Kathmandu, Nepal

When we were heading here, the Bob Seger song kept playing in my head…”I think I’m going to Kathmandu - that’s really, really where I’m goin’ to”. :-)

It is very smoggy…

… chaotic (to see the video - click link at end of post to open in browser)…

… and crowded -

It was pretty intimidating at first to walk in the street where motorbikes and cars were passing right by you, as well as pedestrians and bicycles (some going in the opposite direction on the same side of the street as you), but we actually quickly got the hang of it, mostly just by following locals. Crossing a street, or heaven forbid, entering a four way intersection, remained unnerving and a bit like a live version of Frogger.

The sign on the left in the picture above made me smile, because that’s what you do to cross that intersection, which we had to. You have to do it in 2 steps - get to the thin middle line, standing there while cars and motorbikes zip by you on both sides, honking all the time, then cross the other half when a rare break in traffic occurs. (since I was concentrating so hard when we’d do this, I didn’t get any video - sorry)

We were heading for that temple on the hill, commonly referred to as the Monkey Temple, but its formal name is Swayambhunath Temple.

We climbed a lot of stairs, then they got steep -

At the top…

… were numerous temples and worshippers…

… as well as the namesake mascots. They were much less numerous than in Bali, and more skittish around humans (which was fine by me).

Prayer wheels are turned clockwise…

… while the faithful recite the mantra there -

The “Eyes of Buddha” are painted on all four sides of the stupa, symbolizing his all seeing wisdom -

this largest shrine was my favorite

We had a nice view of the city from up here -

As we headed back into the city, we thought we found the winner for the “OMG-look-at-those-wires” award:

We then headed to Durbar Square, which is a former royal palace complex. It is difficult to show in one photo because it’s not a compact area, and encompasses 50 temples.

The oldest area was constructed between the 4th and 8th centuries, and had intricate wood carving -

As I was photographing this temple, I noticed this amazing porter -

The intricacy and extent of the wooden carvings and screens we saw on many buildings was just stupendous -

I thought this little temple was very inspiring -

I’m gonna keep my eye on you!