Durbar Square

This was written Friday night and not posted until now due to internet.

First Off: I just went to Roadhouse Cafe for supper and had a very good Chicken Wrap, after that I walked to internet place that is about 100m down the road. I got asked if I wanted to do drugs 6 times.

So day 3 of the bike trip was very tiring. I'd hadn't done 3 days of physical work in a while, snowmobiling doesn't really count. All the time when we passed a village with children they would always ask for money or my bike.

Child: Hello
Me: Hello
Child: You give my bicycle?
Me: No, I need it.
Child: You give me rupees?
Me: No rupees.
Child: Five rupees?
Me: No rupees(as I bike away)
They are all harmless but it gets annoying have to say the same thing 20 times a day.

The last stop on our bike tour was a town called Bhaktapur, there is 65,000 people living there. When your biking it's all farm land and then all of sudden the town jumps out of nowhere. There isn't much to do there except go to Bhaktapur Square, which is a complex of temples and shrines(buddist and hindu) Bhaktapur literally means "City of Devotees" most of the building date back to the 17th and 18th century. This makes for some very interesting architecture. A few pictures from the Square:




So Durbar Square is in South Thamel. The buildings here were built around the same time and this is where the Kings of Nepal are crowned. Some of the temples have been changed since they were built because in 1934 there was a large earthquake that destroyed some of them.

Chyasin Dega-built in 1649 by Pratap Malla in memory of his 2 dead queens. It's a octagonal building-very cool in person.

Forget the name of this one



One annoyance with going to these touristy sites is that I'm constantly being bothered but people wanting to give me a tour of the temples. These people aren't legit guides just people wanting to make some money from the white folk. Another annoyance is the children that beg for money. I had 2 boys following me for a bit asking for money, I kept telling them no and eventually a guard came over and grab the boys by the shirt and gave them a lecture-it was in Nepali so I couldn't understand it. After this I went back to the hotel and sat down because it was like 35 degrees outside.

Andrew