Out of order... blog from about November 3rd

Had a wonderful 11hrs sleep last night, a fantastic breakfast of tibetan traditional bread, an omelette freshly cooked in front of me, orange-ish juice and some croissants, and then the five of us set off on an adventure! On foot, we walked to Durbar Square, where we found ourselves a tour guide (well, he found us) and we followed him around for over an hour getting a fantastic view of the temples and surrounding areas. We visited a temple of "the living goddess", where lives a 6 year old who is only allowed out of the temple 13 times in a year and is never allowed touch the ground until she mentstruates, then she is allowed to go back to her home and she is replaced by a new 3-4 year old "living goddess". Our tour guide called out to her keeper, and so she stood in the window for us... not a very happy looking girl, but quite pretty. Of course, no photos.

Then we looked at the "hippie temple" so named because of all the marijuana-smoking hippie tourists in the 1960s.... and it's still ok for foreigners to smoke weed up there but nepali people get into trouble.

Then the Kama Sutra temple... very strange beginnings, has the Kama Sutra: it was invented by Hindu authorities to increase the population... though I don't see how some of the positions depicted on the temple could lead to an increase in the population. 

Then the Museum of the Royal Palace, which is essentially a temple to all the late kings... very interesting! Fascinating that although he was the King of Nepal, there's nothing really in the palace that your average rich westerner couldn't afford (with the exception of the golden throne and chariot). Climbing up to the ninth storey on rickety stairs was amazing... the view was well worth the risk!

Then a short walk through downtown Kathmandu and to a bus stop where we got on a semi-random bus... a leap of faith if we ever took one! Turns out, it was the right one.. and I made a friend, 12-year-old Sadikshya, a very beautiful and intelligent local girl who spoke English quite well. She gave me a hair clip and made the bus trip (in which we were packed like sardines) rather enjoyable. She is an amazing little girl, and I hope to stay in touch with her... we exchanged email addresses and facebook accounts so fingers crossed. A word of warning from my new little friend - Don't take any food into the Buddhist Temple because if you do, the monkeys will jump on you and scratch your face until they get all the food from you.

The monkeys were ADORABLE. Little babies clinging to mummy's back and running around fighting each other. The temple was quite a sight, and the view from the top of the hill was breathtaking - really gave me a sense of significance as compared to all the amazing places in the world that God created. We were heckled a lot and bought few things, bartering quite a bit.

The taxi ride back in a beaten up van was quite an experience too.

Now off to dinner... I'm starving..

much love xx