The City
The scene on Thamel avenue today: a very pretty pale-brown cow standing on the sidewalk, between a cigarette stand and an umbrella repairman, her head lifted straight up, perpendicular with the ground, while a ten-year-old boy heading home from school stood there, reaching up and scratching the animal's neck. Meanwhile all the tourists pointing to the fruit-bats hanging in the trees. The smell of bat shit and garbage and day-old murk, literally Another Shitty Day in Paradise. Shangri-la's getting wasted, but you can still stand on the street corner in Kathmandu and scratch her heavy velvet throat.
- Jeff Greenwald, Mister Raja's Neighborhood The Kathmandu most travellers come to see is the old city , a tight tangle of narrow alleys and numerous temples immediately north and south of the central Durbar Square. It's a bustling, intensely urban quarter where tall, extended-family dwellings block out the sun, while dark, open-fronted shops crowd the lanes, and vegetable sellers clot the intersections. Though the city goes to bed early, from before dawn to around 10pm there's always something happening somewhere. Early morning is the best time to watch people going about their daily religious rites ( puja), adorning idols with red paste ( sindur), marigold petals and other offerings. If you walk around after dinner, especially in the neighbourhoods of Indrachowk, Asan or Chhetrapati, you'll frequently run across mesmerizing devotional hymn-sings ( bhajan). This is only one side of Kathmandu, though, and not necessarily representative of the rest. Across the Bishnumati River, just west of town, is a more newly settled and rapidly developing area. The famous Swayambhu stupa , magnificently set on a conical hill here, has attracted a large community of expatriate Tibetans whose culture is a world apart from that of Kathmandu's indigenous Newars. Most commerce these days is conducted east of the old quarter. The boulevards around the Royal Palace are wide and businesslike, lined with airline offices and five-star hotels. Tinny, congested bazaars sprawl further to the south, while the southeastern sector contains the national parliament and many other government buildings. The northeast is given over to relatively quiet, shaded suburbs
Can you help...?Me says "I have never been to Kathmandu in my life... but does anyone know any kind of websites that might help about the basic knowledge of it? I'm doing a report on it and everything I search for is off-topic or has to do with tours and vacations and stuff. SO HELP ME!!!!!!!"
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