The Trinational Adventure: Part 6 - Kathmandu (II)

- April 29-30, 2011, Friday-Saturday.

- Before I write anything regarding this album, I would just like to say that I am still deeply upset for accidentally deleting all the photos that can be seen in this album until the end during a file transfer mishap. I nearly burst into tears, until I realized that file recovery softwares exist. I asked help from really good friends, and I was able to retrieve most pictures, and thankfully, the really important pictures. Some nice or semi-important pictures might not have been retrievable, but the highlights, at least, were retrieved. Anyway, I won't say further because I might just be more depressed.

- We arrived at Kathmandu via Buddha Air, and we were immediately ushered to our hotel, so we could rest until dinner time. I had been waiting for that day's dinner because it was going to be in a local restaurant where we'd be enjoying local food, with a short cultural show. Our other two companions decided to just stay in the hotel because they were really tired from their morning activities in Pokhara. My mom and I, however, wanted to go, since we both like looking at cultures and performances of other nations.

In our hotel.

Trying out Bieber's hair.

- At around 7pm, the driver fetched us at the hotel, and drove around Kathmandu until we reached the restaurant. The restaurant, Kathmandu Kitchen, was located at the higher-end area of Kathmandu. We had never seen the high-end area of Kathmandu, until that day. All that time, we thought that Kathmandu was still "stuck in the past," until we saw Van Heusen, United Colors of Benetton, and such. Not that we were belittling Kathmandu, or Nepal in general, but it's just that most of the places where our car passed by were small stores that barely had electricity (the government regulates electricity, especially in Pokhara, aside from the lakeside area.) residential areas that looked like regular flats, or pagods and stupas.

- At the restaurant, we were served momos (dumplings,) rice, lentils, lamb, chicken, and vegetables. We were also given Nepalese rice wine, and my mom was scared that if I drank a lot, I'd be drunk; I don't drink, and the rice wine might have been too alcoholic for me. Still, I was able to enjoy a courtship dance, marriage dance, local countryside dance, a peacock dance, and the shaman dance. After dinner, we headed back to our hotel to rest, in preparation to our flight to Thailand the following day.

The host.

Courtship dance.

A festival dance.

My favorite peacock dance.

I can't believe a person can fit inside that costume. The dancer must feel uncomfortable.

The peacock pecking my mom's head.

Shaman chanting and dance.

- Plenty of things happened in the morning before finally leaving Nepal. We were able to ride a Buddha Air plane to see the snow-capped Himalayan mountains. There, we saw all the highest peaks in the world, including Mt. Everest. I am also upset that I wasn't able to take a picture of Mt. Everest, because I was looking at the WRONG MOUNTAIN the whole time. All 18 passengers were given a detailed map/drawing of the maountains that we'd be seeing, and sadly, the one I was looking at (the 5th tallest peak) looked a lot like the Everest picture in my map. I was finall able to see Everest, but only for a short while, because I saw it from the other side of the plane, and that I didn't know it was Everest because the peak was covered by really thick clouds. I was able to take a picture of the base of the Everest, but it was one of the "semi-important" pictures that I wasn't able to retrieve after I accidentally deleted the pictures. Also, I think Buddha Air should clean their windows, especially the airplanes taking people to the mountains, when looking out the window is a must. It might not have mattered when the windows were a bit blurry in our Pokhata-Kathmandu plane, but it really irritated me during our mountain ride. Still, I found out that we were lucky enough to be able to fly to the mountains, because rain started to pour violently after the plane landed. All succeeding flights of Buddha Air to the mountains were cancelled due to the heavy rain; it would have been dangerous to travel, and even if it were, mountains could not have been seen clearly.

Snow-capped mountains.

Our pilots.

Wow.

I love how the light just barely touches my face.

- Our last stops were supposed to be the Tibetan Refugee Camp in Kathmandu (the one we went to was in Pokhara,) and the thanka painting school. Since it was a Saturday, the refugee camp was closed. It was OK, since we've been to the larger one in Pokhara, but it was a must - at least for me - to see the thanka painting school.

- We soon realized that the thanka painting school was located inside the Boudhanath complex, which made us more irritated at our Kathmandu guide during our first two days in Nepal. Our guide should have told us about the thanka painting school when we visited the Boudhanath complex on our first day. (The one who accompanied us and served as our tour guide for that morning was the representative from the travel agency.) Because it was a Saturday, we weren't able to see students painting the intricate, elaborate, and highly-detailed religious paintings. However, the students left their brushes, paint bottles, and canvasses of unfinished works, so we were still able to see the earlier steps of making thanka paintings. In the end, we were led to a room full of thanka paintings made by their beginner, intermediate, and professional students. Of course, their works were being sold, and the prices would vary according to the level of the painter.

I wanted to get all of them.

I like how the geometric patterns are met with religious and spiritual meanings.

This one's quite expensive. The gold kind of gives it away.

Thanka in the works.

- After leaving the Boudhanath, we headed towards airport and "Bye Bye Nepal!!" according to the travel agency representative. I am missing Nepal right now despite the car accident and the irritating tour guide, but I would have loved to stay more and go to other parts of Nepal, such as Lumbini (Siddhartha Gautama's birthplace,) Janapkpur (the ancient city of Mithala, where Rama and Sita got married,) and Nagarkot (where the snow-capped mountains could be seen on land, as well as other fantastic sceneries.)