Kathmandu is only one of three royal cities in Nepal. The other two are Bakhtapur and Patan, each of which has a Durbar Square similar to Kathmandu’s. Smaller, but much less commercial, and there are few tourists. (I seem to be fairly lucky on this front so far.) The Bakhtapur temple complex contains an Erotic…

Got a thunderstorm in Pokhara last night unlike any thunderstorm I have seen before. Strongs wind bent the trees, there is torrential rain, and lightning. At home you can estimate the distance of a lightning flash by timing the delay between flash and thunder. Not so here. There are many flashes per second, far too…

PG50. Some material in this post may not be suitable for parents. A van took me up 600m on top of Sarangkot Mountain. I got a harness that is clipped into my pilot’s harness, I run a few steps down the hill, the parachute inflates and we are up in the air above Nepal’s Pokhara…

Walked around the dam into the hills. There are no signs, so I work like a wild west trapper – broken twigs, a pale shade of brown leaves, scratches on stones – and of course the trail of plastic bottles, soda cans, candy wrappers, and chips bags also helps. I always know after 50m that…

Not much to report today – the bus ride to Pokhara takes seven hours. The bus is supposed to be the best they have but it’s wheezing up the mountains at 25 km/h. But it’s clean and everyone has a seat, unlike on Nepalese local buses, which pack as much people, bags, and animals as…

There’s more than Kathmandu in the valley. Swayambhunath, a.k.a. the monkey temple, sits on top of a hill with a very long stairway leading up to it. Visitors get waylaid by souvenir vendors every 20 steps or so. The main stupa totally looks like a huge birthday cream cake with a candle in the middle.…

Kathmandu’s Durbar Square is a temple complex centered on the old royal palace, now a museum. Dozens of pagoda temples with tiered roofs and stepped terraces, some low and some nearly as tall as the pagoda on top. Plus a shining white neoclassical palace in the middle that looks quite out of place there. The…

Zhangmu is built up a hill on both sides that is so steep that the houses seems stacked. In my hotel, what’s first floor in front is fourth floor in the back. I had to leave early because the border station is only open in the morning. After the first checkpoint, we walked down a…