Let's the official tour begin. In Nepal, I joined two tours with Adventure Discovery. Prasad would be my tour guide today and tomorrow. He found me at the lobby finishing my coffee at around 8:30am. I grabbed my bag and joined him and the driver outside. I was welcomed by a cleaned and fancy looking car, a silver Volkswagen, probably a rental car. We kind of stand out-ish from all the other dirty and rusty vehicles and motorbikes on the streets. I felt a little uncomfortable to be honest, to have a private guide and a private driver, and I sat in the back like I was somebody, while I have always preferred to be the nobody, I am on freaking backpack trip for Christ's sake. I didn't like the attention or the special treatment. They opened the door for me, it was totally not my thing, wanted to puke. Anyway, now I at least know where the tour money went, some of them. It is more of a deluxe kind of tour. When I first signed up, I thought it would be a group tour, until yesterday, Rabi, the manager, told me that I would be the only one and Prasad would be the guide. That's when I was like, a-ha.


Anyway, since I am here and have already paid. I might as well enjoyed it, right? There are 10 UNESCO sites in Nepal. Prasad told me, I would see at least 5-7 of them by the time I leave. Today alone, we would be visiting 4 of them. We started off at the Monkey Temple (Swayambhunath), there were a lot of monkey, it made me think of Planet of the Apes, but who was the master in that Temple I don't know, they just roamed anywhere they liked. The Buddhist temple was a different kind from the ones I am familiar with. Definitely not like the ones in Thailand, it looked quite interesting, with a white dome in the bottom which had nothing in it other than a lotus flower. No one can get into it I was told. On top of the dome, there was a square-ish structure with a face-looking feature on each side, there were 2 eyes, a nose and a dot above the eyes (the third eye). Prasad told me that Buddha taught us the sufferings are within us, we created the suffering from our desires (maybe passions from sexual desire, in his own words, maybe he was right!). There are 8 ways to be free from suffering, or be enlightened or able to achieve Nirvana. To be honest, I was kind of confused exactly what is what, but each eyes are supposed to look over one aspect. One of them is right to meditate if I remember correctly. Above the square-ish head, there was a tower hat-looking thingy with multiple levels. I think that each level represented different level of enlightenment, the higher the level the more enlightened. He only gave me 10-15 mins to take pictures. So I was kind of rushed through it. He didn't know me yet I think, I tempted to tell him, please cut the story short and just let me take my pictures, or tell me the story in the car, so when we arrive a location, I can just do my own explorations.


Next we visited the Patan Durbar Square. A long time ago before Napel was a country, the region was divided into 3 kingdoms: Kathmandu, Patan and Bhaktapur. Each of these 3 kingdoms had a Durbar Square, they were like the places where the royalty family lived. I will be visiting the Bhaktapur Durbar Square tomorrow, another UNESCO site, and possibly the Kathmandu Durbar Square the following day after the mountain flight on my own, the Kathmandu one is not far from my hotel. Anyway, I liked the Patan Durbar Square, there were some damages from the massive earthquakes last April. At least two of the structures collapsed, some other buildings required woods to support them so they wouldn't collapse. In fact, Prasad was at Patan Durbar Square when the earthquakes hit. He told me he grabbed and held his two customers very tightly, but the next thing he knew, they just witnessed the collapse of one of the temples right in front of their eyes. Though they were safe, that must have been quite shocking. After he explained me a few things and we visited the inside of one of the buildings where the royalty lived. We walked around the area nearby Patan Durbar Square a bit. He brought me to a healing center, where they were selling the healing bowl. Sounded all interesting, a metal bowl made of gold, copper, iron, and other metals, but man, I already told him souvenirs are not my thing. I would not buy a US$200 bowl and carry around on my backpack. Me no turtle, you hear! Anyhow, the bowl itself when the "healing professional" tried it on my knee and my back, it did feel kinda good. So, I took a card and pretended that I may buy that online later. Like I will... it's US$200 freaking dollar, you know, how many records I can buy with that!


