Mamma Mia

Mum sent me some pics of her time in Nepal, back when she was a young ingenue in 1969 (I mean 1979). She was bussing from Calcutta to London. It took her two months, and she went through some of the places I've visited too, so will be interesting to compare pics. This was her itinerary:

Calcutta, Bodhgaya, Birganj, Khatmandu, Birganj, Patna, Benares, Khajuraho, Agra, Jaipur, Delhi, Amritsar, Lahore, Peshawar, Kabul, Kandahar, Herat, Mashed, Bodjnoord, Babolsar, Teheran, Isfahan, Shiraz, Isfahan, Teheran, Tabriz, Agri, Erzurum, Trabzon, Samsun, Ankara, Urgup, Istanbul, Alexandroupolis, Thessalonika, Delphi, Athens, Thessalonika, Nis, Belgrade, Zagreb, Venice, Innsbruck, Heidelberg, Brussels, London.

Here she is in Bhaktapur. If I'd had this pic when I was there I would have done the same pose:


But here's my pic, from the other side:


Lastly, a Taj Mahal pic from a few years ago. If I'd had this I would have repeated it also:

Bhaktapur

Lovely little medieval town. Guy gave me a lift in from the bus stop for free. Costs 750 rupees to enter the old town, but got in at night and avoided check points for the next few days. Stayed at Shiva Guest House, looking straight out at Durbar Square. Woke to the sounds of pigeons cooing and bells.

View from my windows, literally. Pretty darn nice when lit up at night, too:


Other views of the main square:


On the way to Taumadi Square, chariot wheels and gear for some festival. Chariot festivals are huge in India and Nepal. The English word juggernaut comes from the Sri Jagganath Rath Yatra (basically Lord Jagganath's chariot trip), where the God is placed on a huge chariot and pulled through the crowds at Puri and other places. I was at Ahmedabad for this, there were maybe a million people in the streets? In Puri several people were killed in a stampede.

Small shrine lit by devotional candles, little boy watching:


I don't know what these are. Guardian statues? If they look kinda Chinese/Tibetan, it's because Bhaktapur was a major part of the old trade route to China from India.

Big guardian lions, I guess:


Kid riding an elephant at the base of Nyataoda Temple in Taumadi Square. The temple is huge and impressive in person, but doesn't photograph well - the overhanging arches cast shadows on most of the building.


In other news, I've got another man-cold (the worst kind), the Cats lost the grand final, and I missed my Bombay friend because I was sick in bed. Yay.