Seeing a stretch of the Himalayas more than 300 km long also gives you a sense of the curvature of the earth and the profile created by the peaks and ranges of the Himalayas is something also created by the forces of the earth that created the very mountains themselves.
On Wednesday we left Kathmandu, visited Baktapur and had lunch and then our guide left us while the driver took us to a nearby but higher town of Nagarkot. The Kathmandu valley is at 1300 meters and Nagarkot is at 2000 meters.
It is a narrow mountain road. It was constructed as a two lane paved road but what with washout and wear and tear, it is mostly a one-lane road now and you need to pull two wheels off the pavement every time you meet an oncoming car or truck.
You see lots of terraces as in Peru. In Peru, however, the terraces (called andenes) are made of stone while here they are packed mud. A consequence is that many terraces here have to be rebuilt after each rainy season.
Even well out of Kathmandu the roads have a lot of vehicle traffic on them; mostly motor cycles. People complain about all the motorcycles but just image if they were all cars instead. The relative wealth of Nepal when compared with Peru can be seen in the large number of motorcycles.
Well we arrived about 3PM at the hotel, called The Fort. Nagarkot means “town with a fort”. It was breathtaking. The hotel consists of a main building and several two and three-story cottages.
This is a shot of the lounge at the hotel. Those are the Himalayas outside the window, which you would be able to see if I had a better camera.
Since the cottages are built into a steep hill they don't stick out at all. Each cottage room has an unobstructed view of the Himalayas. At least if there are no clouds, which there weren't. The doors to the cottages have brass fittings and are locked with a padlock.
The hotel has a widow's walk at the top of the main building and we climbed it to view the sunset on the backside of the hill – the hotel is on the eastern slope of the same hill. It was windy but not too cold.
Here comes the sun.
We woke in the morning to a relatively clear day and the sun coming up over the eastern ranges of the Himalayas. The beauty of the scene, the tranquil gardens in which we could walk, the respect from the hotel staff to leave us alone with our moment with the mountains, are not something anyone will soon forget.
The mountains are at some distance, across a large valley and behind more foothills. So they don't tower over you. However, the long uninterrupted range of the mountains have a sense of command over everything below, us included.
Mount Everest is in the eastern most part of the Himalayas and behind the range we were looking at so we could only imagine its location. Several 8000 meter + peaks seemed to be lower than closer, lowerer summits, precisely because they were further away.
It was a lovely garden and I guess the only garden tool you really need is an adz – different size for different job
So we headed back to Kathamndu. These guys were smoothing out the road (about to be paved) with hand trowels.
When we left Nagarkot we met our guide along the way and visited a Tibetan Arts and Crafts Cooperative run by refugees. Carpets were their main product and exquisitely done. Very expensive but they are happy to ship DHL to you ($9/kg according to them but I doubt that). Like just about everywhere else, we could look and admire but not acquire.
After the cooperative we were taken to two villages to see a bit of daily life. We really didn't take our camera out but did see daily life unfold; a woman washing her dog, people drying various seeds and grains, old men sitting in a sunny corner.
According to our guide, these people were not poor. At best they were “land-rich” perhaps, but open sewers and flies everywhere do not speak about material wealth.
Adios Nepal
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