Bhaktapur

Pottery Square

We went off to Bhaktapur, the third of the UNESCO sites in the Katmandu valley. The city is known for its yogurt, ceramics, and agriculture. Here the women dress in a black and red sari called a Hakapersi. Once again we went to the Darbur Square (or Palace Square). The city was the capital of the Malla kingdom 700 years ago. Here we found multiple 17th century temples of the Indian and Chinese architectural styles, this time made of brick. Nearby was the 15th century stone temple with it "bell of barking dogs" since ringing it caused the dogs to bark. Over the palace is a golden gate, inside it was interesting to see how well the restoration had been done, the wooden doors were just as detailed, but one side had old wood and the other side, newer wood. Here we could take pictures of the royal bath with Naga snakes above and a water spout with a goats head emerging from a crocodiles mouth. (Other palaces had closed the bath to photography.)
We walked further to pottery square which is usually filled with drying pottery, but this time the pottery shared space for drying rice. Here, too, they were preparing for the festival of lights starting in five days and making a lot of closed pots with a slot, the local version of a piggy bank.
Our final stop was the tallest temple of Nepal, built in 1702. Up the five levels were wrestlers, elephants, lions, griffons, and goddesses - symbols of power different than we had seen elsewhere.
Then we headed up into the foothills going from 2500 feet to 6700 to get a view of the Himalaya mountains. The road was a little wider than one lane, but it was paved. We had to back up several times in order to find a spot where a bus or truck could pass our bus. At the top there were a lot of clouds hiding most of the range, but we did get a peek of Dorje Lakpa, a little over 21000 feet high.

Dorje Lakpa from our restaurant

On the way down, we got to do a little 'trekking' in farm country. we passed a number of farm houses with electricity and satellite dishes. The terraced fields of mustard seed were beautiful and the people friendly - kids greeting us and asking for candy.
In the evening we had a farewell dinner with traditional Nepalese food, the local liquor which flowed freely and yogurt for dessert as dancers gave us a sampling of the various regional dances.