Lets start where we wrapped up last time - Kathmandu. We took a look at the next town from Kathmandu, Patan, arriving at its main square at sunset for some free jazz as part of the Kathmandu jazz festival - lovely evening.
On our wanders around the city we found little cloisters down tiny hidden alleys which opened out into random courtyards with gorgeous ancient temples in the centre. And sometimes the odd barn.
The wonderful family at Happy Home Guesthouse where we stayed on and off for over two weeks. Sarita the proprietress, her sister and their cousin Hari are THE smiliest people I've ever met in my life. They're just unbelieveably sweet and made our time there perfect. During the Dewali festival they forced us to come up to their rooftop and eat their delicious food, poured gallons of homebrewed ricewine down our throats and the two little daughters of Sarita and her sister performed perfect little lip-synching dances to popular Hindi songs. It was better than Christmas!
It was part of the Tihar festival actually, which goes for days and days and is lots of fun. Packs of marauding kids crowd around outside the entranceways to every single business on a street and chant a song until the owners come out and give them some money to go away. One day sisters honour their brothers by painting a coloured tikka on their foreheads. Another day it's the turn of the street cows who are honoured in a similar way.
The best though, is the dog-honouring day. I went for a run one morning and the mangy dogs in the street were all festooned with garlands of sweet-smelling flowers round their necks and red tikkas on their brows and were being petted and fed by everyone around and looking damn happy for themselves I must say! My absolute favourite was at the place we had brekky where the owners 2 year old daughter was padding about eating a packet of chips with a fluffy white pooch at her heels with his flowers and red spot, looking longingly at the chips. The owner strode up, relieved the girl of her chips, sat the dog on a swing chair and proceeded to rock the dog back and forth while handfeeding him one chip after another as the puppy lay back in his new throne and graciously accepted his due! Yep Nepal was one cool place.
Oh here's a random shot of the view of Kathmandu from the top of a nearby hill we climbed
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