Chitwan to Bhaktapur

We had a quick walk out of the Jungle to catch the canoe back over to the other side and jeep back to the resort to shower and eat lunch. Half the group goes back to Pokhora and 6 of us carry on to Bhaktapur, an 8th century walled city. It was the original capital city on the trading route.
It was a tearful so long to Brad & Jen who organized a good portion of the trip. We hired a van for the 7-8 hour drive to Bhaktapur. The roads were just awful because this is the section devastated by the monsoon rains. Those of us in the back of the van had triple the steps on our watches due to the bumping around. My neck was so sore . They just can't keep up with the upkeep and the way they pass vehicles is insane. The pull up to 2 inches from the vehicle in front and pull out to pass, and will beep if they need to pull in quickly. There were soooo many big trucks, tourist busses, motorcycles and tourist vans bumping past each other sometimes 3 across the narrow dirt roads. We had so much dust. It was so chaotic. At one point we came to a standstill and inched up the mountain for over an hour. After 71/2 hours we made it to Bhaktapur. We found our Guest House . The owners are friends of Jen&Brad, Kelly & Moe. They have an incredible Hotel that they built and incorporated old windows, doors, mirrors that are all over 400+ years old. This city had so much damage from the 2015 earthquake and so they try to preserve some of the old portions that could be salvaged. Rabi, Shambala and pupu (poopoo) their dog were amazing hosts. The hotel and restaurant they owned previously was damaged in the earthquake so they saved to rebuild the Pagoda Guest House Rabi walked us to his sisters restaurant where we had the patio view of the big pagoda in the main square. We had a great meal and celebrated our group members, Nadine's birthday. We walked back after climbing the stairs of the pagoda.Read more