Hiking from Swayambhu to Nagarkot via Bhaktapur

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Hiking from Swayambhu to Nagarkot via Bhaktapur

Route

Swayambhu – Bhaktapur – Nagarkot

Date

8th Aug 2010 - Sunday

Coordinator

Participants

Roshan Raj Tamrakar, Rohan Bhattarai, Rajendra Banjade, Pratik Joshi, Suresh Maharjan, Neeraj Dhungana, Andreas Dorn

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Title	2010 Aug - D2Hawkeye Hiking from Swayambhu to Nagarkot via Bhaktapur
Start Date	2010-08-08
End Date	2010-08-08
Duration (hrs)	10 Hrs
Distance (km)	150 KM + (round trip)
Hike coordinator	Rohan Bhattarai
Participants	Andreas Dorn, Neeraj Dhungana, Pratik Joshi, Rajendra Banjade, Rohan Bhattarai, Roshan Raj Tamrakar, Suresh Maharjan
Photos by	Suresh Maharjan, Andreas Dorn
Captions by	Dipesh Shrestha
Report by	Neeraj Dhungana and Pratik Joshi
Creative Support	Dijup Tuladhar, Prerana Pradhan

	Origin	Location2	Destination
Name	Kathmandu (D2 Office Premises)	Swayambhu	Bhaktapur Durbar Square – Nagarkot
District	Kathmandu	Bhaktapur	Bhaktapur
Zone	Bagmati	Bagmati	Bagmati
Longitude			85.5247°E
Latitude			27.7236°N
Altitude			2,195 m
Recommended Items to See		Kathmandu Valley	Hills, Forest, Mountain Range, local people,
Recommended Places to Eat		Hotels	Hotels
Recommended Places to Stay
Recommended Activities	Hiking and Photo Journalism	Hiking and Photo Journalism	Hiking and Photo Journalism
Recommended means of transportation	VAN/Bus
Available means of transportation	VAN/Bus/Bike
Weather
Culture
Distance from previous Location		10 kms	50 kms
Means of Transport	VAN
Duration		1 hr on VAN	3 hrs

Report Section Pratik Joshi Recollection: This hike was truly a special one. After quite some time I was able to visit Bhaktapur, where I did my schooling. It reminded me of my old days. It was truly a wonderful experience. It was a beautiful sunny Sunday morning. We reached our office at 7 AM. As we had plenty of rain this monsoon, the temperature was not as high as usual. So, many of the hikers were not feeling well. However, because this hike was specially arranged for Andreas Dorn (our friend from Germany), he duly turned up even though he was not 100% fit. We wanted him to see the wonderful places, views and landscapes of Kathmandu. We reached Swayambhu and the first thing he saw were the monkeys roaming around casually. He was pretty excited to see all the monkeys in the temple area. We started to describe and tell him all the things we knew about Swayambhu. The cloth pieces hanging from the rope with all the inscriptions fascinated him. We showed him the main Swayambhu Stupa and the images of various deities (even though we could not describe him all of them). The view of the valley from Swayambhu was breathtaking. From there, we had our breakfast and decided to first visit Bhaktapur, the living museum andthen to Nagarkot. We were supposed to hike but because Andreas was not feeling 100% well, we only decided to have a short hike. Andreas started taking pictures all along the road. For that he sat in the rear end of our van. We cruised towards our destination singing, laughing and talking all the way. We roamed in the streets of Bhaktapur like small kids. We gazed at the wonderful "Thanka", ate the mouth watering "King Curd" and clicked the wonderful temples and art works along the way. I was pretty excited to hear Andreas say "there are lots of temples here, maybe more than the number of people living here". We visited the Bhaktapur Museum and showed him all the images and sculptures, some dating back to the 5th century. We also visited the Nyatapola, Bhaktapur Durbar Square, Dattatraya and surrounding areas. Since Bhaktapur is such a wonderful city we had to cut short our visit there as we had to reach Nagarkot and it was already noon. We reached Nagarkot and did a short hike till the Nagarkot tower. We sat there for a while and clicked photographs. We roamed the surroundings and even managed to go to a Shiva Temple there. All in all it was a wonderful hike. "Short and sweet" - if I have to summarize this hike. Neeraj Dhungana Recollection: It was one of the most exciting hikes and a visit that I had participated in after joining D2. The starting of the hike was very funny as just 3 people arrived in D2 office till the preplanned departure time. But we managed to start our trip after 2 hours later than scheduled. But the wait paid off and we moved towards Swayambhu with our guest Andreas Dorn. After one hour of stairs stepping and walking around we came back and headed towards Bhaktapur Durbar Square. We moved there for 2 hours and explored all the historical palaces in the square. Then we reached Nagarkot tower and hiked around 1 hour to reach the Nagarkot tower. We took a few snaps at the tower top and stepped back and headed to Sunsaan Resort for lunch cum dinner. All I can say is, it was fun filled hike rather than a thrilling one. But our guest enjoyed the trip.