View from museum at Durbar Square, Basantapur

There is a Palace Museum in Durbar Square that is filled with artifacts and photos from the previous Kings. As part of the museum, you can also climb up the ancient nine story Basantapur tower which offers great views of the city. I'd definitely recommend going if you have the time.

You are required to leave your camera in a locker at the entrance of the museum...but luckily I happened to have two cameras on me and I had the small one hidden in my purse! I snuck a few photos from the top of the tower when no one was looking.

You can see the Buddhist Swayambhunath Temple up on the hill on the left hand-side.

Kopan Monastery and Gokarna Temple

A group of my new friends were in the mood for some walking/hiking this weekend, so we decided to try Lonely Planet's recommendation of a walk that goes from Boudha village to Kopan Monastery and then to Gorkana temple. Unfortunately it was cloudy and rainy in the morning, so the photos are a bit grey overall.

Starting at 9:30am, we took a taxi to Boudha (also spelled Boudhanath and other variations) which has the one the largest spherical stupas in Nepal and is an UNESCO heritage site. Around the base of the stupa there are lots of little shops and cafes to visit. I liked that we could also climb up the stupa to see it up close.

After a bit of exploring, we started our walk to Kopan Monastery. This walk is actually along a paved road that winds through a neighborhood and then eventually climbs up a big hill to the monastery. I wasn't actually timing our walk, but I'd estimate it took about 40 minutes...just enough for us to get extremely hot and hungry as we climbed toward the Buddhist monastery.

We ate lunch at Kopan Monastery too. No food picture attached, but my friend and I split plates of vegetable pokara, cooked vegetables and fruit & yogurt for about 160 rupees each / $1.80 USD.

Leaving the Monastery to the Hindu Gokarna temple, we walked for about 45 minutes along a dirt path that wound it's way around the hills (see photo below). It was a really pretty walk, surrounded by beautiful hills and I bet you could see more mountains if it was a clear day.

To reach the temple we eventually walked downhill into a town.

The temple is situated along a wider section of this river.

Load-shedding

Nepal uses hydropower to generate most of their electricity and this can cause a lot of problems with power shortages throughout the country. The summer monsoon season creates the most power, but as the rain dries up there are an increasing number of power outages. I've read that Nepal is actually the perfect environment for the use of hydropower because of its typography, but the country has only developed a small portion of its hydropower potential - leaving it unable to meet demand.

Now we are at the tail end of the monsoon, but the government has already set a power cut schedule of 46 hours per week to manage electricity demand in Kathmandu Valley. Apparently these are the good days!!

By winter, load shedding could reach up to 16 hours per day.

Above is an example of the load-shedding schedule for this week. The different groups are organized by location (my flat is located in group 3) and today I'll have no power from 12pm-3pm and 8pm to 11pm. The worst is when the electricity goes out at night because the sun is currently setting at 6:30 and it can be completely dark by 7pm. This is when my head lamp comes in handy!

Monkey, dog and a view

I recently moved into an apartment that I found through a very popular google group called KTMKTM. I have two flatmates, one from Germany and one from Canada, and we have a dog that is ownded by the family below us, which is always outside barking at the gate. 

This morning I woke up early because our dog was barking extremely loudly at a passing monkey.

If I look out beyond the gate, this is the view from my bedroom window:

Nepali cooking 101: Momo

Since arriving I've been learning more about the Nepali cuisine and have tried so many different local dishes - everything from buffalo brain to tasty daal bhaat. Momo, which are somewhat similar to steamed dumplings, are one of my favorite things to eat.

Today I took a cooking class with Social Tours in order to learn how to cook momo. The class began by shopping for ingredients...

The cabbage, red onions, carrot, coriander, green spring onions, ginger and garlic had to be very finely chopped/ground and then mixed together with the spices - turmeric, cumin, red chili powder, garammasala and MoMoMasala. The tomatoes were used to make a spicey sauce that goes well with the momos. The dough part of momos is a mixture of flour and water. We made vegetarian momo and chicken momo.

The toughest part (also the most fun) was actually wrapping the momo with the dough because it's a bit of an art form in itself.

That is my first attempt at folding a momo! It's definitely not perfect and a bit too squashed, but I think I improved with practice. This momo was folded using a round technique, but we also made another style which are longer and more like a fan shape. After folding the momos, they went into a steamer for roughly 15 minutes.

A quick stop at Durbar Square and dinner

I plan to return again, but I happened to walk by Durbar Square and only took a few photos of the surrounding area. This square dates back to the 11th century and is another UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Last night my friend P invited me to visit his family home and to eat some home-made Nepali food with them. It was such a treat and I feel really lucky to have been included in dinner. The house is situated right near Durbar Square and it is a historical sight in itself. The house is hundreds of years old and the family is not allowed to make renovations because of it's history. It was a beautiful home with a courtyard and multiple floors. The ceilings are all very low, partially because the average Nepali is only 5 foot 3 inches tall and also because it is built to be resistant to Nepal's frequent earthquakes.

We had a number of appetizers to start (fried fish, spiced peanuts, pickled vegetables, cooked soy beans, fried chicken, papadums, etc) and then for dinner we had Dhal Bhaat. It included a portion of rice with different foods that you mix into it. Last night we had chicken, chickpeas and a tomato pickle sauce. There is also a bamboo soup that I didn't include in the photo. Everything was delicious and very filling!

My friend's brother gave me a lift home on his motorcycle, which was an incredibly easy and fast way to get through the narrow streets with traffic. Now I understand why so many people choose to drive motorcycles here...if only I could too!

It's not a monsoon unless it's flooding

 

I happened to be a 15-20 minute walk away from my hotel when a heavy rain started. It was crazy when I had to cross this street too! I was drenched by the time I got back and I'm a little worried that my Birkenstocks aren't going to survive after walking down these streets.