Bhaktapur, Nepal

I visited India and Nepal for the first time on a Buddhist pilgrimage led by Shantum Seth in 2007. The following is from my 2008 trip to India, Nepal, and Tibet and is about Nepal.

Since my digital camera died in Tibet, I settled for a disposable camera.

This morning I was looking forward to sightseeing in Bhaktapur, a separate town from Kathmandu but still in the Kathmandu valley, to the east of the capital.

The driver was already at the hotel at nine o’clock in the morning. Actually, he was there earlier. When I entered the lobby at about 8 am, someone at the front desk said my driver was there… and I thought it must be a mistake. I entered the dining room for breakfast.

As I left the breakfast buffet, a guy who worked for the hotel accosted me and asked if I was sightseeing this morning, and I said yes but not until ten, and he indicated a small red car in the parking lot (interestingly it looked a lot like my car back in the States). I misunderstood because I knew for certain we were to meet up at ten this morning. Surely this was a mistake; it must be someone else’s driver. I returned to my room, saw that it was only 8:38 am, and brushed my teeth and all that.

Shortly before nine the phone rang, a woman at the front desk said that my driver for sightseeing was waiting in the lobby. Puzzled and still believing it must be a mistake, I went down and made sure it was the right driver, the one for Bhaktapur; I…