merry christmas to all my readers

Poinsettias blooming in Bhutan
- picture by Norma

I'm now enjoying a restful stay on the beach in Thailand after 6 weeks on the go.
The blog is fairly up to date and so is the picture site. I will follow with Hong Kong in the next few days.

Have I achieved peace, serenity and happiness in my trip so far? Not exactly, but I certainly feel relaxed and already have many fond memories of people and places that will be with me always. It's also made me think more seriously about the world, the ways people live and are treated, and the philosophies they follow. After almost 49 days* I haven't quite achieved enlightenment yet though - but watch this blog!

I hope that you too enjoy the holiday season and achieve the goals you set yourself for the next year - I hope they include a long holiday like mine as I certainly recommend it!

Keith
Christmas Day 2006

*the length of time the Buddha spent meditating under the banyan tree

india - agra and no tigers

Now I couldn’t really expect everything to go all right for the full six months. And these 5 days in India went all wrong! Anyway this would be a boring narrative if it was too smooth. My new driver, Soran, is not a patch on Nandu. His driving is appalling. Whenever he talks, which is most of the time, he loses concentration and slows right down to under 30km, wandering all over the road as vehicles hoot and squeeze past on both sides. I resign myself to 1000km of watching the traffic ahead recede as lorries, tuk tuks, bikes swerve past, dangerously close, to fill up the gap. Indian drivers abhor a vacuum. I point out that he’s the slowest on the road, and hogging the outside lane. The outside lane, he explains, is for small vehicles. Lorries are not meant to go there, but they do. Why? Because they have no respect for the law. Traffic law in India very good, but no-one follow it. Why? Because Indian police little bit corrupt. Though he chatters away, most of what Soran says is difficult to follow, and where I do understand, boring. And almost everything he says follows the why-because format.

Somehow we eventually reach Agra. The Taj Mahal in the late afternoon sunlight is everything it’s cracked up to be. It’s even biger than I expected it to be, flanked by a mosque and its mirror image – ‘the Answer’ – which are big buildings in their own right. They make a perfect composition when seen from the gateway, and with the reflecting pool stretching in front. I’m struck by how many pictures I’ve taken in India, and also in Nepal and Bhutan, of the framing views of entrances. The entry sequence, the framing and revelation of an inspired view, is something they understand well here

The only pain is that all the staff are on the make, and trying to charge you for holding your camera or pointing out the best (obvious) views. It really disturbs what would otherwise be a serene experience. The interior, which is cool, dim and austere, in delicately carved white marble, is likewise rather wrecked by overcrowding and noisy guides bawling out spurious information and testing the echo. But the Taj Mahal rises serenely above all this and holds its own.

There is a very loud wedding in the hotel that night. ‘Tis the season to be married and everywhere you see uniformed brass bands on the move, guys on white horses galloping to the next gig, and the Bollywood style sets for the engagement parties. And every night there is blaring music and fireworks.

Agra Fort next morning is impressive – far more so than Delhi Fort, with a huge perimeter wall and a multiplicity of palaces – this was the centre of power at the height of the Moghul empire. Though partly wrecked by the British, and badly neglected since, much still remains that is very fine, particularly from the time of Shah Jehan.

Near to Agra, now a poor and dusty place, lies the abandoned city of Fatehpur Sikri, built on an imperial whim and then abandoned within 11 years when the water ran out. I had somehow expected something remote, shimmering in the desert as we approached, like a mirage, but this is India. A whole town dedicated to tourism has sprung up at its gates, and the hassle is as intense as at the Taj Mahal. Endless offers to guide (the guides are never guides. O no, Sir, I am a student/archaeologist and I just want to show you… if you like to give me something it’s up to you…) They try to charge me for minding shoes at the mosque. Then there’s the guy who whips off his shirt and screams ‘Acapulco’ at me from the side of a nasty green algae covered water tank, offering to dive into the typhoid laden water. Anything for a good tip. The city, if you can get away from this circus for a few minutes, is amazing, with the finest sandstone carving and exquisitely proportioned courtyards and palaces.

