Cutest Kids Ever!
Kathmandu, Nepal
December 22, 2014
We have not quite adjusted to the time change and were awake an hour early, 4:30. I decided to take advantage of the extra time and straighten my crazy hair, but was foiled by the difference in voltage. My straightener can heat up to over 200 degrees, but would not go over 61 degrees. *sigh*
We had a great buffet breakfast this morning on the 6th floor. The buffet area is a glassed in balcony and the other half is an open balcony which affords an amazing view of Boudhanath and the city. We had just enough daylight by 6:30 to take a couple pictures. There were lots of dishes in the buffet including steamed greens and stir fried veggies, cereal, pastries, fruit, jam and peanut butter! The yak cheese was really good, very similar to Gouda The Highest Peak on Earth.
Nissan and Shayam greeted us downstairs and we made our way quickly to the airport since the traffic is still light. It is quite foggy out, so Nissan has warned us that we may experience long delays or a cancellation.
At the airport we went to the domestic terminal which is under construction and were escorted through two security checks. We then hunkered down for an indeterminate amount of time in the lounge with a cafe and a couple of gift shops (our flight is supposed to be at 7:00). Bill was pacing around like a caged animal while I plunked away at the keyboard to keep up-to-date on the blog.
They sent up a flight to check the conditions which would determine if the tours would be able to go today. The conditions were good, so we boarded a bus to head to the 18 passenger plane Theresa getting the Lowdown. Hurray!
We parked by the plane and an announcement was made that we were not going to be able to take off, the fog had closed in again closing the airport and we headed back to the lounge until 8:30. We reboarded the bus at 8:15 and took our seats on the plane. At 8:45 the air hostess advised us that we were "waiting for sequence". We departed shortly thereafter and were in the air for close to an hour.
The hostess gave us a pamphlet that had the names of the peaks. The first half of the trip Bill had the spectacular view of the peaks and I was treated to the view of the city in the valley and the hauntingly beautiful fog in the foothills.
Bill and I were treated to views on both sides of the plane because we were in the last row which had three seats across and we took turns sitting in the middle Outside the Kathmandu Palace. At one point I slid over and bashed my left knee on the armrest of the seat in front of Bill. Ouch! Once we were at cruising altitude gave each person a chance to go and see the view from the cockpit. We went last, so we had a close up view of Everest and the surrounding peaks.
On our way back to the seats we had some turbulence. It was such a strange feeling - not knowing where to place your foot, if it would be close or further away than expected.
Once we had a long and great view of Everest - so beautiful and majestic to see it up close, the plane turned around and the spectacular view of the mountains was on my side of the plane. Some of the impressive peaks that we saw were: Changtse, Everest, Nuptse, Ama Dablam, and Kanchenjunga. In one view we saw 4 of the 5 tallest mountains in the world.
When we arrived back at the hotel Nissan left us and Ujjwol rejoined us Village Walking Tour. Shayam drove us to the Durbar Square in Kathmandu. Durbar means palace, so we saw the former palace of the monarchy. This palace was erected in 1770 and was built out of brick and ornate carved wood with Hindu gods, goddesses and animals.
We were treated to a brief look at the residence of the living goddess. A young girl was selected from the descendants of Buddha, the Shakyamuni tribe, to be the kumari from the age of 9-12. She resides with the priest and his family in a residence that was built in the 18th century and her role is to act a living goddess for festivals and ceremonies. During the day she will make an appearance at the second story window and we were there when she did so. We were strictly forbidden from taking photos though and the one guy looked like he would assassinate anyone that tried.
Beside the palace was an elephant park which became a hippie hangout and a place to sell antiques from the vacated palace Momo Troubles. The surrounding grounds were flanked by brick and wooden temples that were constructed in the 15th and 16th centuries for various gods and goddesses.
The palace has recently been turned into a museum, (Nepal has a pretty strong recent history of revolutions...) We did a walk through of the museum that had a large number of artifacts and pictures from the times of the last 3 Kings of Nepal. Of course Bill smashed his head on one of the door frames, the doors are mostly well under 6 feet tall and plus it wouldn't rally be a vacation if Bill did not get a concussion - at least he got it out of the way early this trip. The other highlight was the class of school kids going though the museum with us, mostly in the 4-6 age range. They were really cute in their little uniforms constantly saying "Hello", "Namaste", "What's your Name?".
Our next stop was Patan To the Top of the World and Back. It was formerly a neighbouring city, but is now part of the Kathmandu proper. We crossed through the Durbar and had lunch on the rooftop Yala Cafe du Temple in Patan Durbar Square. I ordered the non-veg Nepalese platter with rice, vegetable curry, fish curry, fried dal, green salad, padap, achar, yoghurt with Masla tea. Bill ordered chicken fried rice and a giant Everest beer. Lunch was good but soon it was off again to see many temples in the square, a visit to the courtyard of the Patan palace, a visit to a Buddhist temple and window shopping the many street stalls set up surrounding the square.
We met back up at the car and where whisked off again through the chaotic Nepalese traffic to do a walking tour of a couple of surrounding hillside villages. Just to explain the rules of the road a bit. The far outside part of the lane is for traffic travel ling in one direction and pedestrians Incredible Wood Carving. The centre part of the two lanes are completely open for two way traffic - bicycles, motor bikes, cars, trucks, tuk tuk like vehicles, etc. This is all carefully orchestrated without traffic lights.
The villages are on the cusp of being overtaken by Kathmandu, but for now operates as a farming village. The design of the housing is very similar to the city with 3 story adjoined homes. We walked through the narrow streets among farm animals, and people conducting their daily routine - spinning yarn, making custom saris, carpet making, preparing the soil for the next crop planting, and carving wooden figurines for sale in Kathmandu shops. We also began to see young children on their way home from public and private school. The young children were very curious and friendly.
After our walk through the villages we drove to Patan and walked through Durbar Square on our way to Dhakhwa House, a guest house that was renovated from his family's property, for our cooking lessons Lunch with a view.
We met the host and his wife and we began preparing our starters. Fenugreek is fried in mustard oil and put on top of the Cshoela - buffalo meat with cumin, salt, ginger, garlic, asafoetida and Aloo - the potatoes had similar spices. I helped to prepare the lentil pancakes which have soaked black lentils, cumin, ginger, garlic and a bit of mustard oil. In Nepalese they are called Bara or Wo in Newari.
With our meal we had Aala or Raksi - home made wine from millet or rice. For our main course we were seated on cushions at a low table which is not good for my long legs. I banged my knee that has not healed properly from my biking wipe out in Aug and it was really painful.
For dinner they had prepared many traditional dishes - dal (lentil soup), rice, chicken curry, lentil chips, gundruk - dried meat with spinach, glass noodles with mushrooms and paneer, cauliflower, spinach, and cabbage Patan. It was all very fresh and very delicious.
We then helped to prepare meat momos with minced beef, onion, green onion, ginger garlic, mustard oil and ghee and sweet momos with sugar with condensed milk. Bill was very good at shaping the momos for steaming. I tried many times, but could not get the proper technique. I somehow managed to eat some momos, despite being incredibly full... probably because they were so good!
After dinner Sham drove us back to the hotel which gave us a chance to nap in the car. We bid farewell to Ujjwal and said good night to Sham. We headed up to our room and were asleep within minutes even though it was not even 8:00 yet.
