Kathmandu At Night

Last night I took a stroll down from Thamel (the main tourist/backpackers area in Kathmandu) towards New Road to try and find a camera shop and thought I'd take my little RX100 compact with me. This post is mostly just pictures as I haven't had time to do much writing.

I ended up having a wonderful wander through some of the less tourist-oriented areas and back streets and it was totally fascinating. I didn't see any other westerners for a good couple of hours.

I heard some live music coming from somewhere and followed the sound down a little alleyway. I found a square with a Nepali army band performing at some sort of official function.

Obviously  the Swastika is an ancient religious symbol the Nazis used (reversed) but as a European it still feels odd to see them dotted around the place.

There's still quite a lot of earthquake damage around Kathmandu. For various reasons the rebuild and repair process has been slower than you might hope/expect.

The Hindu god represented is Bhairava (Sanskrit, "Terrible, Frightful"), a fierce manifestation of Shiva associated with annihilation.