Then we are off to the national park where I apparently have a 90% chance of seeing tigers in the wild. We finally reach the hotel just outside the park after nightfall, only to find it has been closed by court order. ‘May be open tomorrow Sir. Why? Because judge will announce tomorrow,’ Soran informs me. As the best time to see tigers is apparently at dawn this is no use.

The room in the hotel has fixed open ventilation grilles which means (a) it’s freezing cold and (b) noisy as hell because, guess what, the hotel is hosting a wedding party and is also right next to a level crossing on the main line to Delhi so there are hoots and rattles and bells all night. Add to this a case of severe diarrhoea and I’m not feeling too hot. I decide to cut my losses and head back to Delhi a day early.

This seems like a good decision until we stop at Jaipur for lunch. Soran drops me at a nice garden restaurant but then disappears for two hours. ‘Why? Because I have to go to doctor and take tuk tuk but traffic very bad so little bit late Sir.’ He is in a suspiciously good mood and his driving style goes from one extreme to the other: suddenly he’s overtaking on blind bends, accelerating through the gap between passing lorries, and hooting with the best of them. ‘I drive little bit fast Sir,’ he grins. ‘Why? Because very late back to Delhi Sir,’ as he screeches off the road into the dirt to get past a tractor, sending dogs and chickens and small children scurrying.


I survive the trip and here I am back in Karol Bagh. The flirty bell boy seems pleased to see me a day early. Somehow all the bell boys in Karol Bagh are flirty… no doubt it’s good for the tips!

<< <<

Last view - from the tarmac at Paro airport - can any airport compete?

Now it’s the fast rewind. A night in Punakha, lunch in Thimpu, a day in Paro, another in Kathmandu – where I took full advantage of Dwarika’s hotel on a miserable and unseasonal wet day: got all my laundry done, had a long soak in the bath and a final meal with Gus and Norma in the posh restaurant. 6 courses, all exquisitely done (next time I’ll try the 12 or 15 course option!). Then one night in Karol Bagh before it’s off again with Abyss Tours.

bhutan – bumthang and gangtey

Bumthang valley at dawn

Another day, another valley. Bumthang is much more gently sloping with flat bottoms and real fields, though it’s mainly cattle here, as it’s too high and cold for rice to grow. It has an Alpine feel with its heavily pine wooded slopes rising up and up, and there is a distinct Swiss influence, brought by a Swiss national who married and settled here, importing alpine cattle breeds, and knowledge of emmental style cheese, yogurt, beer and so on. The Bhutanese have never looked back and awarded him the equivalent of a knighthood.

We stay in a pleasant Swiss chalet of a hotel on the flanks of the valley, and have some gentle walks around the valley, visiting a little village where they open up the temple specially for us to see. An ancient wizened man and a hip-hop style youth take us inside. The afternoon sunlight slants across the dark space full of painted images and sil hangings. The village puja was held the weekend before and we are offered to drink the village rice wine brew – from a human skull – plus some holy water which we are meant to sip and brush on our hair in the approved manner.

The next day takes us to the head of the valley on the world’s bumpiest road, to the last village, Ngang Lhakhang – the next habitation going north is in Tibet. We are privileged to be able to see an annual village festival, or tsechu, where traditional dances are performed in front of the temple. Everyone from the valley and the hills around is there in their colourful Bhutanese costumes, down to the smallest child, and there is quite a buzz. People watch the elaborate rituals, lasting up to an hour, some of which are more like mime plays with masked figures acting out a familiar legend. A party of westerners are there filming as part of a project to record traditional dances before they fade out. An English guy in a gho collars us and talks enthusiastically about what we are seeing, interpreting the ritual for us. It seems the festival is held when the Pleiades ‘mate’ with the moon every year about this time. There are very few other tourists there and it feels very special to be witnessing this, seeing everyone enjoying themselves, from the smallest kids to the village drunk.

