A favourite place: Patan Durbar Square

At the halfway point of our stay in Kathmandu, one of the places that continues to fascinate me the most is Patan Durbar Square. Walking in or near this former royal complex is an exercise in absorbing  one interesting sight or impression after another. It’s a microcosm of Nepal’s diverse peoples, cultures and languages, though Newari influences still dominate. Tiny shop fronts, with merchants seated passively waiting for sales of – so much, and a visually sensuous feast at that. There’s metalwork, golden Buddhist idols or Tibetan “thanka” paintings, plastics and homewares, stainless steel pots jostling with traditional brass and copper, carved Newari woodwork, watercolours for tourists, locally woven shawls for the approaching winter, the odour of meat from the butcher’s, fruits, vegetables, chickens in coops, tailors and sari shops, bike repairs, candles, mobile phone covers and cards, rice, grains and lentils oozing from tins and sacks, grey pigeons fossicking. And that’s before you even reach the Square and the Palaces. There you find the old temples, sadhus and yogis, bells and bikes, jostling groups of shoppers, cyclists and passers-by, the bright saris and kurtas worn by the women, children playing and teens congregating.

The Royal Palace itself is now a UNESCO World Heritage site, steeped in the architectural achievements of Nepal’s former kings, and the gracious lines of tall brick walls, pagoda roofs, massive windows and solid pillars of carved hardwoods, and terracotta paving underfoot. Nothing synthetic is in sight; everything is wood, clay, stone, slate or brick. Religious images and carvings abound, seated on plinths or greeting one at entrances to low doorways (most people must have been shorter once),or in the courtyards where royal events and audiences were held. 

We went with our friend Anthony to an international blues festival in one such courtyard recently. It was a perfect evening – neither too hot nor too cool, and the audience revelled in music from Nepal, the US and New Zealand. Here are some of our memories of that pleasant night.

The Patan Museum also contains gardens set in paved brick walkways with the pagoda backdrops of the Palace buildings nearby. The surrounding trees and bamboo hide many sparrow and little birds, and you can refresh with a cup of coffee in the secluded garden rooms.

The sense of history, ancient and sometimes mysterious beauty, and these enduring, magnificent edifices whose walls and courtyards could tell so many stories, will be one of the things I will most miss when we return to Australia.

For Heather: Flowers in KTM

These photos show some of the ways Nepali people use their traditional copper and terracotta pots to bring beauty to paths, steps and entrances.

  A typical local flower shop.

I'm sure my friend and colleague Heather would also find them attractive, so this blog is for her.

Tihar in our Neighbourhood

Timed to coincide with the end of the monsoon rains, the festivals of Desai and then Tihar provide a very interesting experience of traditional culture, celebrated throughout Nepal. From the 15^th to the 19^th of October  there were five days and nights of Tihar, full of lights, tiny oil lamps and candles, firecrackers, happy revellers and singers, marigold garlands, family groups out visiting and shopping in the vegetable, fruit and sweet markets, and tempting cooking smells wafting from kitchens.

There was no need to leave the house. Entertainment was at hand; even from the windows of our flat on the first storey we could catch a fair glimpse of the festival.

Two sisters sharing a bike rode up and down the nearby narrow lane on their holiday, taking pleasure in all that was going on, and a priest visited most of the neighbourhood houses, chanting the traditional blessings.

I caught the words, “Peace be upon this family,” as he passed beneath our dining room window after visiting our near neighbours. Two groups of singers, much like carol singers in December, gathered to sing and honour our landlord’s household, who are respected tea growers and benefactors from eastern Nepal. 

Our landlady visited us with three plates of traditional food one night, greeting us with “Happy Diwali” (=Tihar) and her characteristic beaming smile. To my delight, one of these contained sel roti, a doughnut shaped delicacy made by hand from rice flour, butter and sugar, and a favourite of mine.

Sounding much like the bands which escort bride and groom to Nepali weddings, several groups of Indian musicians with brass instruments and loud drums, gathered at the gates of houses throughout the festival, hoping to cajole family members outside for some rupees in exchange for their music. Women in embroidered or bejewelled saris or kurtas (tunics) and shawls, men in their best jackets and young people in the universal dress of youth culture everywhere, sauntered and chatted in the lane all day, carrying bags of food or other gifts for their visits to family or friends.

Firecrackers showered from rooftops well into the night. Most homes were lit up in some way, and with the increased use of electric lights, it looked rather like any Christmas in Australia. Some of the lights came equipped with a small electronic device which played a soft medley of Christmas carols, which sat somewhat oddly in a Hindu festival, but nothing surprises us very much any more.

The images show some of these neighbourhood scenes:

On two nights, we ventured into various parts of the city to see what was happening elsewhere, firstly in the tourist area of Thamel, and then nearer to home near Patan Durbar Square and the Mangal Bazaar markets. One of the main days of the Tihar festival celebrates the Hindu Goddess Laxmi, whom the locals hope will be enticed and guided into their homes and shops by trails of oil lamps and candles leading into their front gates, homes and shops. Laxmi is believed to bring wealth and prosperity to one’s household, and the pavement invitations to her to enter one’s home are varied and colourful, as captured in the photos below:

Nagarkot

In late September, during the Nepali festival of Desai or Dashain, we travelled in a taxi up to Nagarkot on the rim of the Kathmandu Valley. It's a place we remembered fondly from last time we were here, and we weren't disappointed. For each of the three days we stayed in Nagarkot, we saw wonderful views of the Himalaya - the "Langtang Himal" to be exact. The photo of the single peak shows Langtang which is often visible from our rooftop in Patan - if we get up early enough to see it.

I woke up the first morning at about 5.45, looked out the window without getting out of bed, and said to Mike, "That's mountains I'm seeing!" We went downstairs quickly and joined groups of Indians, Chinese tourists from Beijing, and Nepali staff on the wide hotel verandah. The hotel site makes the most of the outlook, and coffee is available very early for all those wanting to take in the mountain views. It's fun trying to determine the names of visible peaks from the Himalayan chart we have, and watching the ever changing patterns of clouds and emergent peaks.The "horizon" shifts constantly - what is cloud and what mountain? - giving the whole scene an exotic, mysterious air.

The scene is as close as anything I can imagine to the fabled "Shangri-la", especially with the watercolour hues and outlines of grey, lavender, indigo and mauve that characterise the view in the early morning light. Deep valleys below the peaks are usually cloud-filled, their white puffs sometimes hugging the green slopes till late morning, while Everest / Sagarmatha is well to the east and indistinct to the naked eye from that distance. Kites (the bird kind) catch the thermal drifts above the nearby rice terraces, soaring effortlessly.

We walked around the hilltop roads a great deal while there, and encountered many people in their Desai finery, especially the reds and greens of traditional clothing that are popular during this season. Children also fly kites (the paper kind) and enjoy the traditional bamboo swings set up just for the ten days of Desai.