Durbar Square, Durbar Square, and, umm, Durbar Square!

It's strange to meet most of your family... on the other side of the world. For one of my sisters, my parents, my husband, and myself, our first trips to Asia included a mini-family reunion! Jennie traveled with us in Bangladesh, West Bengal India, and Nepal. My parents were traveling in China and decided to meet us as well, and Kathmandu seemed like a viable option!

Me, my mom, and my sister in Bhaktapur

Read the rest...
As my parents were flying in one day, Jennie was flying out another, and then my parents were flying out a third, we didn't have a long enough period of time to leave the area, so we instead explored Kathmandu and the Kathmandu valley which holds the highest concentration of UNESCO World Heritage sites in the world (with a strong desire to come back to Nepal to do a long trek, a rafting trip, and some canyoneering someday!).

Everyone at our hotel

Kathmandu itself was a return to the backpackers scene for us. The Thamel neighborhood is full of guest houses, bothersome trekking guides, touristy shops, and, of course, dreadlocked heads. While my parents quickly grew tired of the harassing touts and the dirty streets, we were just glad to be back where we weren't stared at quite so much! One thing we loved about the city itself was the narrow alleys lined with amazing intricately carved wooden and brick houses and temples. Some of them look like they're barely still standing, but the care taken in their construction is obvious.

Some of the amazing buildings in Kathmandu (that looks like it's going to fall over...)

We discovered some interesting stupas and pagodas through narrow alleys and tucked into courtyards

From the 15th to 18th centuries, Nepal was divided into three kingdoms. Although I don't completely understand how it's possible, the capitols of these kingdoms were all in the Kathmandu Valley. Thus, we had the opportunity to visit three Durbar Squares. Durbar indicates a royal area, so each square was the royal center for that kingdom. Our first, Kathmandu, was our least favorite but was fun because traffic still went right through it, making it feel like it was still the center of the city. It had many amazing pagodas (those layered temples I equated with China started here!) and other temples, and we also got a glimpse of the living goddess- a young girl who is declared a deity and lives in the square until puberty when another girl is chosen as a replacement.

The black Kal Bhairav god, in front of which you can only tell the truth, apparently. If you stand with your foot on it and lie, well, you die! (We didn't try it.)

My dad playing Bagh Chal, a checkers-like game with little metal tigers and goats, with a craft seller

More people means more people to navigate...

Patan was our second Durbar Square, which we found even more lovely than the first. Along with the pretty pagodas and palace, we went into a lovely golden Buddhist temple and a popular Hindu temple where women were performing a ceremony asking for their husbands' protection and long life. The temple was filthy, with bits of leftover offerings of rice, flowers, coconut, and other odds and ends laying on the ground, the platforms, the walls... Goats milled about, meant for sacrifice, our guide said, but left to wander for now. The whole things felt very gritty and textured, somehow appropriate for a gritty and textured culture!
Our final and favorite Durbar Square was in Bhaktapur. We wandered around the lovely cobblestone streets of this small city for a few hours, enjoying the peace and quiet. All the buildings were the beautiful brick and wood we'd been seeing, and women were out on the steps knitting hats and mittens to sell to tourists. It was simply a beautiful place. A touristy street in Bhaktapur A spice and dry goods store- the owner had to walk on the dividers between items to move around! Such a beautiful view! A lovely day...
We happened upon dyed yarn of every color drying in the sun

Josh made some friends with these chicks who lost their mother... we have a video of it if we ever get it up!

From Bhaktapur, we drove up to Nagarkot, a mountain from which the views of the Himalayas are meant to be spectacular. With monsoon season and all, we had a lovely few of the valley... and lots of clouds! We also took a nice walk through rice paddies and villages up to Nagarkot later in the week. Despite excessive amounts of travel planning and re-planning (my parents had to cancel their trip to Tibet quite suddenly because the embassy stopped issuing travel permits and we were trying to find cheap flight to the Maldives or Bali for the end of our trip), it was a lovely week with family, although it was hard to say goodbye. We'd gotten so used to it being just the two of us that it was nice to have some company!

Pretty clouds in Nagarkot.

Nagarkot was beautiful, clouds and all.

PS By the way, thanks for the beautiful picture, Ian, Kendra, Lucas, and Gavin!!

(written by megan, posted by josh)