So this is the furthest point east and next day we retrace our route before turning off to the high valley of Gangtey. This is famous for the annual visit of the black necked cranes, which winter here then return to Tibet and Siberia in the summer. Only a few hundred exist and they are carefully protected. Rinchen takes us for a gentle early morning walk around the valley floor, which is like a peat bog in the wet season but dry now. The valley looks exactly like the Scottish highlands, though we are now at over 3000m, and a kind of dense, dwarf bamboo takes the place of heather. We are able to get very close to the grazing cranes, before they start nervously hooting and back off.

The valley has a very fine monastery which is being carefully restored. We were able to see the work being done there. There was intense activity amongst the monks when we were there, because they were holding a very special ceremony: drumming, blowing horns, some made from human thigh bones, and loudly chanting. Evil spirits were abroad in the valley and needed to be driven out. Later that night as we crouched round the big restaurant stove in the guest house, a party of monks, and masked figures, some with flaming torches, came screaming and chanting down the road, then rushed through every space in the building, throwing small stones and powder into every dark corner, to flush the spirits out. Every house in the valley was covered that night. Even Rinchen has only seen this a few times and it felt like we were closer than ever to the Bhutanese medieval culture.

The cosy guest houses at this end of our trip are good. The rooms each have wood burning stoves so that even though the temperatures are almost down to freezing at night, they are warm and friendly. The electricity is also off much of the time so I sit downloading the days’ pictures to my pc by candlelight. The rich traditional painting and wood and colourful woollen weaves of the curtains and spreads give everything a warm glow into which my pc’s cold blue light seems like an intruder.

bhutan - tongsa

Roofs of the Tongsa dzong catch the early morning sunlight

The long drive to Tongsa is spectacular, up and over the next pass, with the high mountains in evidence frequently. As we rise up, the valley bottoms drop away into shadow and the mountains seem to rise with us, clearer and apparently nearer.

We approach Tongsa along an impossibly steep-sided, almost cliff faced, heavily wooded valley. We get within a kilometre or so but the valley is so steep and precipitate that the road has to swing all the way round a huge side valley, so steep that all the streams are waterfalls. The dzong at Tongsa is perfectly sited, clinging to the cliff face. Once, when the only roads were pack horse trails, the one road from the east to the west actually passed right through the outer courtyard, controlling movement, trade and taxes. The only entrances are still pack horse sized doors on the east and west of the outer courtyard. We pop into a room full of students learning religious texts by rote - chanting and swaying from side to side, occasionally glancing at us. The master monk looks slightly annoyed at the distraction and cracks his whip on the floor as the boys refocus.

Early in the morning, seen from our hotel, the whole valley seems filled with light, like a physical presence, bouncing off the smoke of early morning wood fires and incense offerings. Shafts of light penetrate the gloom, and the many roofs of the dzong one by one receive the sun’s rays as it rises to the east.

It was in a small shop in Tongsa that I finally, after much agonising, bought a gho, the traditional men’s outfit. It’s a hand woven woollen version, in the traditional five Buddhist colours, and looks rather fine. Now I just need the long black socks.

Me and Rinchen with my new purchase

bhutan - punakha

The High Himalayas and the deeply incised Punakha valley, seen from half way up its flanks





Next we travel to the old winter capital, Punakha. Tshering has had to leave us to do a course, and our new guide, Rinchen, takes up the challenge of entertaining and marshalling us. He’s been in the job for many years and it soon becomes clear he knows everyone along the route. He quickly suggests some improvements to the official itinerary, which is designed more for spring than late autumn/winter. We cross over a high pass enveloped in cloud, where there is a new monument of 108 stupas, and then down again into Punakha’s valley.

In the late afternoon we have a gentle climb from the valley to a small temple, where we try chatting with an old couple walking round and round muttering their prayers and swinging little prayer wheels.

