The next morning after a good-sized breakfast we hit the road at about 8:30, heading back to Thamel. Our original plan was to go on a mountain bike tour, but the shop we were aiming for was closed, so we opted for plan B, which involved shopping and then heading down to Durbar Square. It was much less frenzied walking around Thamel in the morning than it had been yesterday evening.
We went back to the hotel via the Garden of Dreams. It wasn’t overly big, but was quite pleasant. Many of the buildings had cracks from the earthquake and were off limits, but the staff were still using them. In Thamel there was surprisingly little earthquake damage visible, apart from one back street we walked down, where a collapsed building had spewed rubble all over the place.
After lunch (at a café near our hotel) we headed back down towards Durbar Square. At one of the major roads, we successfully navigated 5 lanes of traffic, only to nearly get hit by a boy on a bike.
Our route took us through an area which was obviously where the locals did their shopping. It was still chaos with pedestrians competing with motorbikes and vice versa, with lots of horns and bells. A couple of times the street would open up into a bigger square with a few shrines, more bikes and cars and noise.
Durbar Square itself was not what we were expecting. For a start, it’s not really a square like what you have at cathedrals in Europe, for example. It’s more of a street with temples and shrines on both sides. The entrance fee had gone up to 1000 Rs because of the earthquake. Many of the buildings were damaged, some propped up with wooden posts, others fenced off, yet there were still people sitting on or in them. There were pigeons galore, and dogs just lying around – not normal!
We came back a different route and came across a stupa in a courtyard down an alleyway that wasn’t on the map. There were a couple of little kids running around and a few older ones playing cricket. We breathed a sigh of relief at getting back to the main road and recognising where we were.
Sounds and smells can’t be conveyed through photos. The noise of car and motorbike horns is non-stop when you’re out and about. The smell is not so much of sweaty people (like I might have expected), but incense and dust.
We finished off the day by watching the Rugby World Cup semifinal between the All Blacks and South Africa!
Street in Thamel
Street in Thamel
Garden of Dreams
Locals' shopping street on the way to Durbar Square
Temples at Durbar Square
Buildings near Durbar Square
Hidden square and stupa (not named on our map)
Next day
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