40. Patan

As you know, Patan was one of the three warring kingdoms in the Kathmandu Valley, which is hard to imagine since it sits across the river from Kathmandu and the two cities are essentially merged at this point. Many centuries of warfare with your next door neighbor must get tiring at some point, and I guess explains why a small provincial lord in the sticks was able to come in and clobber all three cities in 1769 to create the Nepal we know today.

It's supposed to be the artsy bohemian side of Kathmandu, sort of a Left Bank to the Right Bank of Kathmandu's moneymaking activities. It's a pretty stretched analogy, both because bohemian seems way off base describing anything in conservative Nepal, and there's very little evidence of moneymaking in Kathmandu. But it is more Buddhist than Kathmandu, and has the bulk of the artisans in the valley, and consequently has the more elaborate architecture. Plus it's much less crowded and has very few of the touts/tour guides/beggars that infest Kathmandu. I realize this distinction is hard to picture right now against my chosen backdrop of random city and market scenes, but you can probably see the difference as we move on to the main tourist areas.