Day 4 - Poppy

Day four in Nepal started off with us visiting a Fire Station in central Kathmandu. Here we saw the appliances they use daily and talked to the on call firefighters about their latest jobs. The comparisons between their resources and ours is astounding, I think we all realised how lucky we are in the UK.

Leaving the Fire Station we then visited Durbar Square to see a few Hindu and Buddhist temples, allowing us to see the living goddess Kumari. Kumari only leaves the highly decorated building she lives in for festivals 13 times a year, but appears in a window for less than a minute daily for the locals to worship her. 

We then visited the royal palace where the monarchy remained until its dissolution in 2008, learning all about the controversy with the crown Prince and the last king: Gyanendra Bir Bikram Shah. We explored the royal grounds, buying souvenirs as we went and engaging with the locals. 

Next our team travelled to Patan, a city separated by a river from Kathmandu. Here our tour guide took us on a tour of the local houses, and the intricate woodwork engravings on the buildings that survived the 2015 earthquake. Most of this was spent crouching down through small passageways to travel from courtyard to courtyard! 

Lunch was on the rooftop of a lovely restaurant, where we all ordered the same food except for one! Our grilled chicken sandwiches were lovely!! 

We continued our sightseeing activities by visiting the golden temple- which is a temple full of engraved gold statues and a highly decorated central stupa, which was also gold. We finished the day by visiting a second palace, which was under renovations from the earthquake, enjoying the museum on the top floor. 

To complete our day we visited Gorkana house for authentic Nepal cuisine with lots of Nepalese dancing! Back to the hotel for card games and off to bed for us, early start in the morning!!

Poppy