Sorry, you had to wait again new text, but anyway it was nice to notice that at least some read this blog ;)
Because there hasn't happened too much in my life lately I'm going to tell you just about the general life of us here in Kathmandu, Nepal. We live in a quite quiet and calm (if you can call so any place around Kathmandu) area in the one district, Lalitpur, of Kathmandu. This part of Lalitpur is called Patan like I've already mentioned before. Actually to get here you need to pay 200 rubees as an entrance fee because this is part of the historic city of Patan and near by is the famous Patan durbar square with a group of temples. We have managed to come and go in an out this area without paying when we have just said that we're residents BUT a couple of days ago while we were on our way to museum café at the durbar square the guard of the area stopped us and demanded us to pay the fee, omg, we've lived in this area about 1,5 months and now we had to pay the fee?!? We were pissed but no can do we paid the fee and got sticker on our chest, yeah! Problem was solved and we don't have to worry about being caught again.
Actually the eating at the museum café was one of the few restaurant visits of mine in here, eating outside is SO expensive, no not really, you get a very good dinner max with about 5 euros but eating at home saves your money anyway ;) It's interesting to cook here with a gas stove and the ingredients are packed weirdly, for example you get milk in the plastic bag and yoghurt is covered with piece of paper in a bowl made of clay. Until now I've cooked rice, carrots, potatoes, cauliflower, pasta and noodles, mixed with everything what have come to my mind. The "fresh" meat I won't buy because it looks so ugly on the tables in the open area beside the dusty streets flies flying all around of it. But instead of the fresh meat I found some sausages from the grocery store, so next time I can fry meat as well!
Because it has been a little bit boring lately, I've got very sleepy quite early on the evenings and I've also gone to bed already around eight, nine o'clock. I've noticed that ten hours sleep is enough so sometimes I've woken up already five or six am :) It's not unusual in Nepal, usually the locals' day starts around five with ringing the bells and worshipping their Gods. The low sound of the bells is quite annoying if you try still to sleep, but nowadays it's kind of alarm for me like the sound of badminton rackets' of our landlord as well. I don't know if they are practicing for world championship or what, but they have daily training on the street (no nets, no nothing professional) every morning starting around five am! Another weird thing is the world cup of the football. Nepal doesn't have own team, but still they are very keen on football, everywhere is TV on and they have even brought big screens on the streets. Load shedding times are forgotten probably because of people want to watch football and if you need to buy some foodstuff from the little shops it may be that the shop keeper is watching and listening the game with one eye and ear and only the another one is looking and hearing what you want. :D The games cause also some problems with trying to fall asleep, because when some team gets goal locals shout… out loud! And if there isn't any game going on in the evenings there are dogs which have their daily fight of territories…
Anyway once I've fell asleep I'll sleep till next morning and wake up lively even at the 6 am. And down to lack of different activities I've started to go for a walk almost straight from the bed. It's nice to walk on the streets early in the morning, it's still quite quiet and not too hot. During my morning walks I've seen women bringing some offerings (rice, flowers, etc.) to the Gods outside of their homes and some pigs in their morning walks and breakfast (in the middle of rubbish, and people even think that pigs eat rubbish?!?!) on the street near by our house. Funny.
During daytimes I've started to read Sinuhe The Egyptian which is surprisingly interesting and I may even reach the end of the book with about 700 pages! :) Will see. I've started also to use tempos (van with seats) and tuktuks(?!?!) (electrical three-wheel-vehicle, on the photo) instead of taxis between centre of Kathmandu and Patan. Those little vehicles are funny, cheap and you're not always sure where they drop you, so why not to use them, it takes time and you may see new places :). Once I got a short drive by the rickshaw as well, I felt like a real tourist sitting behind a man who was driving the three-wheel bicycle on the streets of Thamel (main tourist area) but anyway the lift was comfortable and I got an one new experience :)
I've visited also in Bhaktapur which is little town near by Kathmandu. The town was nice with its durbar square (on the first photo) filled up with temples and pottery shops with lovely clay decorations. The entrance fee was 700 rupees, about 7 EUROS, so I won't go there again. Too expensive. Anyway the town was seen enough in one day. After Bhaktapur I visited in Pashupatinath, where you can see e.g. Hindu temples and there some Hindus have their funerals as well. Coincidentally I was in Pashupatinath while there was funeral and I saw the ceremony. I tried to hide behind other people and I didn't take any photos, so hopefully the bereaved family didn't mind (there are burning bodies on the photo but that's not from the funeral). After the ceremony family members burn the body which is covered by yellow, white and orange clothes by the river Bagmati and the ash naturally goes to the river after a while. Bagmati river is holy river and how beautiful that sounds the Bagmati suffers a lot because of its position. It smells, it's full of rubbish and no one thinks it should be cleaned. Because it's holy river…
Near by Pashupatinath there is also Bodhnath with its big stupa (on the photo) and because I had time enough I decided to visit there as well. The stupa was quickly seen and walked around so I ventured to go to see the monastery near by the stupa as well. It's mystical place with a many rules and monks wearing yellow-orange-red clothes. The building itself was very colourful and it wasn't scary at all despite the loud low speaking sound of man from the loudspeakers. I got a very mystical and respectful feeling while visiting at that area mostly because of that sound…
That's basically what I've been up to lately. I've also got my hair cut, they are quite nice actually although the cut is made by nepali barber ;) The pond Pimbahal Pokhari beside our building has got new inhabitants, some fish and little ducks hundreds even thousands of them and it's nice to watch what they're doing every now and then :) And that's it, tomorrow I'm planning to go again to Thamel and maybe in some day I visit also Natural history museum of Kathmandu. By the way now it's time for finnish midsummer festival and I'm little bit pissed of because of Embassy of Finland has sauna-night today, but I'm not invited because I've been lazy and slow with filling up the embassy's information form of me… But no can do, at least I prepared my own midsummer meal and ate candies… a lot! :)
See you again SOON, I promise!
Heli
And still, nepali cats are beautiful! :)
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