Next day we start early for a long walk devised by Rinchen from the very top of the ridge surrounding the valley, down through his home village. It’s a lovely walk with views right down into the steep sided valley bottom and up to the peaks of the Himalayas, up near the Tibetan border, which today appear very clear on the horizon, white snow and black jagged rock stretching right across our view. We start at a pretty Alpine village, and walk down through the farms and forests, down, down, yet the valley bottom never gets closer. We reach the village where Rinchen’s family home used to be, right next to the ancestral house of the King’s four wives (see Bhutan – monarchy).

We can see their house as we descend, no larger than most but in perfect order, surrounded by hedges of flowering poinsettia. We can see a lot of activity, and Rinchen tells us that the king’s wives’ older sister is there preparing for the family puja, the annual celebration that all families hold, when all family members try to get together for two or three days of religious ceremony and partying. Our route takes us in the lane right by the house and Rinchen hurries us by, but just as we pass who should happen to look over the wall but the Queens’ sister. She has known Rinchen all her life, but he bows deeply and they exchange words. Then she turns to us: ‘Would you like to join me for a cup of tea?’ Of course we accept, much to Rinchen’s relief (to refuse would be impossible).

She is charming and quickly organises tea and crackers and delicious apples while she explains the preparations going on all around for the three day puja. She squints up at the perfectly blue sky and hopes the good weather will continue. We all assure her it will. Rinchen and the province’s assistant governor, who now joins us, seem suddenly tongue tied and deferential, but we keep up a polite conversation until it’s time to go – Norma’s Penelope Keith accent even more cut glass than usual.

We also visit the nearby monastery where preparations are under way for the religious part of the puja. The younger monks are making elaborate decorations out of cooked rice and butter.

Later we visit the dzong, which is beautifully sited at the meeting of two rivers (‘Male River’ and ‘Female River’ whose different coloured waters can be seen to mix at the confluence. Fancifully, the hill is seen as sitting on the trunk of a sleeping elephant - the penisinula formed between the two rivers - with the rivers themselves seen as its tusks and the adjacent rounded hillocks its head and body. A disastrous flood a few years back has led to the river being diverted a little way back on one side.

The elegant courtyards of the dzong are swarming with monks as the chief abbot decamps here for the winter, as he has since the days of the Shabdrung. In the main temple, a very fine, high galleried space filled with shafts of warm late afternoon sunlight, long lines of monks sit cross legged on the floor repeatedly chanting a mantra. Then suddenly a bell rings and everyone rushes out. It’s play time for the novices and the laugh, joke and run outside until it’s time to return for their evening rice.

Bhutan - monarchy and marriage

His Majesty the King and Their Majesties the Queens





King Jime Singye Wangchuck is hugely respected here. He is probably the last absolute monarch in the world, and the first to voluntarily introduce democracy and a constitutional monarchy. This will happen in 2008, when they will also celebrate 100 years of the Wangchuk dynasty (2007, which is the actual 100th anniversary being inauspicious in the Bhutan calendar). The king will also retire and the crown prince will be crowned king in that year. This all seems to fill people here with some apprehension - a leap into the unknown.

He also introduced the concept of Gross National Happiness - a way of measuring the quality rather than just the material economic progress of a country.

Before 1907 the country was effectively a theocracy, ruled by the Shabdrung and his supposed reincarnations. It was he that instituted the dzong system that continues to this day. Each district has a dzong that is the centre of both civil and religious government. In the following period, power ebbed and flowed, and there was almost constant civil war. The strongest baronies were Paro and Tongsa, and eventually the Wangchuks of Tongsa won, uniting the country.

The four kings of the dynasty have generally been seen as benevolent, and their photographs are displayed everywhere. Every citizen has the right to have an audience with the king if requested, to this day.

The present king came to the throne about 34 years ago at the age of 17. He is married to four sisters, who are descended from the Shabdrung’s family. In Bhutan polygamy and even polyandry is – if not common – at least seen as normal and acceptable. Usually, it’s a way, in isolated communities, of keeping wealth in the family and not dispersing it amongst the children of several sisters or brothers. How it works in practice is a mystery, and no-one is prepared to open up on this as far as the king goes.

