Oh woman, what can I do? Should I run to Kathmandu?

That's what the 'camel man' asked me in Jaisalmer (India) (I decided not to reply to this, as you never know with camel men). O.K., we (for Jolette and Julia travelled to Kathmandu with me) took the coach and six hours later we arrived early in the afternoon in Amsterdam. Oh sorry, of course I meant Kathmandu, but then it all looks so very familiar! Also, most visitors here are Dutch (you know, those stupid tourists) and also, the place is crammed with western restaurants. All in all it is very understandable why I made this 'slip of the pen'. (Now don't start mentioning the canals, the place looks Dutch enough without them!). As for 'the place was crammed with western restaurants': this is in fact an understatement. My eyes were the size of plates, what do I say, the size of satellite dishes! We walked around looking like in Alice in Wonderland. What food they had! What choices there were! We 'attacked' the Hotbread outlet. Like a bunch of hyenas / piranhas / lynxes (just to name a few hungry predators) we ran into the food place. Within ten minutes we had 'attacked' (brown baps with met cheese, ham, tuna, tomato, cucumber; you name it, we ate it!), pizza buns, chocolate croissants, all sorts and sizes and especially large quantities of & GREASE (and we were looking for that especially).

In the restaurant upstairs we ate our 'preys' (our little stomachs didn't know how what was going on and started swelling from so many calories). Stuffing our little snouts in the sunshine, we were again enjoying the good life in full. Life is sweet!

During the rest of the week we treated our exercised bodies (...) time and again to the pleasures of the richdom of food in this city. I have come to understand why everyone thinks Nepal is such a beautiful country. It really has to do with the mountains; mountains of food, that is!

Can I have another kilo of temples, please?

In exactly a week's time I have seen all three 'royal cities' of Nepal: Kathmandu, Baktapur and Patan. These are very pretty cities and certainly worth a visit! However, I am glad that this king did not have five, seven or twelve sons, but only three. Otherwise I would not have been able to see it all in one week. After the king (Don't ask me which one, I have forgotten the details. You can find this yourself on the Internet and also, do you think this is really important?) had died (as they often do, whether or not of their own will, here in Nepal) his three sons started fighting over:

a) who would be the next king and

b) who would live in the royal city.

Funnily enough, there was still some space in this valley for two more royal cities and this is where the story ends. All of this does not prevent people here from being absolutely mad about temples and in every city there are some forty temples. Fortunately, they have all been built very close to each other on and around several squares; I thought I'd done too much walking already during the past few weeks! You see, over a hundred temples in one week, while you have to take off your mountain shoes every time you go inside... And still having to repeat that Buddhism is such a relaxed religion! In spite of the fact one can hear the New Age melody of 'Um mani padme hum' ('Praise the gift inside the heart of the lotus flower'. This is written on many Buddhist prayer stones) almost everywhere, I have not been converted yet. I must say on the contrary, I have grown a bit tired of these houses of prayer!