Alas, woe is me that I was 'forced' to visit Nepal for a week.

Are you kidding?!  Nepal is freakin' awesome!  If it hadn't meant leaving Jules to fly back to Pakistan by herself then spend a lonely and cold week in Quetta, I would have been so excited I could've squeaked.  As it was, in between visa errands (the lack of one was what sent me to the capital, Kathmandu) I had a great time soaking up the Thamel district's backpacking culture, visiting tourist sites, taking a couple thousand photos, and getting in some excellent mountain bike riding.

I must have the best life ever. 

Below are some highlights produced from my snap-happy camera finger.

We'll start with a sidewalk-cart snack vendor in the busy, business, non-touristy part of Kathmandu, as I walk around looking for an international-bank ATM to get some money.  He's mixing nuts, fried tidbits, onions, and sauce to serve in little paper cones.

Here's the crowded, exciting streets of the Thamel backpacker district, my home for a week.  It's stuffed with souvenir shops (which I didn't visit), knock-off outdoor gear shops (which I did visit, to buy some winter clothes since I had only packed for warm Malaysia), and restaurants that seemed to have live bands every night even though it was past the busy tourist time.

Bicycle rickshaws ply the streets, ready to take you on a ride, while young men whispering "Want some hash?  I've got good marijuana..." in your ear want to sell you a different kind of ride.

Around every corner in Kathmandu is a neighborhood temple with fascinating architecture and statuary. 

Walking through busy bazaar streets in the main part of the city, with motorcycles dodging pedestrians and flute vendors hoping for a sale.

Entering Kathmandu's Durbar Square, I had to get a photo of the women driving motor scooters - in Pakistan, women don't drive motor scooters, cycles, or bicycles.

Durbar Squares - which seem to be common in the towns around Kathmandu - are middle-of-the-city collections of temples and other old buildings.  They house a wealth of carvings and statuary, mostly of religious significance, that beat out most of the cathedrals I've seen.  Below, behind the offering-candles, is a large statue of Shiva the Destroyer.  I find this carving both magnificent and truly frightening.  It's amazing to me that, in our indifferent age saturated with horror films and hum-drum violence on TV, an image so old can still strike  fear and trembling in a heart.  The gods are terrible, indeed.

A collection of offerings for sale, perhaps to appease the wrath of Shiva.

Carving on a temple's diagonal roof-strut. 

 The Durbar Squares, while full of temples, are also full of daily life.  Here, a woman makes leaf-bowls to sell.

While in Kathmandu's square, I experienced an unexpected and strange sight - the Kumari Dev, to the people of Nepal a living goddess.  I think she comes out from her temple every night; a crowd had gathered around the entrance.  There was such a carnival atmosphere (I do love a good crowd) that I got sucked in and happened to be standing there when she finally appeared.  The living goddess, who couldn't be more than four, is a blur of red to the upper left, carried on a man's shoulder while everyone snaps away like mad people.

It was strange, and strangely exciting, to find myself running through the crowd with the other camera men, trying to get a decent picture in the deep dusk, as she was carried through the busy streets of Kathmandu on a gold-domed palanquin (which got caught on a low-hanging wire, knocking off the top turret), throngs of worshipers (or curiosity-seekers?) following her.

The next day I climbed up the hill from the city's western river to a holy Buddhist site, the Swoyambhu stupa (popularly dubbed the Monkey Temple).  Along the way, I found this Buddha face at a neighborhood offering site.

Kathmandu, ringed by low mountains, behind which snowcapped Himalayan peaks rise. 

 At the base of the hundreds-of-stone-steps staircase leading up to the stupa.

At the top, prayer flags flap around ancient temples...

 ...and around the many monkeys who make their home there, true to the local name.

But the main draw is the stupa itself,  a tall, rounded, white mound with the golden tower as a crown...

...a pair of unforgettably mesmerizing Buddha eyes looking straight into your soul.

 Both the curious, the tourist, and the faithful gather here...

...turning prayer wheels as they walk clockwise around the stupa...

 ...lighting butter lamps at the temples (the lamps really are filled with butter)...

 ...and offering incense at small shrines.

Back in the quotidian world - the busy, grimy, smoggy streets of Kathmandu - the toil of daily life in a less-than-developed country goes on.

Next evening, on a rented mountain bike, I crossed the southern river into Pattan, Kathmandu's sister city, and visited the Durbar Square there.

I love how these holy sites, stuffed with temples, are also everyday places, with locals hanging out on temple steps, shops selling sodas and sweets and offerings scattered around, motorcycles and bicycles winding around pedestrians strolling through.  To illustrate how the sacred and the secular mix here, in a moment when the cloudy sky made me pause to wait for sunlight to fill my photos again, I found a Coke bottle to juxtapose with a temple carving.

  I also found gods in the air...

...and more truly frightening gods on the walls.

And I discovered I have an infatuation with stone elephants.

The next morning I was up early for a long day of bike riding, but first a stop at the Pashupatinath Temple, Nepal's most sacred Hindu site (Hinduism is the majority religion).  Here, worshipers bathe themselves ritually each morning...

...while just downstream, the bodies of the dead are cremated in open fires.

In this place where the dead and the living meet, the morning sun gives a ghostly luster to the rows and rows of shrines.

This yogi isn't a real spiritual man, I don't think.  My opinion is that he gets all dressed up and hangs out hoping tourists will take his picture and slip him some rupees, both of which I did.  He does make a nice photo.

Then it was on to the town of Bhaktapur outside of Kathmandu, where I discovered this typically carved fountain...

...before making my way through a crowd of bike-guarders and guides, all wanting money (it was tourist low season so I was the only attraction in a swarm of them) to the town's lovely Durbar Square.

Unfortunately I barely had two hours to stay there - to spend so little time nearly a crime in this place stocked with history and amazing religious sites at every turn.  But I still got in the requisite photos of statues and carvings...

...as well as a few of visitors enjoying the sights...

...and town folk going about their daily business.

There was a really cool square where potters made jars on a massive wheel...

...while hundreds of their products dried in the sun.

Riding out of Bhaktapur, in the afternoon I tackled the country hillsides on my way to a popular mountain rest area called Nagarkot.

First, though, I stopped in a hilltop town to sight-see at a rural temple, where my love affair with stone elephants continued.

 The sight of yet more fearsome gods spurred me on my way...

...till, having conquered dirt roads and long climbs, I arrived at Nagarkot in time to find a hotel and climb to its roof for a sunset Himalayan view.  Next morning I awoke early to see those mountains again in sunrise light...

...then enjoyed a day of back-country riding on my return to Kathmandu, that mountain view accompanying me for hours.

Over hill and past field I pedaled, admiring the local Newari-style houses, snowcaps cutting into sky above the horizon's trees.

On my way down off the hills to the valley floor, one last rural, hillside temple before getting back to the big city.

On the outskirts of Kathmandu, a stop at the Boudha stupa...

...holy especially for Tibetan Buddhists, like this young monk.

My last day in Kathmandu I picked up my visa, then had a great ride up a mountain-ish hill just outside the city.  No good photos, but a wonderful last chance to enjoy forest greenery and freedom of movement before going back to brown, security-conscious Quetta.

As I post these photos on a cold day in Balochistan, the memories warm my thoughts.