The attitude to marriage here is almost exactly oposite to India. Kids meet and fall in love without much parental interference, and there is no tradition of arranged marriages. Weddings are not a big deal traditionally and often girls got pregnant before matrriage.

Bhutan property rights are also very different. Property including land normally passes to the daughters; the sons are expected to make their own way in the world.

More on the history at www.bhutannewsonline.com/monarchy.html and on GNH at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_National_Happiness

bhutan - thimpu

Forest walks in the Thimpu valley


We are off to the capital today, but first visit the watchtower above Paro that is now the national museum. A circular building, also highly defensive, the tower contains many artefacts that reflect the history of the country and its religion. Lots of good stories from Tshering, who also tests us on what we learned the day before.

The road to Thimpu is under reconstruction almost along its entire length. In fact most of the main roads are in Bhutan, we discover later. This is a country almost entirely in the deep gorges descending from the Himalayas, and we are on the only east-west road. From this there are spurs north into the high valleys, and spurs south to the Indian border. But this is the backbone, and still in some areas barely a single track road with passing places, clinging to the cliff faces of heavily wooded canyons. By 2008 it should be two lane – a major infrastructure investment for a country of 600,000 people. Hem navigates his way through with aplomb, but the driving style here is much more relaxed and co-operative than India and Nepal. We rarely exceed 60km/hour, and there is never a stretch without views that are less than stunning.

The capital, barely bigger than an English market town, is much more bustling than Paro, and there’s lots of construction. Tourist numbers, from a base of 6-7000 have doubled and will triple by 2008 (tourism is the second biggest export industry, after hydroelectricity). There is a lot of construction, much of it hotels, but still all in an ersatz version of the traditional style.

The next couple of days we walk through the valley and its surrounding hills. It’s beautiful country, with many friendly people passing us. Everyone seems to want to say Kusu sampu (hello), especially the children, who seem to love engaging with foreigners. The houses are still built along traditional lines: stone bases and rammed clay block walls, with carved hardwood windows inserted, and a low sloping roof (now corrugated iron, originally timber shingles weighted down with stones) which is open and used for storage. I think of Switzerland and Bavaria, where the houses are much the same apart form the use of clay as structure. The same environment leads to the same intuitive solution. They are elaborately painted with religious motifs, also like the Alps: but here the motifs are the Guru’s tiger, the thunder dragon, ‘the mongoose that vomited jewels’, or sometimes huge protective phalluses in graphic detail. Many older houses have been abandoned and left as clay hulks, melting back into the landscape. The older places had no windows until the third level – a response to constant local wars and the replacements are in much the same style but more open.

It’s fairly strenuous walking once you get past the paddy fields and start to climb. We follow pack horse trails through the forest, pine and oak. We pass isolated farms. A boy from a farm shows us his artwork – traditional religious works copied – and so pleased when I buy one. A dog adopts us and follows us for miles, and then gets nervous as we approach a settlement with other dogs, who bark incessantly. He cowers beside us, looking for our protection but we get him past.

We meet a real pack horse convoy – still an important transport method here – and a guy with a plough over his shoulder and urging on two oxen. Later we saw several oxen teams with manual ploughs, planting the winter wheat; and villagers winnowing the rice. This could be England 200 years ago. Except that the main crop is rice and the landscape is arranged in layers, stepping up the mountain flanks, for irrigation in the wet season. 90% of the population are still more or less subsistence farmers.

At one point we reach a monastery and we are invited to tea by the head monk, a young and friendly chap in a rather trendy version of the habit, incorporating a red zip up bomber jacket. The tea and Tibetan biscuits are brought by a betel nut chewing monk who gives us a big, bright red stained smile. (Betel chewing is common here. Hem gave us a sample. You wrap up the nut in a leaf with a little lime powder and chew them together until they form a wad, but I don’t think I’ll be taking it up. You have to spit out the red juice as it can make you nauseous.)

