This month has flown by and the more time I spend in this small, dynamic city, the more I feel at home. I know as soon as I reach Pokhara and see Phewa Tal (the lake), I will be glad to have escaped from the pollution, smells, noise and traffic of Kathmandu. But meanwhile, I have enjoyed the chaotic energy and surprisingly lively night scene of this capital city.
Aside from the major temples, Pashuputinath, Boudnath and Swayambhunath, there are thousands of stupas, pagodas and temples at every turn in this incredibly picturesque town. Old Newari architecture with intricate wood carvings adorns windows and doorways across the city.
The Kathmandu Valley is made up of three ancient towns, Kathmandu, Lalitpur (also known as Patan) and Bhaktapur. All three cities have their own Durbar Square (“Palace” Square) with wonderfully ornate, tiered, wood and brick temple buildings, statues and shrines. You can while away hours watching the world go by, tourists (myself included) 
taking a ridiculous amount of photos, colourful ‘fake’ sadhus posing for photos and handouts, young people just hanging out and the rest of the local population just making their way through going about their business, the glory of these majestic buildings just part of the daily landscape for them. In Kathmandu and Patan the ticket is valid for the day unless you go and get it stamped. As there are many alleys and walkways connecting to the square it is probably worth it if you are going to be wandering the area at all. For Bhaktapur, there is an entrance fee just to enter the city itself as the whole town is a UNESCO world heritage site. Again, if you plan to spend more than a day, you need to get your ticket stamped upon arrival.
The bowl shaped valley is surrounded by mountains on all sides which makes it very picturesque when clear - unfortunately, due to the extraordinarily dense air pollution from the multitudes of motorbikes, mopeds, minivans and cars as well as the billowing smoke pouring from the chimneys of brick factories, it is rare that the snowy peaks make an appearance. In fact, the shape of the valley itself doesn't help as the smog just hangs overhead, trapped by the mountains themselves.
Added to this the dust that is apparently due to the valley being an ancient lakebed so the ground itself is fine silt and just seems to float around. If I am sitting outside with my laptop, after a short while, there will be a layer of dust on my keyboard. For this reason, you will see many people wearing facemasks as they make their way about - particularly police directing traffic in the middle of the road
I must admit, I haven't done much sight-seeing this time round as I have been focused on my Nepali classes and meeting an interesting array of people living here both local and foreign. Some people are working for international charities, others are volunteering for a few months and my Nepali friends are your basic modern yuppie - working in media and music primarily.
I feel fortunate to have met an interesting cross section of the community, not just limited to the travellers scene in Thamel, which is Kathmandu's answer to London's Soho
Tourists and touts – not-so-surreptitious men sidle up to you offering 'hash, smoke...' and then sellers wandering the streets with necklaces hanging from their arms, wooden flutes, small stringed instruments which I think are called sarangi or boxes of tiger balm. Shops sell brightly coloured clothes, pashminas, yak wool blankets, Tibetan jewellery and Nepali paper goods. Cycle rickshaw drivers lounge around at intersections offering rides with a hopeful voice even though I walk past every day on my way to class shaking my head. I tend to walk through the back streets to my class as it is on the other side of Thamel from my guest house. I prefer to weave my way through the side streets that aren’t crammed with sellers, beeping vehicles in a cluster, and sadly, groups of grubby street kids with bags of glue stuck to their faces. I have mixed feelings about Thamel as it is all a bit too much. It is like a little world unto itself, but it’s where you can find backup power to charge when the power is off elsewhere. So it has its useful purpose beyond eating pizza and drinking beer. It is where everything is and almost everything is happening in terms of evening entertainment. Most bars in Thamel have live music – mainly cover bands but you can also find a diversity of other music often a fusion of many genres - from brass bands to acoustic jams featuring tablas and sitars. The days easily slip into weeks in the bubble of Thamel, but it is one face of Kathmandu. The tourist bubble.
There are basically three types of foreigners in town - travellers, trekkers and volunteers. I guess I kind of fall into the category of the first and last. Now that I am actually set to leave town tomorrow (in my usual style, a few days later than planned), I am sorry I haven’t done more tourist stuff. I would have loved to return to the magical peace of Boudhnath or further explored Pashupatinath (both of which I visited last year), but I have appreciated just wandering through the city streets of town, soaking up the atmosphere of the dusty streets. There is always so much going on, grubby kids scrambling around, playing and fightign, men lolling in doorways or shopfronts, the smells of food cooking and of course the constant beeping of cars and bikes.
Throughout the city vendors sell vegetables laid out on corners or in squares around temples and stupas. Large pieces of furniture come walking up the road attached to someone’s head by a strap. Little momo shops serve up the nation’s favourite snack (steamed dumplings stuffed with veg or buff - buffalo, that is – being a Hindu country, they don’t eat beef, but buffalo isn’t a cow so…). This is the primary variation (the other being noodles) on the main staple diet of Nepal which is Dhal Bhat (dhal and rice). It is a Nepali thali, with a big mound of steaming rice, a bowl of soupy dahl, a potato curry, a green veg (usually spinach) and a variety of chutneys and pickles. This is eaten twice a day by almost everyone in Nepal with variation focused only on the vegetables that form the curry. Non-veg features a meat curry, usually mutton. I must admit, I 
love eating dhal bhat and eating with my hand, local style. (Any excuse to eat with my fingers!) And I crave it if I haven’t had it for a day or so. But once a day, or even five times a week is enough for me before I start yearning for something else – thus the inevitable return to Thamel.
I have been able to get out of the city a couple of times with my friends – riding on the back of the bikes, weaving out of the city and up into the mountains – watching the sunset over the valley. Shivapuri is a big park to the north of the valley – the first week I was here a big group of us rode up, took a picnic and a guitar and climbed atop a rock to watch the sunset while the boys sang songs. That’s what I call magic moments.
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