Lost in Time at Changu Narayan

Our initial plan was to hike to Changu Narayan from our hotel but midway through, we thought better of it (chickened out?) and decided to just take a bus to the Tharkot junction and then do the 1.5-hour walk to the temple.

After waiting for 1hour just for a pancake at the AC restaurant (it wasn’t even good enough!) located in the town junction we went to the bus station but it is still another 30 minutes till the next bus so we decided to walk part of the way and catch the bus later on…

It was a nice, refreshing walk peppered with stories about previous travels, our personal life stories, and the exercise of simply talking to a complete stranger is so free-in and wonderful!! So cathartic! No talk about the office politics, about pressures from work, etc…..the ultimate holiday break!

After about 30 minutes the bus passed by and we hopped in for a 10-minute ride to Tharkot. I am so out of stamina for even a short trek! Good thing I did not go for any treks or else I will just embarrass myself! On the way to Changu Narayan village, we walked past tiny picturesque villages and met some smiling beautiful Nepali kids playing around. The Nepalese countryside is just so astounding!

Changu Narayan

Amazing! Straight out of a postcard! The village is just so compact and so pretty. I cannot believe there are still villages like these left in this modern world. Pang-Nat Geo talaga siya.

It is also listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and you have to pay 500NPR for entrance fees (a huge hike from the 100NPR fee listed in the LP guidebook) which is quite expensive but after walking around you be thankful of having the chance to go around places like these, no matter the cost. Truly, this is like a living museum and I am walking right through it.

The village is just made up of a few traditional houses with a brick-lined street cutting through the middle and at the end it goes uphill towards the temple. There are some thangka and traditional masks shops lining the street towards the temple entrance.

Despite the ancient village look, I found some familiar sights……the rooster and San Miguel Beer! Reminds me of home….hahahaha especially the rooster!

From the entrance (with the pragmatic message), when you enter the temple courtyard you are immediately transported into a world of statues and carvings dating from the Licchavi period between 4^th and 9^th centuries.

One example is the carving reliefs of a ten-headed Vishnu and Ananta, the stone slab is now broken but our “free” tour guides (we met some locals who gamely explained to us the history of the place) told us the story about the carving that it is divided into 3 different sections depicting the underworld, the world of man, and the heavenly world.

Marianne is such a good travel buddy, her ways to find a bargain or haggle for a discount is really great! Hahahahaha such a pro! I need to learn a few tricks from her.

After a late lunch of fried chicken momo, with the amazing backdrop of the village scenery…..it is time to go and part ways….Marianne is heading out to Bhaktapur and will be walking the 30-minute trail through the villages. Me? Ever the lazy one, I took the bus to Kathmandu! Hahahaha Bus rides here is so cheap. For a 1.5-hour ride, I paid only 40NPR which is about half a dollar or 20 pesos! Mas mahal pa an motor pasingod sa Lanang! Hahahaha

Time to go back to the noise and pollution of Kathmandu…..

Up in the Clouds in Nagarkot

The best way to experience the Kathmandu Valley scenery is to go on a motorbike as you will pass by a breathtakingly beautiful landscape! What a refreshingly cold ride it was! Hehehe my ears have frozen over, I think.

At around 2pm, we left Bhaktapur and headed off towards Nagarkot, this time Sam (a friend of Alex) came with us. They are childhood buddies and they both went together in KTM for their university studies.

Being a LP junkie that I am, I went looking for the highly-recommended “Hotel at the End of the Universe”. Tongue-in-cheek humor eh? Lol

The place has charm…..the rooms are in small cottages set around the gardens and again while asking for a room a nice French girl offered to split up the cost of the twin-sharing room with me! So now I only have to pay 400NPR for my bed. Awesome!

The hotel restaurant's decor is so cozy and reminds me of my time in Baguio.

The town of Nagarkot has a 2175m elevation and aside from the landscape, there is not much cultural or historical that might entice one to stay longer. We went over to the lookout tower which offers the perfect viewing point to see the Himalayas but the clouds partially covered the mountains so you can only see the tips of the snow-capped Langtang Himalayan range.

When I came back to the hotel, the sun was starting to set in (sunset was exactly 4:45-5pm) and it was nice sitting out in the garden, having a pot of jasmine tea and chatting to my roommate, Marianne, swapping stories about Vietnam --- it was a nightmarish trip for her, if what happened to her had ever happened to me I’d be totally freaked out and might not travel ever again! It’s that crazy!

When dusk had set in, and so did the biting-cold temperature. Its soooo cold……I felt as if I’m going to have frostbites in my fingers and toes! I had to stay inside the comfort of the restaurant coz the cold is really unbelievable! Good thing I did not go for the trek anywhere or else I’d be the first casualty of frostbite in a very mild trek of 2-3 days!

Unless our room has a heater inside which I have not seen yet, I don’t know how I’m going to sleep comfortably tonight!

Life stops early here in the Valley. I am already thinking of sleeping at barely 8pm! Oh well, this is a holiday for me anyways! Hahahaha

Watching the Sunrise over the Himalayas

I’ve never been this excited to wake up and wait for morning to come…… After going to the freezing cottage at 8pm, and putting on nth number of layers of clothing --- no more teeth brushing, face wash --- basta gusto ko lang na magtago na sa loob ng duvets! I did not sleep for the first 2 hours, and I think nakatulog lang ako coz of the lack of movement, I was going numb from coldness.

We had to wake up for a sunrise trip to the lookout tower and meeting time is at 6am! As in, pag toothbrush ko I felt as if all my teeth will fall out of my mouth coz it just went numb….promise, it’s really worse than the iced water that have at home from the fridge! There was another father-daughter duo with us for this trip, just to split up the cost of 1200NPR for the entire trip.

The Langtang Himalayan range was shrouded so we waited up for sunrise while shivering in my trench coat!

I saw some soldiers practicing some firing in the nearby area and I was so tempted to go over and have my photo taken with them! I want to be up close and personal with the Gurkhas!!!…..hahay buhay to be so close to a live and practicing Gurkha is a dream come true although how they can still function in this cold is beyond me!

The colors of the Himalayan sunrise more than made up for the lack of view (I wanted to have a glimpse of Mt. Everest even if it’s merely a dot in the distance!).

Anyways, the snow frost all over the place has really wrecked havoc to my mental state……as in mas lalo akong nilamig when I saw it! After almost an hour of waiting up, we gave up. No point in staying there being cold when a pot of Jasmine tea is waiting for me at the hotel café, steaming hot!

Need to pack up for our hike to Changu Narayan.....