The dzong in Thimpu, which we visit at the end of the stay, is huge. Like all the dzongs it is part government administration centre, part monastery. The king has his offices here, so we are not allowed in until he leaves at 4:00, and the admin parts are not accessible. The main temple is being restored and is a fine 3 storey space filled with galleries, columns and diffuse light. There are huge images of the three Buddhas.

bhutan - paro

Finally made it to the Tiger's Nest monastery

Even the arrival is as good as it gets. The plane takes a spectacular run along the wall of the Himalayas and then does a left, plunging quickly into the clouds until suddenly we are in a deep sided high valley, the mountains rising up close on both sides. Monasteries and farmhouses in exotic style appear close enough to wave to the occupants as the plane banks steeply, following the twists and turns of the valley.

Paro has Bhutan’s only airport and it’s also in Bhutan’s unique vernacular style. My co-travellers on the trip, Gus and Norma, whom I met up with the previous day in Nepal, are as impressed as me with the arrival. There is a slight wobble at immigration as they have my old passport number, not the new one, but this is quickly sorted and in I go. Here and throughout the trip we discover that our movements are known and planned, and frequently checked, but always with courtesy and efficiency. Norma believes she is asked at the customs desk: ‘Do you have any secrets?’ and this somehow seems far more appropriate to this mysterious and unknown land than the prosaic ‘Do you have any cigarettes?’, which was the real question, though Gus and I let her believe her version for a few days.

We are met by our guide and driver for the 2 week visit – Tshering and Hem, both young and charming and always helpful. We are taken round the little town at Paro, with its numerous general stores with dark mysterious interiors selling not very much, and also the dzong – the fortress/temple that dominates the town. Every town has its dzong, dating mostly from about 400 years ago when Bhutan was in almost constant civil war. The Paro dzong was the seat of one of the most important warlords or barons and is particularly fine, on a prominence overlooking the town, with its courtyards stepping up the steep rock, around a central tower. Young monks flit about inside and we find a group of them aged about 10-18 playing football with a tennis ball on the stone flagged forecourt. ‘Would you care to participate in our game?’ asks one in perfect English; but we decline.

We are starting to get an intro to the local brand of Buddhism and its iconography, which is unique and quite extraordinary. Buddha in three incarnations, past, present and future; Guru Padma Sambhava, who brought Buddhism here from Tibet on the back of a flying tiger and who has eight different aspects; an immense number of gods who seem to owe more to Hindu and even pre-Hindu shamanic tradition. Every valley has its protective deity who has to be propitiated, and judging by their angry, fanged blue faces and necklaces of skulls, if you don’t pay the protection money you can expect to be kneecapped. Then there are the gods of the north, south, east and west – respectively yellow, blue, white and red; not to mention the cloud fairies, who dance on rainbows and are altogether more charming. To attempt to untangle all this is only to invite more confusion and more lists of aspects, incarnations, gods and demons. All, though, are accepted as different routes to the same thing – Enlightenment, as preached by the Buddha himself.

Tshering proves a great storyteller, and charms us with the stories. Though it’s never clear how much he thinks of as true and how much he recognises as parables or allegory, it’s obvious he believes the central tenets of the religion, and even still wishes he had become a monk. In his gho, the traditional dress that a high proportion of the population still wears, and the open weave fringed prayer shawl he drapes around himself when we visit the dzongs, he looks elegant, poised and noble, despite frequently telling us how humble are his origins.

We retire to our cottages perched high on a ridge over the town, part of the charming Olathang hotel at Paro. There is a buffet for guests and we start to understand what Bhutan cuisine is about – chillies. They are used here as a vegetable, not a spice – or I should say as vegetable and a spice, because alongside the chillies with cheese dish and the chilli chicken, there is a set of condiments all featuring chillies; and just in case, some lethal looking raw green chillies too. And you thought Thai cuisine was hot!

