We had decided yesterday to attempt a tour outside of Kathmandu. We called up Krishna, who had given us the guided tour of the monkey temple to see if he was available. We don;t usually go fr these guided tours however the first one was included in our package from PeakFreaks and we found Krishna very informative and willing to discuss almost anything. We have found it difficult to discuss the current political situation with any of the locals so we are interested to hear what he has to say about the matter. Also, since there are no taxis available, we are hopeful that Krishna will be able to arrange for a "green plated" tourist only vehicle.
We get a call back from Krishna- the tour is on! $55 for 3 hours with guide, car and driver included. We are heading to another city just outside of Kathmandu called Bhaktapur. Our main focus will be the "Durbur Square" in this city—where most of the interesting and very old temples can be found.
The drive is slightly nerve racking...there are police every where. At first we were were worried that the police may target us, however we we find out that they're there to prevent riots ( in the event that the people start trashing cars etc.) so we feel a bit safer. When I had originally discussed the possibility of getting transportation, Krishna had told me that there would be no problems; "it is safe". Today he is saying we "probably" will be safe (what the hell!!) We get stopped a few times by police and are told to take alternate roads due to protests that are underway. The roads are empty of cars—only people walking, rickshaws, motor cycles, bikes and kids playing football or cricket. At one point our car is swarmed and there is a man yelling with a large rock in his hand.The people are peeking into our car and when they see we are clearly tourists they move away from the car, pulling the angry rock man with them.Krishna looks a bit worried, shaking his head muttering that he doesn't know what that was all about. He says loudly that he thinks the the man with the rock was drunk. We're just glad nothing bad happened.
The suburbs of Bhaktapur (at least the part we see) are kinda weird...many large, smokestack factories that produce red bricks, intermingled with wheat farms. We see so many people thrashing wheat wherever we go...on the road side, in the middle of the street, in the fields and in the Durbar square itself.
There is a small fee to get into Durbar square ( I think about 1,000 rupees each). The temples are stunning and the history amazing. What we find sad is that there is so much work to be done to restore these temples. The wood work really needs to be preserved better and a lot of it is covered in bird poop.
I had started the day not feeling up to par (I think I have the stomach flu that Rick had a few days back). When we enter the air conditioned, Thanka painting school, it hits me full blast and I have to sit but what I really want to do is find a bed to sleep NOW. I keep thinking about how sick Rick was before and how could he possibly have walked that distance feeling this bad. Ugh. Rick continues with the tour of the thanka school and heads up to the main studio to negotiate a price for a painting.
Unfortunately, we decide to cut the tour short because I'm not up to walking. Krishna tells us that the only other place he had wanted to show us was the potter square, where the artisans are working in clay. Because of the strike, the potters will not be working today, so we aren't missing much.
We head back to the hotel where I sleep for the next 12 hours and Rick is left to explore Kathmandu on his own (and yes he has some stories about that!!! :-)
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