A Homestay, A Stupa, and Many Monkeys

For the first seven days in Nepal,
Ivan and I stayed with Puran and Bina Rai.
The view from the stairwell of their home
had more buildings than
I may have ever seen in my entire life.

Every day, we dodged colorful walls

and monsoon pools to make it to our door.

When it wasn't monsoon-ing

(yep that's a word),

we al fresco'ed on the rooftop,

in true Kathmandu fashion.

Down below,

the streets were rarely empty.

Unless it was early morning,

like 8am.

Then the streets were kind of empty.

We spent our very first rupees

at a cafe - on masala tea,

of course.

Every day was an adventure

of the urban variety.

The only thing wrong with a picture of only tuktuk traffic

is that it misses all of the motorcycles.

And when you're in KTM,

you can't NOT hear the motorcycles.

I have not yet experienced a holy bath
in the holy Bagmati river.

I have experienced the near-holy
food of Bina.

We all experienced it.

After having walked around Thamel,
and sufficiently de-jetlagging,
we decided it was time to see Swayambhunath.

We crossed some paths.

We climbed some steps.

365 of them. At an altitude of 1400m.

I wasn't trained for this.

We saw the first monkey.

(It's also called Monkey Temple,

because of all the monkeys.)

And we took pictures of,
and with, the magnificent stupa.

For the name Monkey Temple,
there were a lot of other animals too.

Maybe it should have been nicknamed
Monkey, Cat, and Dog Temple?

But yes, there were lots of monkeys.

I was fascinated by them,
Ivan seemed to be less so.

I could have spent hours following them around,
especially the ones near the pool.

I tried to get pictures of swimming monkeys,
but you'll just have to believe me that they really were.

Even though Kathmandu weather is cooler than
much of Southeast Asia at this time,
it was still hot enough to melt a monkey's ice cream.

On the way back, we crossed an even more precarious path.
This one, Ivan swears,
had motorcycle tracks across it.

Did we mention it's monsoon season?

And that there are curries in Nepal?

And lassi?

And tea?

And rain?

But it really isn't as bad as they warned.
There are still plenty of sunny hours during the day.

And if not, just go inside for some dal bhat.
(Lentils, rice, and vegetables.)

Or momos.

I do love me some momos.

Distinguished guests, come 'round.
Let me tell you a story,
a story of the greatest drink you have ever conceived.

It is called Frooto.

Disclaimer: I have not actually tasted Frooto.
I just love the name.

Every time we walked back from Thamel,
the tourist area of Kathmandu,
we would pass this bakery.

Well, on the last day, we had to try it.
Cupcake in a bag?