This snapshot was taken in Kathmandu, Nepal in 2007. I was walking around the Boudhanath stupa enjoying the people and listening to the general hubbub mixed with the ringing of bells and the chanting of mantras and slowly recovering from a rather bad dose of amoebic dysentery – read my Field Note from Nepal.

Packing my bags for a new travel adventure reminded me again of this W. Somerset Maugham quotation. When I started this blog I found the short story it came from and posted it here.

The tastes, smells and sights of India await. I’ll be back in a while:

I am of a roving disposition, but I travel not to see imposing monuments, which indeed somewhat bore me, nor beautiful scenery, of which too soon I tire; I travel to see men. And I avoid the great. I would not cross the road to meet a president or a king; I am content to know the writer in the pages of his book and the painter in his picture;

I leave in a few days and thought I would write a note on some of the places I’ll be visiting over the next month. My destinations are — Delhi, Varanasi, Sarnath and Bodh Gaya in India and then Kathmandu Valley (Kathmandu, Patan, Bhaktapur) in Nepal.

Kathmandu is the capital of Nepal and also its largest city. Situated at an elevation of about 1,300 metres, Kathmandu Valley supports about 1.5 million inhabitants in the tri-city area.

I’ll be staying in Kathmandu for a week in a hotel near the Bauddhanath stupa and intend visiting Patan and Bhaktapur as I did in 2003. The area I am staying in is a Tibetan area and in the early morning and at dusk hundreds of Tibetans walk around the great stupa mumbling the Tibetan Buddhist mantra, Om Mani Padme Hum and thumbing their prayer beads.

Bauddhanath stupa is one of the largest stupas in South Asia and is located 5km east of the centre of Kathmandu and is believed to date to the 5th century. It is known to Tibetans as Chorten Chempa or the Great Stupa and is considered one of the most important Tibetan Buddhism monuments outside of Tibet.

The city of Bhaktapur is the third largest city in the Kathmandu valley. Bhaktapur was once the capital of Nepal during the great Malla Kingdom from the 12th to the 15th century. One of the world’s great heritage sites, Bhaktapur’s Durbar Square reflects the city’s rich culture, art and architectural design. This seemingly untouched ancient city is full of ornate woodcarvings and has a kind of special peace that filled my soul on my last visit and is attracting me back this time. I’m looking forward to wandering its narrow streets and then sitting down, drinking tea and watching the world go by.

The ancient name of Patan is Lalitpur, meaning city of beauty. It is another place I am looking forward to seeing as I can hardly remember any of it from my last trip. Too much input and too little time to take it all in. Planned on a circular format with Buddhist stupas at each of the four points of the compass, Patan is three kilometres south-east of Kathmandu across the southern bank of the river Bagmati. Like Kathmandu and Bhaktapur, its most photogenic and historic area is its centre, also called Durbar Square.

Kathmandu Valley may have been inhabited as early as 900 BC. The oldest known objects in the valley dates back to a few hundred years BC and the oldest firmly dated building in the earthquake-prone valley is almost 1,000 years old.

Kathmandu suffers from increasingly dangerous levels of air pollution. During the winter, air pollution is carried out of the valley during the day and then the mountain breezes force pollution to return to the valley at night.

There are a few places further out of town that I may also decide to see, but my intention is to have a quiet and relaxing last week before I fly to Delhi and then home.