Jakey Jake

Monday 28th March
Today i woke up fairly late, and decided to walk around the town and see the sights. Tahmal in Kathmandu is the touristy area, its dominated by jewellery shops, which have the most amazing necklaces, Internet cafes, restraunts, photoshops, trekking shops and tourist tour shops. The nepalese people are fantastically nice and very good natured. This is definately my favourite place so far. As i was walking around and taking pictures, one of the locals started talking to me and offered to show me the city for a small fee. We walked around looking at some interesting temples and he was telling me about some of Nepals history. 2 years ago the royal family was murdered. it was said in the media that the eldest son comitted the murders, however the locals dont entirely beleive this as the kings brother has now become king. There is a lot of unrest in Nepal, the Maoist activists have started a civil war and daily there is lots of fighting between the maoists and the police and army. On saturday around 2000 maoists attacked an army base, apparently there were over 150 army deaths and an unknown number of maoists. they also had a few bombs around tahmal, about 500m from my hotel, that destroyed a building but didnt kill anyone. Its amazing how friendly and happy the locals are even under such a threat. Apparently the maoists were fed up with the very expensive fees for education, even primary schools, and for health cover, as well as the city centered development, leaving rural areas starved of much needed resources. anyway we found ourselves at Durbar square, with about 40 temples around the old palace, very pretty area, but i have to admit im just about templed out. although there was one temple for the karma sutra, with intricate wood carvings of numerous sexual positions all over it pretty kewl. then we went to lunch atop one of the older guesthoses, with the oldest lift in nepal. after this i went back to the hotel to meet the crew. it was s different mix to the other tour, should be interesting to see how it goes. but im not touring with them tomorrow as im flying over the himalayas after lunch we went to the monkey temple, which is 2000 years old, and i was buggered after the stairs. it was the first building in kathmandu, as kathmandu valley was still covered with water. after i met up with the new tour group. We were supposed to meet for dinner somewhere called paddi, but even the locals didnt know where it was. so i found myself wandering around and i found a nice mexican place and got some fajitas and sucked down a few vodka and oranges that were truly lethal, with cafe del mar playing in the background. then i found an irish bar, that was playing english soccer and i began talking to an american. hehehehe pretty cultured out eh? had a bit of fun there but i needed to be up early for the plane.