Nepal - Kathmandu trek - Nagarkot to Bhaktapur

The next day it was fairly obvious that the blister situation was untenable. My feet didn't even really fit into running shoes. It was sort of embarrassing because I'm not a complete noob and I had worn these boots long distance before but my feet were swollen into oblivion so the guide and I decided to take a bus to Bhaktapur. However, the bus schedule was such that it would be faster walking most of the way. We meandered through several small towns stopping in each to check the bus schedule but we were still ahead. Eventually we stopped for tea and the delay put us at a bus stop at a time when there would be a vehicle. We hopped on and I fell immediately asleep, which I only considered a potentially bad idea once I woke up.

We were dropped outside of the Bhaktapur Durbar Square, the administrative center of town, and got me all settled in the Sunny Guest House which doubles as a wooden carving store. Fulla and I then walked around town, taking bad photos, and had snacks in Nyatapola cafe, a roof top cafe with a view of the square which was particularly vertigo-inducing as the seats are right on the edge of the balcony...and post-earthquake all the buildings are held up with wooden posts.

bad tourist photo!

The view from the Cafe

Fulla and I chatted about how he had thought I was on a gap year before college (so flattering!), how his wife was a grad student in Colorado, and how the guide at the table behind us was trying to sell drugs to his client while ascertaining if Australians "have sex like Americans." I also learned that Argentineans are still bitter over Nepali Gurkhas' participation in the Falkland War.  Then I sadly said goodbye as my crew returned to Kathmandu. after agonizing, of course, over what would be an appropriate tip. I think I missed the mark by a lot.


While I hobbled around that afternoon I saw some of the efforts being made to restore the temples, houses, and the art museum.

It's a never-ending battle methinks; while lying in bed at 8PM I felt a teensy tiny earthquake!

The next morning, fortified by a delicious breakfast in bed (because the rooftop restaurant was not earthquake safe), I set out for a morning of tourism. My first stop was the national art museum. Like much of Nepal it had inconsistent electricity and was earthquake-damaged but had a heart of valuable an interesting religious works. Because the ticket was also good for the woodworking and metalworking museums, I headed there. I got lost of course but in the process wandered into a woodworker's shop and a paper-making factory.

These guys are actually making keychains.

Also known as D. papyracea

They assured me it was earthquake safe...but fires?

Hand printed...

...or machine printed?

Then I wandered to the only coffee shop in all of Nepal, an expat-owned, surprisingly cozy nook of the city under a pomelo tree. They didn't have any tea! Can you imagine! Instead, I chatted with the proprietor over wafer cookies and he gave me infallible advice, "Don't step on any carpets in the street. You will fall to certain death."

So informed, I went plazearing. As you may remember from your Bolivia vocabulary, the Spanglish "to plazear" is the act of sitting in a public space and people watching. One may read, write, chat with locals, eat, and/or drink but in general the activity implied by plazearing is free, unstructured, and intensely lazy. I suppose in Nepal it would be called "temple-ing." Especially because I chose to sit here:

I was immediately approached by a potential tour guide/love interest. He said that he had noticed me the day before but didn't want to impinge on my guide. He was surprisingly uncreepy and when he learned that I spoke Spanish he immediately handed me his notebook. (This bonding over vocabulary nerdiness happens frequently.) I gently and truthfully extricated myself from the conversation by saying that I was meeting friends in Kathmandu for dinner.

I didn't really have a good idea of where the buses left from, how many stops it would be, how long it would take, where they arrived in Kathmandu, or how much it should cost. As such, I told the attendant that I wanted to get off in the Thamel. He came to collect money but didn't take mine. We stopped a few times and at one place, sat quite a while. Most, but not all, of the people got off the bus and some new people got on. As we sat there, I began to get nervous. I turned to the person next to me and asked where she was going. She answered, "Bhaktapur." Evidently we had arrived in Kathmandu and were heading back soon. I got off the bus, went up to the driver (who spoke no Englsh) and indignantly yelled "Dude! What the hell?!" He doubled over laughing and I stormed off. I got a free bus ride for his stupid joke.

I also wasn't sure how to get from the bus depot to my hotel but my faith in humanity was restored when I asked a pedicabber and he told me I was three blocks away and gave me directions instead of extorting me for a ride.

That night I had a lovely dinner with my Yale girls and they suggested several things to do in my last two days in Nepal. Unsurprisingly most of them involved nice places to sit and read with a cup of tea. They know me so well!

This last picture represents how I felt in the lovely city of Bhaktapur: