A Tale of Two Cities... and Food

Over this weekend, I went to two areas in Kathmandu that used to be two cities - Basanthakpur and Patan. They are called the "Durbar Squares". "Durbar" means "palace" in Nepali: there used to be three kingdoms in Kathmandu valley before the unification, and Basanthakpur and Patan are two of the three kingdoms.


I promised some pictures on this blog... so here they are:

View of part of the monuments in Basanthakpur (Kathmandu) Durbar Square

People just hanging out at some old (read: hundreds of years) palace during the weekend. NBD.

The living goddess Kumari lives here. Sometimes she pops out of one of the windows..

Lots and lots of different kinds of spices at the Durbar Square marketplace!

I met S, Nepali-American who works with W, and R, white-American who lived in China prior to coming here. W was walking with R in front, while I was talking to S right behind. I didn't realize when four of us walked into the Durbar Square.  A man wearing green uniform came up to W and R and waved. I looked at him, puzzled, but he just ignored me. He tapped R on the shoulder and said, "excuse me.." S turned over to the man and asked him "what's up" in Nepali. The man whispered something that I couldn't hear.

"He wants you to pay an entrance fee," S turned to R. W and R turned back to the entrance and paid the fee, 750 rupees (about $8). I hesitated, and S said to me, "don't bother. He didn't ask you to." So S and I stood while R and W were each given a pamphlet explaining the UNESCO heritage site. Well, we hope that money will be put to good use!

There are many East Asian tourists in Nepal, especially Chinese (Chinese border is 5 hours drive away from Kathmandu). People would sometimes ask me (or any other fair looking Asian) "China?" When I say something in Nepali, they would think I'm Nepali and throw long strings of sentences very fast to me.

Mountain view from the rooftop where we did yoga

City view. I almost thought it was going to rain but it didn't

Mountain view, sunset while rooting in yoga ground = amazing :)

 R led a yoga session on the rooftop of the hotel he was living in. First time doing yoga - it was refreshing. I'm definitely open to learning some yoga and meditation while I'm here.

Today I walked to Patan, equipped by a map I got from a local bookstore. The Patan Durbar Square was equally fascinating. However I was rather hesitant to walk into some less populated areas with young men sitting on the buildings...

Residence of another Kumari. There were young men sitting inside chilling...

Patan Durbar Square

Mangoes for sale! Mango season in a month and you can bet I'll blog about it :)

So I think I finally figured out the microbus route to work. Instead of walking 2.5km to work tomorrow morning, I would walk 0.7km and take the microbus (12 - 15 rupees, $0.20),  and walk another 200m. Worth the money in the heat, I'd say.

Oh, and one last thing... FOOD! So the family I'm staying with (guest house really, but they are like my full fledged Nepali family) invited me to dinner tonight. Excited! What's better than home cooked dal bhaat?

Well, there's something that *might* beat that, sometimes: momos!

My first ever momo plate!!!

Sweet lassi. When the mango season comes I'll be having so much mango lassi!

So I was talking with Narendra, .NET programmer and manager of the project at tea time on Friday. I mentioned I have not had momos, and would like to know where to get good ones. He asked if I wanted to go get some after work, and I said sure. So we went to this place in Jawalakhel, where he lives, for some good momos. Honestly I wished we went to a roadside store for the more "authentic" experience, but those momos are good and probably much safer to eat. I wanted to pay but he insisted on treating...

I guess I will never go hungry. :P