Monkey Temple

I've been back to being a tourist again this afternoon - after putting some effort into the Namuna School project in the morning.

Gyan (our guide from Annapurna Circuit) is in Kathmandu and got in touch. We talked about the possibility of another trek - but it is maybe geting a bit late in the season. At any rate we decided to head for Swayambhunath Stupa today, a complex collection of mainly Bhuddist temples (and some Hindu) on a hill on the outskirts of Kathmandu - commonly known as the "monkey temple" after some of the regular inhabitants of the area.

My pictures don't really do it justice, but I'll attach some big Bhuddas, a view over some of Kathmandu, and a mother delousing her baby!

There is still a fair number of western tourists here, but the impression I have is that this part of the season is largely over for them - with the monsoon probably just a few weeks away. On the other hand it seems to be the right time for the arrival of hordes of tourists from India - perhaps escaping the scorching heat down there at the moment. They were arriving by the coach-load at the monkey temple anyway.

On the way down we passed a group of Tibetans and sympathisers on a 24 hour fast in protest at some of China's policies there. There is quite a lot of this relatively peaceful protest about Tibet going on here. Nepal probably needs to stay good friends with China (and India too); so the local polis have been taking a fairly hard line - at least to the extent of locking up Bhuddist monks and nuns for a day or two.

At the end of a long wander Gyan and I agreed to a "1 day trek" tomorrow, for which I will pay him as a guide. We will get the bus to Nagarkot (about 30km east along the Kathmandu Valley and at nearly 2000 metres) and walk back some of the way. I hope I'm right in thinking it should be mostly downhill.