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.