Monthly Archives: October 2011

Our lost days in Nepal

Posted on by

20111007-185057.jpg

With its lush green hills and snowcapped peaks Nepal is certainly a far more beautiful country than I had ever anticipated. But Nepal also has much more to offer than just its magnificent mountains…

Upon reaching Kathmandu, after several days of long bumpy bus rides from Tibet, the bustling streets of Nepal’s capital city were definitely a shock to the senses. The streets of Thamel (the tourist district in which we’d been deposited at the end of our tour) were full of life with brightly coloured shops spilling onto the roads, selling everything a tourist in Nepal could possibly desire from fake North Face jackets, to Buddhist and Hindu statues, and beautiful skirts, dresses, bags and beaded jewellery.

Overwhelmed by the hustle and bustle of Kathmandu we rapidly departed for our 7 days trekking in the Langtang National Park. Having recharged our batteries we returned to Kathmandu for a fresh assault to find no longer a city to be endured but rather one to be enjoyed.

During our second visit we toured Durbar square, visited the monkey temple (Swayambhu) and paid homage to the royal family by visiting both the old and new palaces. Durbar square, the centre of old Kathmandu, is actually a collection of squares housing several temples and shrines to Hindu gods and goddesses (some of whom double up as Buddhist deities), including one temple that is supposed to have been built from a single tree. On one side of Durbar square is Kumari Che, the home of the living goddess (mentioned in an earlier post), a beautiful courtyarded building with intricate woodcarved screens masking the glassless windows.

Swayambhu is commonly known as the Monkey Temple due to the large number of monkeys that have made this hill top temple their home. As you climb the steps to the golden stupa (and the all-seeing eyes of the Buddha), pairs of monkeys sit inspecting each other, swinging from tree to tree, clambering up railings, snacking on tourists’ litter, or simply watching the world go by. From the top of the steps, having undertaken a clockwise pilgrimage around the stupa you can truly appreciate the vastness of the Kathmandu valley.

Our Australian friends had told us that the royal palace was worth a visit, if only for a morbid understanding of a place where 11 members of the royal family (including the then king Birendra) were shot by the crown prince in 2001. Having concluded our tour of the palace buildings we were a bit bemused as to why we couldn’t find the gardens or other places that our friends had described. It slowly dawned on us that there were two palaces! The following day we made our way to the new palace in the north of the city. To fill you in on the history, after killing his family in a drunken rampage in 2001, the prince turned the gun on himself and died several days later, causing an outburst of mourning across Nepal, for whom the former King and Queen were held in very high regard. The crown passed to the King’s brother but in 2008 the monarchy was dissolved by the government. The new palace, built in the 1960s, had the distinct feel of hotel in its prime in the 1970s, with little of the opulence normally associated with a royal abode. As we stepped outside the palace doors the grey skies began to empty, setting the mood for visiting the place where the royal family had spent their final moments. Although the building from which family members fled as the prince brandished his machine gun has been razed, bullet holes can be seen in a nearby screen door and plaques mark the places where others died. A very sombre place to end our visit to the palace and the capital.

20111007-185132.jpg
Feeling we’d spent enough time in Kathmandu, and after our bungee jumping at Last Resort, we decided to end our time in Nepal with a visit to the picturesque lakeside town of Pokhara. We spent two and a half days relaxing at lovely little lakeside cafes and restaurants, soaking up the tranquil atmosphere. One afternoon we took four exhausting but enjoyable hours to pedalo around the lake, drinking in the lush green mountain surrounds. On our final afternoon we walked around the lake and up to the Peace Pagoda affording us beautiful views of the lake and town below. In the late afternoon, crossing back over the serene lake, the clouds parted to give our first glimpses of the snowcapped Annapurna mountain range, the perfect ending to our stay in Pokhara.

Laura

20111007-185147.jpg

20111007-185205.jpg

Happy Birthday Gandhi!

Image

20111002-183713.jpg

Today’s a National Holiday in India in honour of Gandhi’s birthday.

We went round a museum in Delhi today about Indian Independence and saw this quotation there. I couldn’t agree more.

Food for thought

Posted on by

It has occurred to us that perhaps one very important aspect has been lacking from the tales of our trip so far… The culinary delights that have been on offer!
20111002-182103.jpg

Peking duck (Beijing)
We started our very first night in Beijing with the classic amber-glazed Peking duck, a tasty treat already familiar to most westerners. The main difference between the Peking duck we experienced and that on offer in most Chinese restaurants at home was more in the presentation than flavour, with strips of the deftly carved duck beautifully aligned on separate plates so you could choose from crispy skin, succulent breast or the less tempting (to us anyway) fatty pieces. All to be savoured in pancakes with plum sauce, thinly sliced spring onions, cucumber and some purple vegetable with a radish flavour.

Fish and fat (Beijing)
One night we walked into a Beijing restaurant, threw caution to the wind and selected a range of dishes from the picture menu. The pak choi was a successful choice providing us with the desired steamed greens in soy sauce, the fish was fantastic: cooked whole in a delicious slightly spicy, tangy sauce, fantastic as long as the miscellaneous lumps if fat (not potato as first thought) were avoided. Unfortunately the third dish was less than successful, what had looked like tasty Chinese style ribs on the menu turned out to be inedible strips of fatty meat (believed to be duck). Nevermind – a success rate of two out of three is still a win!

Street snacks on-a-stick (Beijing)
I realise this has already been covered in an earlier post so I’ll just briefly touch on the offerings of Beijing’s street markets. Among the usual suspects were various varieties of marinated meat-on-a-stick, tofu-on-a-stick and glazed fruits-on-a-stick. Then you come across the increasing bizarre and less appealing options of small (shark-like) fish-on-a-stick, scorpions and crickets-on-a-stick (sometimes still wriggling), silk worm puppae-on-a-stick, snake-on-a-stick and yes even sheep penis-on-a-stick. Needless to say we did not sample all of these delights – we had to save something for our next visit to China, of course!

Momos (Tibet and Nepal)
Momos are fantastic as a snack, starter, main course or even a desert. Savoury momos are little parcels of seasoned meat (usually Yak) or vegetables wrapped in a thin pastry and either steamed or fried. We first encountered these little treats in Tibet, where the momos are smaller (one or two bites) with a thinner pastry/dough/batter (not sure what the correct term is) and supplied with soy and chilli dipping sauces. In Nepal momos tend to be larger, with a thicker casing and are most commonly fried. Up in the mountains Nepal also offers the sumptuous apple momo. Apple momos are perfect after a hard day’s trekking and are essentially a deep fried apple pie: nice, warming, hearty food. And for those with a taste for the sickly sweet may I present the snickers momo, Nepal’s answer to the deep-fried mars bar.

Bobbi/Bobby (Tibet)
Bobbis are essentially like fajitas: mixed vegetables, with or without yak meat, supplied with soured cream cheese to be wrapped in thin pancakes or chapati-like bread. Delicious!

Dal bhat (Nepal)
Whilst I was not a big fan of this dish I think that Simon was enamoured by the fact it came with free refills of each component. Dal bhat is a fairly simple dish consisting of mountains of rice accompanied by some vegetable curry, a bowl of (usually quite watery) dal (a slightly spicy lentil soup) and often a small amount of pickle.

Lemon/lime soda (Nepal and India)
I first encountered this drink a few years ago in Sri Lanka and was ecstatic to rediscover it in Nepal. Lime soda (sometimes called lemon soda despite the fact that it seems to in fact be made with lime) is a simple but incredibly refreshing drink consisting of the juice of one or two limes topped up with soda. Seriously, if you haven’t tried it buy yourself some limes and make it now!

20111002-182137.jpg