Our next excursion was to the Narayanhiti Palace Museum, which up to 2007 was where the Royal family lived. At this time the newly founded Constituent Assembly abolished the Royal family after a lot of political unrest. King Gyanendra was given 15 days to vacate the building and within two years it was opened as a museum.
The museum is very close to our hotel but we still managed to go the wrong way, or should I say we took the scenic route to get there, let's just say it involved backtracking. On this alternative route we went past this massive queue, it was winding back and forward, we wondered what was going on, then noticed it was a queue for the passport office!
When we reached the museum, we first of all had to put our bags into a locker, no cameras or phones are allowed in the museum, in fact the only thing you are allowed to take are your wallet and a bottle of water. With our stuff in the locker we headed to the entrance, at this point you are frisked and have to walk through a metal detector. There are two queues one for ladies and the other for men, so David went to his and typically for men he walked straight to the front, I had to join a large queue of women, mainly because, yup you guessed it there was a school trip on, and it was a class of all girls. As I was stood in the queue David walked up to me, he had been frisked and rejected as he had a Nepal guide book in his pocket, which he had to put in the locker. He managed to go back and do that and still go through the security process before me.
The building is very impressive, the stairway up to the front door has gorgeous black statues of animals all the way up and the door itself has beautiful metalwork on it. Sadly without my camera I could not take any photos. As you go through the building you get the chance to see many of the rooms as they were, a lot of it was very understated , but the throne room in particular was lovely.
The actual kings bedroom was not that grand although the bedroom for visiting head of states was
lovely.
What was interesting was the amount of books written in English, Agatha Christie, Shakespeare amongst others, even the good old encyclopaedia Britannica was there. I was looking for Enid Blyton, but no joy there.
In each area there are security people sat making sure no photos are taken or damaged, they were also present in the Durbar Square museum. We found them quite funny as they are so disinterested in what they are doing, some of them stare at the floor, some listen to music using headphones, others just have their music playing loudly, a lot play games on their phones/iPods, one sat avoiding eye contact and just pointed the direction to go as you walked up to her, she didn't even lift her head and one was even sleeping!
The tour ended at the back of the palace at a point where there used to be another building, this was where a lot of the Royal family were assassinated in 2001. The building it happened in was razed to the ground after the event but bullet holes can still be seen on the outer walls.
You then end up in a garden which has the potential to be lovely but is very overgrown. It has a revolving summerhouse which sadly wasn't revolving, very disappointing!
After this we went on a KFC hunt ,David had Googled KFC and found one in Kathmandu this led us
to a totally new area with a definite Western feel to it. Somehow it felt strange after all the areas we have been in and I was shocked by the prices, they wanted £9 for at t- shirt, extortionate.
The museum is very close to our hotel but we still managed to go the wrong way, or should I say we took the scenic route to get there, let's just say it involved backtracking. On this alternative route we went past this massive queue, it was winding back and forward, we wondered what was going on, then noticed it was a queue for the passport office!
When we reached the museum, we first of all had to put our bags into a locker, no cameras or phones are allowed in the museum, in fact the only thing you are allowed to take are your wallet and a bottle of water. With our stuff in the locker we headed to the entrance, at this point you are frisked and have to walk through a metal detector. There are two queues one for ladies and the other for men, so David went to his and typically for men he walked straight to the front, I had to join a large queue of women, mainly because, yup you guessed it there was a school trip on, and it was a class of all girls. As I was stood in the queue David walked up to me, he had been frisked and rejected as he had a Nepal guide book in his pocket, which he had to put in the locker. He managed to go back and do that and still go through the security process before me.
The building is very impressive, the stairway up to the front door has gorgeous black statues of animals all the way up and the door itself has beautiful metalwork on it. Sadly without my camera I could not take any photos. As you go through the building you get the chance to see many of the rooms as they were, a lot of it was very understated , but the throne room in particular was lovely.
The actual kings bedroom was not that grand although the bedroom for visiting head of states was
lovely.
What was interesting was the amount of books written in English, Agatha Christie, Shakespeare amongst others, even the good old encyclopaedia Britannica was there. I was looking for Enid Blyton, but no joy there.
In each area there are security people sat making sure no photos are taken or damaged, they were also present in the Durbar Square museum. We found them quite funny as they are so disinterested in what they are doing, some of them stare at the floor, some listen to music using headphones, others just have their music playing loudly, a lot play games on their phones/iPods, one sat avoiding eye contact and just pointed the direction to go as you walked up to her, she didn't even lift her head and one was even sleeping!
The tour ended at the back of the palace at a point where there used to be another building, this was where a lot of the Royal family were assassinated in 2001. The building it happened in was razed to the ground after the event but bullet holes can still be seen on the outer walls.
You then end up in a garden which has the potential to be lovely but is very overgrown. It has a revolving summerhouse which sadly wasn't revolving, very disappointing!
After this we went on a KFC hunt ,David had Googled KFC and found one in Kathmandu this led us
to a totally new area with a definite Western feel to it. Somehow it felt strange after all the areas we have been in and I was shocked by the prices, they wanted £9 for at t- shirt, extortionate.
David was a happy chappy when we found KFC.
Talking about food they cost it strangely in restaurants both here and in India, in India they add on taxes for food and a separate tax for drink and then sometimes put on a service charge of10%. In Nepal they put a tax of 13% on bills and then a 10% service charge so you basically have to add on roughly a quarter of your bill. Still a lot cheaper than it would be in Britain though.
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