead. But then, everything is sooooo cheap, and the shop keepers are so happy when they can do some business with you ;o) |
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 Nepal is a very colourful country. If you want to take pictures to prove this, you sometimes need to bargain with the objects. Because if you don't assure them they will receive some money for posing, they are not quite so willing to do it... |
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 ...though I think it okay to now and then give some 'donation'. Nepal is maybe the poorest country I have seen so far. Even India seemed more advanced to me. Especially in the time of my stay the Nepali had a difficult time, because of wide-spread corruption everyone was complaining about and the increasing problem with Maoist rebels, resulting in strongly receding tourism, the main source of income for the land. Sometimes it is almost unbelievable how hard people have to work to earn their living... |
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 A Sadhu, a holy man. He too appreciated a little money, which I found well worthy the colourful shot. |
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 When I was in Nepal, it was the time of Dashain festival, the most important religious festival of the Hindu. Everywhere celebrations were taking place, the whole country was in ornaments. Here one fierce display of a god was decorating a meadow used as temporary celebration area |
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 One of the two Eyes of Buddha on the main stupa in Boudha, another neighbouring city of Kathmandu |
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 Detail of a finley carved front of the old temple of Changu Narayan |
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