As I'm sure we're all ready to move on to another city, I'll combine the last two temples on our Patan visit. The honeycombed shape one is Mahabuddha, a 17th century temple built entirely of terrracotta tiles, each with a Buddha image. The temple was destroyed by an earthquake in 1934, but then put together like a giant jigsaw puzzle from the ruins. It didn't exactly match up, so they built a smaller version of the temple nearby with the leftover pieces. The other two photos are of the Machendranath Mandir, an elaborate wooden temple that houses a statue that is worshipped by just about every religious group in Nepal, although none of them agree as to which god they're actually worshipping.

We also visited this completely neglected temple, Jagat Narayan, on the outskirts of town. It's a riot of sculptures of various Hindu gods, usually in animal form, surrounded by long forsaken brick buildings. I shouldn't say totally forsaken, since it appears that some families are living there. When we arrived, the temple grounds seemed to have been divided into cooking, washing and sleeping spaces, but there was a mad dash to grab all the belongings and run into a neighboring building, where they watched us from windows until we were gone. Not sure what that was all about, but being spied on added to the general creepiness of the abandoned temple.

Adjacent to the temple was an ancient public bath, similar to that in Durbar Square and those found in every town in Nepal.

Don't worry, there are still plenty of temples in Patan for me to talk at length about. This one, the Golden Temple, is probably the most famous, although it's not easy to find. On a typical street lined with crumbling brick houses, a small pathway through one of the houses leads to this courtyard, which is almost completely taken up by the temple. In addition to making the temple look like it's fighting for space, it also makes it hard to photograph. It's a Buddhist temple, with a convenient rope hanging from the top to allow the gods to slide down from heaven to answer prayers. It was built here in the twelfth century when the king had a dream that a famous Buddha image wanted to be housed in a place where mice chased cats. Lo and behold, the king saw a golden mouse chasing a cat here the next day, and the rest is history. So this temple is probably a direct result of the ganja pipes being prepared by the priests at the palace. To this day, mice and rats are allowed to roam freely at the temple. Apart from the rats, the other reason this is a big tourist attraction is the wealth of detail and fine artwork inside and outside the temple.

Just off the square we stumbled on a festival performance. Various tribes dressed in their traditional finery and segregated by sex, filled the courtyard as we watched a not terribly interesting play with puppet-like characters. A digression: When I was a kid we lived in Puerto Rico for a few years (well Stolidog and my invisible sister Cheryl did, but Pomme wasn't hatched yet). One day our mom brought home these string puppets for us, to which we gave stereotypical names; mine was Pablo, Invisible Cheryl's was Maria and I forget Stoli's puppet's name, probably Absolut. On the first night, we all separately had nightmares about these puppets coming to life and haunting us, which was a pretty freaky coincidence. From that day on, we had to make sure that the puppets were locked in our closets before we went to bed, so the reason I'm telling you the story is to explain why I may not have been as enamored of the puppet show as the locals.

Skipping the rest of the Square, we'll move now to the Royal Palace, which like it's Kathmandu counterpart, dominates the square. Most of the palace is closed to the public, although part of it has been converted into the Patan museum, which is heads and shoulders above any other museum in Nepal. In addition to seeing many of the rooms of one wing of the palace, the museum is the best place to see the artistry of the Nepalese, well lit and with detailed explanations in contrast to most haphazard, dark and unlabeled museums in the rest of the country. The pagoda pictured here is locked, except for a festival once a year in which a priest fills a pipe with pot and leaves it for the previously mentioned missing hermit king. Finally the picture of the window highlights both the elaborate handiwork of the local craftsmen, and the Michael Jackson-esque approach to child care.

Another plus for Patan vs Kathmandu is the presence of a number of (touristy) rooftop cafes surrounding Durbar Square. In addition to providing decent food, we got a great vantage point over the square, which is sometimes difficult to fully appreciate at ground level. We had a proper continental breakfast at Cafe Pagode and lingered there for quite a while taking in the scene. The cafe directly overlooks the Manga Hiti, which is a big public bathing tank pictured here. It's been running since the sixth century, so I'm assuming the pipes are a bit rusty, but it still works.

Some more photos of this part of Durbar Square. The man at the top of the pillar is an old king of Patan, who left the throne to become a hermit. If you have extremely good eyes, you'll see that there's a bird on top of the cobra that's protecting the king. The king told his people that so long as the bird is still there, his people will know he's still alive. For that reason, they still prepare a room and a meal for the king in the nearby palace in case he should happen to return from his many centuries of doing whatever a hermit does. The seventeenth century multi-arched Krishna mandir really stands out from the crowd, and is apparently filled with equally elaborate artwork inside, but it's closed to non-Hindus. When we were there it seemed like a party was going on upstairs with scenes straight out of Bollywood.

Sometimes when I'm traveling I see a place that's so amazing I spend hours just walking around stunned. I had been looking forward to Durbar Square in Kathmandu since the beer commercial, so when I finally finished sightseeing there, I made a mental note and checked it off my list of places to see before I die. On most trips, I then come down a little off my travel high, as a feeling of "what's next?" replaces my original amazement. Well, the great thing about Nepal, is you can just repeat the whole discovery process again. Each of the old capitals has a Durbar Square, and each one, though following a similar pattern, is still a fascinating experience. Patan's is smaller than Kathmandu's, but also in many ways more elaborate and definitely less hectic. As in Kathmandu, it meanders around the Royal Palace, and these photos try to capture the central part of the square.

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.