Spoiled by the excellent food (from Pizza nel forno a legna to Paneer Masala..), our cosy guesthouse (www.newachen.com), and the great company of our new friends we really got lazy the first days in Kathmandu... Just inhaled the city and its bright culture, enjoying all the backpacker amenities in Tahmel (Backpacker city in the center of Kathmandu) full of Trekking stores, internet cafes, comfort food and italian coffee and the UNESCO sites just in front of our hotel door...Thanks to Gina and Vincent (the most passionate photographer ;-)) and their enthusiastic reports about the festivals, we eventually got up our asses (and me away from Harry Potter!!!) and visted some amazing festivals in and around Kathmandu. We saw Pilgrims taking a bath and burying their relatives in the local river (small though.. after having been to Varanasi), kids jumping in the pool of the most holy temple just around the corner of our hotel and got ourselves some wristbands full of good luck for the next year.
The most impressive event was the "cow festival" in Baktapur. The relatives of the recently passed away family members carry around a cart decrated with pictures, donations and a COW (holding on to the cow tail kind of helps to reincarnate better ...) in a huge noisy and colorful prozession through the whole city. And what a city - really spectacular! We felt like shifted a few centuries backwards. Kind of reminded us of an old Tuscan city with Asian touch.
3 days of continuous festivals and some temples and Durban squares later it was time to say goodbye to our friends and our interim home. Very sad! We celebrated our last evening altogehter being invited by our host family to a typical Newari Dinner and some funny rounds of "Cheating" game... where Fabri could finally take his revenge on us 3 ;-)
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