41. Bhaktapur

Our last stop in Kathmandu Valley was the slightly more remote Bhaktapur. Because it's away from the Kathmandu-Tibet trade routes, Bhaktapur remained more purely Hindu, and also more conservative, than its two rivals. It's also the best preserved, with a relatively organized local government banning cars for most of the day, and enforcing strict preservation codes, so it's a more attractive city to explore. Although it shares my loser city title with Patan, in fact in the convoluted history of this little valley, it was usually the winner. It was Bakhtapur's Malla dynasty that united the valley the first time in 1200, then ruled it for three centuries until a softhearted king divided the place up again among his three sons. This set up the following three centuries of warfare among the related and neighboring kingdoms, until finally, in the 1700's, Bakhtapur called for help from some allies in the mountains, who came and conquered Patan and Kathmandu. Unfortunately for Bakhtapur, they didn't stop there, and kept on conquering until they swallowed up Bakhtapur as well, then chose Kathmandu as their new capital. I think I've told a variation of this story each time I've introduced one of the cities, but in a different way, so it's probably completely confused at this stage. But take comfort in the fact that the details of Kathmandu Valley's history will probably not have a huge impact on most of you.