Next day we are off early for our first day trek – to the ‘Tiger’s Nest’, Taksang Monastery. When the Guru came he meditated at various remote spots, and one of them was this. We began to wish we had a flying tiger too as we made the arduous climb. Starting at the valley floor at about 2500m, we eventually climbed 500m over a few hours, with frequent breaks. I think only Tshering’s pace setting got us there. All three of us were shattered by the top, but it was well worth it. Slowly it came into view far above, then was glimpsed at turns on the way, until suddenly we were almost upon it, across apparently impassable ravine. We had to drop down about 150 steps and then up again to complete the trip. It’s possibly the most familiar image of Bhutan, but as usual with familiar images, they don’t do justice to reality. Even inside, the monastery continues to rise through many steep flights and courtyards to the shrine of the Guru’s cave.

It was cruel of the Gentle Trek organisers to start off us unacclimatized Brits - who never get much above sea level - on this walk, and probably should have been arranged towards the end of the tour.

We also visited another temple in the valley. Built in the 8th C, Kychu lhakang is one of Bhutan’s two oldest temples. An ogress was held to be stretched out over the whole of Tibet and Bhutan. By pinning her down with 108 temples, Buddhism could flourish. Inside, a funeral rite was being held. These are held at intervals in the weeks after the death, then again a year later. The family looked on as about 20 monks of all ages from 9 to 90, in their wine red robes chanted, beat drums and played flutes and trumpets.

kathmandu (2)

The pagoda at Bakhtapur

My last full day in Nepal, and I’m in the capable hands of Mr Kumar. He definitely deserves the Mister – he has a schoolmasterly air of authority and a depth of knowledge of everything I’m likely to ask, from the attributes of the many Hindu gods, to the life and teachings of the Buddha, to the exact heights and names of the mountains, which today have finally emerged from the mists and now dominate the view to the north against a clear china blue sky. His English is good and despite his age – late 60s I would hazard – he has an upright bearing and keenness that the word ‘sprightly’ was invented for.

We’re off on a little tour d’horizon, literally and metaphorically, visiting Nepal’s other capitals. One of Nepal’s kings having unified the Kmd valley as a single kingdom, decided, Lear-like, to divide his inheritance between three sons, and they set up capitals practically within walking distance of each other. Of course in no time at all they were at each others’ throats. They also vied with each other in the excellence of their capitals and there was a boom in building temples, stupas and palaces. Each city has its durbar square around which are grouped the main set pieces.

Mr Kumar gave me a series of succinct and entertaining lectures. He tells it all interestingly, freshly, like the teacher at school you really loved and wanted to impress. I confessed (resisting the temptation to start with Please Sir…) to being baffled by the multiplicity of gods and their consorts and aspects, and was gratified to hear him say, ‘Don’t worry, we also get confused, and we live with it all our life,’ said with a warm smile, a slight shrug and a twinkle in his eye.

The square and its buildings at Bhaktapur have been immaculately restored, although the ’55 windows’ royal palace is having work done now. The temples are protected by pairs of beautifully carved animals, real and mythical, each pair more fearsome than the last. Further into the town another space – Taumadhi Square - opens up with Nepal’s finest pagoda (famously they were invented here and exported to China and Japan). The town also has a square filled with pottery and surrounded by potters’ workshops.

Patan is even closer to Kmd and is a more bustling kind of place. Here there are some particularly fine temples, and a good museum of religious artefacts in a well restored palace part of the palace. This also has a very pleasant garden with a restaurant where I have momos for lunch – a Nepal speciality – steamed parcels of spicy meat or veg encased in rice pasta, a bit like dim sum.

Next it’s the monkey temple, built on a high promontory, from where the whole valley can be seen stretched out, with the foothills and finally the white tops of the Himalayas. The place is busy, a popular picnic site on a Sunday afternoon, after prayer of course, though the parties have to almost literally fight off the many troupes of monkeys with eyes on their food. It’s a good place to end my short tour of Kathmandu valley, and to reflect that I should visit again and take a little longer. Mr Kumar is full of suggestions for other places to visit, and I hope I can take him up on it, and get a few more lessons at his knee, on a future occasion.