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Today was sightseeing day. We set off early to discover Durbar Square, the main historic centre of Kathmandu. A 10 minute walk through the winding streets and wooden buildings was order of the day to get there. We stopped off at a small jewellers shop where Helen discussed nose piercings with the friendly owner. We agreed that nose rings were made for farm animals so she opted for a nice silver stud which involved the help of a young guy to remove the one she got in India! We continued our travels to the square. Durbar square was significantly damaged in the April 2015 earthquake and many of the historic buildings and temples were damaged or destroyed. Nevertheless it was an impressive sight. We wondered around for a while talking to market sellers and prospective guides. One guide managed to latch onto us and after a 30 minute or so sales pitch, we decided to go with him!
We started off the temple of the living goddess. This is a small temple that is always the home of a young budist girl, who is heralded as a goddess in the Nepalese culture. We arrived just in time to get one of the few rare glimpses of her. For around one minute she appeared at a window above us, dressed in lavish costume and make up. The living goddess is a selected girl who serves from the age of around 5 until menstruation when a new goddess is selected. The criteria for selection is someone who comes from the same family as Buddha. She must have smooth, pale skin, big eyes like a cow and the bravery of a lion. If she meets this criteria she is taken, at the age of 4 or 5 to a large temple and must witness the sacrifice of hundreds of animals (yaks and sheep where some if I remember) without crying. We were a little sceptical to whether this process always runs like this! We spent an hour or so exploring the other temples and buildings. We learned of the governments inability to share the billions of dollars raised as part of earthquake appeals, with the Nepalese people affected by the disaster. We spent the rest of the day exploring Kathmandu's Thamel area. It's much cooler and cleaner than India with fewer motorbikes and cars. We spent the evening at the Garden of Dreams which was nice but didn't really warrant the 400 rupee entrance fee! It was starting to get dark so we decided on a last minute dash to the monkey temple. We managed to negotiate for a taxi to take us and drop us back in town after. We arrived at 7 as most people were leaving however the temple was really nice as the sun was going down. It looked just like the set from an Indiana jones film with monkeys darting from temple to temple. On the way down Helen did some excellent negotiations for a Tibetan prayer bowl and we were on our way through the dark, back to the taxi. We had a good chat with the driver (in Nepalese English) on the way back. We asked about his family so he asked us if we would like to come to his house and meet them at no extra charge. We were on our way to a very
'local' part of Kathmandu with dirt streets and many earthquake damaged homes and buildings. We pulled up and made our way into his home, which turned out to be one very small room for him, his wife and his son and daughter. His wife made us some masala chai and we read his daughters schools books with her. We had a short drive back to Thamel where he demanded more money from us, so the promise of using him as our driver for tomorrow was gone!
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