After a glowing recommendation from my parents, the Pashupatinath Temple area in Kathmandu was on the agenda but our initial rather half hearted attempt to hail a taxi had lost out to the lure of a rooftop beer garden...We are glad we made a 2nd attempt- what a strange place!

We had flown back from Pokhara in the morning on a rickety little plane where it actually felt like all 16 passengers were in the cockpit! So having already reached my target heart rate for the day, seeing a very big brown snake slither past was an additional rush of blood I didn't necessarily need! I later read that snake bites are common in Nepal with over 200,000 bites recorded each year, with an alarming 1000 fatalities. There are approximately 20 species of venomous snake in Nepal, with many adults but more commonly children among the fatalities as the majority of hospitals outside of the major cities lack qualified doctors or anti-venom.

There isn't a huge amount to see in central Kathmandu, although the old town and Durbar Square are interesting and just about worth the precarious 45 minute walk through the narrow streets. The concept of footpath hasn't reached Kathmandu yet, so to walk anywhere involves a battle with endless tooting of ric shaws, motorbikes or taxis barging their way through the crowds. Rush hour also seems to start around 7am and finish around 10pm!

There is supposedly an impressive Tibetan monastery and Tibetan architecture, but let's face it as non Buddhists we had seen enough of this and breathed far too many smouldering yak butter fumes to last a lifetime.

Pashupatinath however, is definitely worth a visit, although non Hindus can not even enter the temple, there are plenty of strange goings on in the surrounding grounds to occupy an afternoon. The first thing that hits you is the strange aroma of the intense smoke bellowing from the riverside. Further exploration is both fascinating and a little gut wrenching. The smoke is actually emanating from a shroud enclosed corpse being cremated on one of the many concrete plinths (actually called ghats) alongside the Bagmati river. Right of the bridge, ghats are available to the general public with special ghats below the Pashupatinath Temple saved only for members of the royal family!

The body is wrapped in a cloth and burned on a medium sized wooden bonfire for 4hrs. One of the wanna be guides who we had managed to extract some freebie information from, informed us the fire is started in the mouth of the departed whilst all the family stand around and watch! 24hrs later the ashes and charred logs are then pushed in to the river as this is considered the highest of final honours. It doesn't seem to bother any of the families that their loved one will be sharing this same holy river with all manner of used drinks bottle, crisp packets or other general refuse that clutters up the length of this river or indeed any other waterway/street in Nepal. The polluted river also not distracting many of the bathers who are intent on cleansing themselves in the dirty waters of this holy river!

The slightly more fun attraction are the monkees roaming freely around the Temples which provided a great distraction from what we had just witnessed. I'm not sure I could ever be bored of watching these creatures joyfully playing or climbing and swinging from branch to branch.

Kathmandu is best used as a stopover destination en route to Pokhara and treks into the vast Himalayan range. The Thamel area although a little touristy has a great selection of bars and restaurants all touting free wifi and happy hours which normally involved a fantastic reduction of about 10p off a surprisingly expensive bottle of beer. (The Gorkha or gimmicky Everest being my personal favourites) Tourists, mainly western, comfortably outnumber locals and aside from
the annoyance of the traffic the outdoor, book, rug, souvenir or pirate DVD shops provide plenty of tourist shopping.

Our last night happened to coincide with the opening night of the biggest Hindu festival- Diwali. This is a 5 day festival with each day full of different important rituals. Day 1 is similar to our Xmas decorating with varying degrees of enthusiasm given to dressing the outside of the house/shop in colourful flower garlands. It has to be said none of them quite rivalled the completely over the top and tacky but superb displays available in all English council estates in December!

When the sun has set for the evening, it all kicks off and the streets come alive with the never ending sounds of fire crackers. Groups of children singing with percussion from home made rattles as they do shop to shop calls somewhat similar to trick or treating in the hope of a small gift of money from the shopkeeper. The onset of darkness also a prompt for house and shop owners to create arty circles made from rice, cream and presumably other food products in front of the doorstep. Candles and a smudged line of food leading from the main circle outside, all the way inside the house, to give them more to tidy up at the end of the night. This is an offering to crows who are considered to be divine messengers.

This was now the end of our 2 weeks in Nepal and having not managed to do any trekking it did feel a little like spending a weekend in Rome without eating Pizza! Next stop India's Capital of Delhi and coinciding with the remainder of Diwali the likelihood of complete and utter chaos......