Visit of an oldest and smallest city of Kathmandu Valley

Last Saturday (30^th March, 2008), me, Ajay and Evette went to Bhaktapur. Now let me explain you about Bhaktapur before I start my story. Bhaktapur is the oldest and the smallest city of Nepal. It is also called as Bhadgaon or Khwopa, which is one of the 3 historic cities of Kathmandu Valley. The meaning of Bhaktapur is "the city of devotees". The city is famous for Yoghurt, traditional art and architecture, pottery and weaving industries, rich in local customs and culture.

So now you have a little knowledge of Bhaktapur. For Nepali and as well as tourist it is the main attraction and though it is easy to reach there so we also decided to go there. Though we (Ajay and me) have been there so many times but still every time we visit it, we see something new. So first reached Bhaktapur by a local bus and it only took 45 minutes to reach there. First of all Evette need to pay the tourist amount to enter the Durbar Square (World Heritage site) but Ajay took us from the sneaky way to the Durbar Square. Near the Nyatapole (it is the 30m tall temple built in 1708 AD), there one prayer ceremony was going on to build the chariot for Nepali New Year which is going to happen in 2 weeks from now and it is called Bisket Jatra. A big crowd will gather here in Bhaktapur to celebrate the festival from Bhaktapur and as well as from Kathmandu. We stayed there for few minutes and took pictures. Then we headed to see other thing so we went the place which is for pottery making place, beaten rice factory, Durbar Square and then finally to one roof top restaurant to have a view of everything which was happening at Durbar Square. We had a great view and we could see people coming and going and doing their daily routine and few tourists with their cameras and there was also a crowd of people who were busy making a documentary about Nepal or about Bhaktapur. Then finally in the afternoon, we planned to go back Kathmandu because we needed to go back and do some of our works. We went to take the bus but how can we leave Bhaktapur with out eating Yoghurt (because Bhaktapur is famous for yoghurt), so we went to one local sweets shop where we always go when we come to Bhaktapur and had yoghurt and fried potatoes and papad rolls, huh Yummy! After that we sat outside for few views of Bhaktapur and in the pond there were few water buffalos swimming and women were washing cloths on side of the pond and one old man was washing something and then suddenly water buffalos came out of the water and then the women were running and they tryied to scare water buffalos but they were looking more scared than the water buffalos J. Then we also started laughing and then we walked to the bus station and took our microbus which was going to Kathmandu.

So friends, this is it for now and I hope you enjoyed reading about my trip to Bhaktapur, like I enjoyed writing it for you all.

Big Hug,

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