More of Nepal

Dave here. I thought I'd share some more photos from Nepal.

Here's a few more shots from our trek:

Another example of the amazing layered farm land:

Nepali clothes drier:

Lynette's paragliding take-off: (No that's not a bun in the oven. That's just her fleece tied around her stomach.)

Me in the air trying to ignore my fear of heights:

I've seen some of the most amazing flowers here. Some have colors I didn't know existed in nature. Here's one I thought was exceptionally beautiful:

We just spent a few days in the town of Bhaktapur which is not far from Kathmandu. It has some great old buildings and beautiful wood carved windows. Plus a plethera of temples. Here's one, The Nyatapola Hindu Temple, that was right outside our hotel. Its the tallest temple in Nepal:

We happened to be in Bhaktapur during their new years festival which lasts several days. (Its the year 2065 according to their calendar) On one day there were groups of people marching through town playing all kinds of different instruments. Music could be heard all through town all day and late into the night. It was really fun. The last night of the festival was the big event. They had this huge chariot which looked more to me like a temple on wheels. It had sat in a little square near out hotel for a few days while kids played on it and people made religious offerings on it, and on this night it was used in a massive tug-of-war celebration. Everyone in town came out to see it. There were huge crowds of men on each side pulling on it with these long thick ropes. People were cheering and shouting. Even rocks were being thrown in the crowd. It was a wild sight. We got to watch the whole thing from a safe distance at the roof top restaurant of our hotel. Here's some photos of it.

The chariot during the day:

The chariot during the tug-of-war. Its the small structure in the lower right hand corner:

Our hotel doorman and a little friend during the festival:

Some more photos from temples of Bhaktapur:

Some scarey masks for sale, and a scarey tourist:

Its amazing how often Mickey Mouse shows up. Here's one example we saw in a village during our mountain trek. We've also seen ice cream carts named after him and even a rinky dink amusment park with funky versions of Mickey and Minnie faces sculpted on the entry columns.

Pics from a couple temples around Kathmandu:

That's all for now. We've got a few more days here in Nepal and then we head to Thailand. We met some Americans this morning who now live in Bangkok, Thailand and they talked about how nice it is there. So we are even more excited to go there. And we're looking forward to the Thai food! But we need to learn how to say "No spicey please." It will be sad to leave Nepal though. We really have loved it here.