Bicycle Rickshaw

Rickshaw - The best way to discover the city of Kathmandu

The sun sets on the streets full of shops for the house wives of vegetables for dinner. Motorbikes weave in and out of the hustle and bustle. The cobblestone streets are slippery by rain last night, old watch the world go by overhead finely carved windows in the Newari style. There is a smell of rotting vegetables mingled with fresh air and the hum of conversation reaches my ears. My driver, his body bent over the bones thin frame handles bars of ancient Indian style, stiff-legged causally pump block of wood as hawks and trickles of sweat on his brow as he navigates the rickshaw pushes through the crowd that squeaks. From where I sit in my rickshaw Nepalese style of my seat well padded, I see the scene before me. No one bumps me, nobody cares to buy me something, in fact, I slipped unnoticed into the local populace has allowed my own leisure to view images and snap and turn my camera as I like to the endless views and scenes that Kathmandu has to offer.

The cycle rickshaw is common throughout Asia as a means of local transport. Nepal has its own style rickshaw which resembles a sort of Jinka attached to the back of a strong India framed bike. Both contraptions are all loved to be sitting on a dais colorful images of various Hindu gods, very comical, sounding horns, normally from a plastic bottle and are propelled by the same thin, but deceptively powerful legs of Nepalese pilot. The drivers range in age from the old, apparently for those who are too young to even reach the peddles properly! All are poor and earn their living with their meager daily toil of people pull on the market, carrying baggage, bits of meat and water and there and sometimes a chance to pick up the shipment and payment of a Foreign tourists!

Each driver has an individual character and they all have their own stories to tell from Baji (Old Man) who has started transporting the carcasses of buffalo from the slaughterhouse to the butcher shop and spends his days now in the more lucrative trade to take tourists around the hotels four stars, Babu (Small Boy) who grew up in the streets when his parents died, he took scraps to save money to buy a rickshaw and now he peddles ladies of the upper class market ... and the thousand Indra's, Keshaps, and Deepkas Biksahes between. as varied as their stories are, they all have one thing in common, they all know the city intimately, and they all greet you with a welcoming smile and enjoy nothing better than to show their Kathmandu you too!

My rickshaw clears the crowded market in Asan and we enter in Indra Chowk where the ice flows Whallla Lassie Lassies cold, freshly made from local milk curd and then spent two drinks each for the driver and me. My driver introduced me to this place with many other local dishes where to buy the cheaper and juicy mangoes to eat the tastiest Momo (meat filled dumping) the sweetest and most tasty tea sekwa (barbecue skewers of meat ) in the city.

Our next step is the old buildings in Kathmandu Durba Square, we whistle by Kumari Ghar Ko (house of life goddess), he called her in her soft voice and smiled briefly living goddess on us from his window, where she spent most of his young life. We spend Kasmandap, the original building here, the name means "House of Kathmandu, and this giant structure was built from the wood of a sal tree about 800 years ago. Skimming the whitewashed walls of the palace we come to a halt at Deval Kaju, a temple seven levels as construction. The driver can relax while I climb the steep stairs in time to watch the sun kisses the horizon behind Swayambhunath (Monkey Temple) perched on the hill, the Himalayas.