Patan - 8 October 2019

After spending a leisurely morning in Bhaktapur we ride to Patan in the afternoon, Here we visit Patan, Durbar Square and the Golden Temple. One of the first places we visit is where the Sadhu, Hindu Hoy Men reside. These ascetics spend their days in mediation, perhaps aided by some form of narcotic. I'm not sure on that. But while they have taken vows of poverty they are not above posing for us for some small compensation!
Walking into the place we are greeting by a hoard of monkeys. Yes, they are cute but they can also be nasty and we have been warned not to feed or engage them in anyway.
We meet several of these holy men. A few pictures of them in their bizzare attire follow:

Look where his right foot is

While there we witnessed a couple of funerals. First the family washes the body in the river and then places it on a funeral pyre and set it ablaze.

Later we visited Durbar Square. Inside one of the museums a friendly security guard agreed to pose for me. Gotta love a gal in uniform!

We also visited a home for the aged, where Nathan once again produced photos he had taken on a previous trip to the delight of some of the residents. For the most part they were cute old folks who would smile for the camera but a few were a bit crotchety, which I can relate to. We were instructed not to give any money directly to the residents but to place a donation in a designated box.While we were there, the staff was doling out food and small amounts of cash to the elders. The home surrounds a fairly elaborate temple.

While in one of the many temples in the square, Nathan asked a young couple to pose for us. After a couple of shots of the two of them, he told the husband that we really wanted to photograph his wife. He was OK with that.  While in the temple Nathan set up a shot for us with 4 of 5 prayer wheels spinning and one stationary. Nothing fantastic but a small lesson in creativity.



Further along we came across this beautiful little girl dancing uninhibitedly, as her mother watched.

On the way back to our hotel we were reminded how ubiquitous Coke is in the world.

That evening we returned to photograph the busy square as the sun set and presented us with a dramatic sky. Because of the Daishin festival the square was crazy busy with people as shown in the foreground of the photo below.

Bhaktapur - 7 October 2019

So it's 5:30 AM and I find myself atop a local hotel setting up my tripod and camera to photograph a beautiful sunrise. But the weather does not cooperate, it's overcast. Still it is interesting to see so many of the locals out and about already, Down in the square below vendors are starting to put out their wares. The meandering trucks and motorbikes leave light trails through our photos. Later as we descend into the square mobs of folks are already shopping for the day's meals. Everything is fresh, on the hoof so to speak in some cases, and people shop everyday.

Wandering around the market provides a lot of photo ops, but eventually we head back to the hotel for breakfast.



After lunch we visited one of the art schools for a short lecture on the very intricate religious art work seen a numerous souvenir locations.


Then a bus ride to Kathmandu and Durbar Square. It is definitely holy week because the traffic in streets leading into the square is unreal! Wall to wall people and motor scooters all trying to get someplace. I'm trying to keep up with the group and grab some pics at the same time. Amazingly there is this little honey sleeping on the front of a motor scooter as her dad tries to navigate through the crowd.


Occasionally we pop into side streets where the traffic is a bit more manageable and grab some shots. The variety of vendors and items for sale is mind boggling. Who buys all this stuff?  A flute vendor poses for us. Nathan gives him some rupees, but true to his trade he tries to sell me a flute.
There's a kid trying to fly a kite on the street. What is he thinking? We find a guy playing some kind of one string instrument and an elderly diva sitting in front of a shrine. Then there is the Steph Curry look-alike, selling fish. Street food vendors are selling, I don't know what!

In the square itself there is a line of people waiting to get into to the temple that exceeds anything I have ever seen! If they had those signs like you find at amusement parks, it would probably say something like, "From this point the wait is two days"!

Selling snacks to folks in line

Later we take a pedicab to dinner

Bhaktapur - 6 Oct 2019

Early morning, about 4:30 AM, I heard a commotion outside my window. Looking down into the square below I could see groups of people setting bonfires atop what looked like huge masses. A short time earlier the water buffalo I had seen yesterday in that location had been sacrificed and now the people were preparing to butcher the carcasses. The bonfires were to burn off the fur and soften the skin for removal. It sounds barbaric to us, being used to buying meat at the grocery store, all neatly wrapped for us. I once heard Garrison Keillor say that people who were involved with the slaughtering of their own meat were more respectful of the animal and more appreciative of the fact that it was about to give its life so we could go on living. I don't know if that was just poetry, but I would like to believe it is true.


After the group breakfast some folks stayed for a workshop with Nathan, going over basic camera functions and Adobe Lightroom usage. The rest of us took a walking tour with our Nepalese tour guide, Bipin, looking for photo ops. Being that I really like photographing people, here are a few of my favorites from the walk.

Lady selling pottery

After lunch we went out again on a different route, where I first came across men playing chess, and a man enjoying his houka. Again I am taking photos of people just doing ordinary things, but what comes through is the smiles. Hardly a person refuses to be photographed, a few ask for money, but most are happy to allow you to take their picture and really seem to enjoy seeing the result on the back of the camera. In some cases, Nathan has brought prints of people he has photographed on previous trips and sometimes he finds those people again and can give the print as in the case below.

Street food vendor

Pottery kiln

Pottery  is a big enterprise in Nepal and wandering about I came across a crude (by modern standards) kiln in operation.

It was also interesting to find men gambling right in the street.

Proud Grandma want child to pose for me