Bhaktapur

Today I decided to get out of the madness of Kathmandu to the slightly slower pace of Bhaktapur. One of the three medieval city-states of the Kathmandu Valley, it is the best preserved.





View of the Himalayas from town:


Outside the main city gate:




This is a temple dedicated to Bhairab on one of the main squares.

Bhairab is a fearsome Hindu god, but the image of him here is only 15 cm. tall and headless. When I discovered this I couldn't help but think of that episode of Buffy where the gang didn't quite manage to stop the frat boys from conjuring the big bad demon, only to discover that the demon was the size of a mouse, whereupon Buffy stepped on him.


Nyatapola Temple, the tallest in Nepal.

Statues on the steps of the temple:



Tihar, one of the biggest festivals in Nepal, is in a week and there are garlands of marigolds and marigold petals everywhere in anticipation.






It is the time of year when women are drying the recently harvested grain. All over the city there were piles of drying grain being swept and winnowed.






In Potters' Square, there was more grain being dried.


There were also ceramic pots being made and fired.




I saw a sign for this shop on the edge of one of the main squares.


I ducked through a low doorway into a courtyard, then through a tiny door into a small room with a tiny staircase. There were a few pairs of shoes by the stairs so I took my cue, removed my own, and ascended through a hole in the floor of the workshop where I found a father and son who paint and sell thangkas, a form of devotional art.


They told me it takes 15 days to paint a small thangka, about 12" square. This is a large one in progress:


Just before getting a cab back to Kathmandu, I stopped in a sweet shop for fortification. I came home with a piece of this yummy milk sweet topped with crispy rice.