Saturday

Evie is feeling so much better today. We grabbed a taxi at 8 and headed to a place I only knew as "1905". Actually it is a beautiful setting of pools covered over with plants and steps that lead to an area where people set up tables with their wares. We bought some fresh cinnamon rolls and had tea and rolls. We met and talk with several people with ties to the US. Both Evie and I bought some spices - cinnamon, cumin, turmeric, coriander and cardamom.
We met Betty at the American Club. It is a private club obviously only for Americans. It is surrounded by high walls with barb wire. Supposedly the security features are as good as those for the White House. Just getting out of their parking lot required a huge gate to open and a special road ramp to be lowered.
Next we went to the Buddha temple. You walk around the temple clockwise and there are prayer wheels around the entire temple. On the outer ring of the walk there are shops selling almost every souvenir you would want. There are also several Buddhist monasteries around the circle. One of them has a gigantic prayer wheel that you can walk around.
Next Betty took us to the Dwarika Hotel to look around. It began with only a small room for rent. The owner had the foresight to collect and save a lot of architectural things from demolition sites such as windows, doors, trim, etc. These he incorporated into additional buildings on his property and it has now become an absolutely gorgeous and renowned hotel in Kathmandu (probably in all of Nepal, India and Pakistan combined). It was now time for a very late lunch, and because parking is difficult to find, we chose a nearby café and had - cheese pizza. Not very exciting but it was delicious.
Back at the apartment we supervised the carving of pumpkins for a party tomorrow.