The third site we went was near the airport, called Pashupatinath Temple, a Hindu Temple. I witnessed a Hindu burial with the real dead body by the river, they did something to the body, and then they would burn it later on. I have to say, I have never seen anything quite like it. Some of the pictures might make people uncomfortable. So, you might want to skip them if you will be opening up the photos link for Day 12 at the bottom. This was also a place where I saw some Hindu religion men with paint on their faces, but Prasad said they are not real, they just want you to take picture with them and ask you for money. The Hindu traditions are quite complicated when Prasad explained to me. Like one is supposed to mourn for the dead for 3 generations, the dates when your father, your grandfather and your great grandfather died. And on the year one of your family member died, you cannot eat meat if you are non-vegetarian, you have to wear white the whole month or the whole year. It sounded extremely foreign to me. I kind of half-joking, you almost need an accountant to keep tracks of all these dates, when you need to fast, or dress in a certain colors. All kidding aside, I respect what they believe in. This was an interesting experience, to say the least.


Last stop in Kathmandu city is Bouddhanath Stupa, it's a gigantic Buddhist Temple, it was built by monk coming from Tibet many many years ago. Anyway, unfortunately, this site was destroyed by the earthquake, the top part was completed gone. It was kind sad to look at. This is another UNESCO site, Prasad said UNESCO have a lot of requirement how it can be repaired or how to repair, so the progress was going slow. I had lunch there as well. But as we arrived at the restaurant, the waitress gave me a full menu, but there was only 4 items available, the dumpling and curry with rice, either with veggies or chicken. They explained to me that this was due to the fuel crisis, they had no cooking gas, and they could only cook on wood fire. It took longer and also had a limited type of foods they could cook. There are indeed a lot of problems going on in this country right now.


We were ahead of schedule, I guess. We started heading out of the city around 1:30-ish in the afternoon. As we left the city behind, the countryside air was much better, the dust was still there, but at least not as polluted. The driver took a back way which hiked up a hillside road to the top of a hill where I had some panorama view. But the city of Kathmandu was so smoggy that there really were not anything interesting to see up there, other than some farm lands, goats, villagers looking at our fancy car and wondering who the hell this guy is. Awkward... we arrived at our hotel of the night just before 4pm. After we checked and I was shown to my room, we passed by a building completed torn apart. The old building on the right side of the property collapsed during the earthquakes earlier this year. But they said the building I am staying tonight was new and I should not worry. Rubble was everywhere. I entered my room, no power, no hot water. So I checked with Prasad, he asked the owner of the hotel. He said it was the government regular power cut, he didn't have power at the front desk too. Only half of the day they get power. I was like, oh joy! This is true in Kathmandu also, my hotel in Kathmandu has limited power in the afternoon also. So I was ok with that. They said the power should come back on after dark. And the hot water, they would find a way for me to take shower. I didn't worry about the shower, but more of the power, my camera battery needed to be recharged before tomorrow' tour, and we are in the countryside, it would be pitch dark if no light. Prasad also said they would provide candles if that happens. That's promising.


So we went out to see the sunset. There were some mountain peaks, and the sun was beautiful. But it went down pretty quickly since the lower part were all covered by fog or clouds, whatever this white smoky thing was. Nagarkot where we are staying is up on 2100m above sea level. At night, the clouds dropped so low, that we were above the clouds. I walked back to the hotel alone, while the guide and the driver went to dinner. I had a room serviced dinner (a Nepali national dish, the same one I was offered by the tour manager yesterday, it is called Dal Bhat, I have taken a picture this time). I really quite like it actually. The hotel stuff were very friendly and polite, I liked him. It was dark after dinner, I was typing my blog post on the balcony, because that's where wifi connection the best. It became cold on the mountain after dark, I had my Kenny jacket on. And boom, all in a sudden, all lights went out. Pitch dark as I predicted. Oh lord. My computer monitor became my light source, I managed to find that candle by the bedside, and tried to use the matches to light it. Dear mother of gods, all of the matches were so weak that they all broke as I tried to light them on the box. Oh my god, I tried so long to light that stupid candle till I gave up. Think I tried half of the matches in the box. Went back to my balcony and continued typing in the dark. After a while, I heard the generator sound, and the light came back on.

Prasad said I can take a shower in room 208 in the morning. I probably will skip that, I thought. I can wait till I get back to my hotel in Kathmandu. Went to bed just before 11pm since I have to wake up at 5:30am to see the sunrise over the mountains. With the fog and low clouds, I worried if we will see anything at all. It is part of the programme, we'll see.

See the other photos from Day 12 here.