If you’re ever in Kathmandu, as you really should be at some point in your life, you really must pay a visit to Durbar Square. And you do indeed pay get inside, but only 1000 rupees (about $6.50 U.S.), but it’s a pittance for the chance to poke around among this 17-century old palace complex that was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979.

Well, we were in Kathmandu for a week, so we decided to check out Durbar on our second day in town, in case we wanted to devote more than one day to it. It was only a short walk from our homestay, through the neighborhood called Thamel, which is the touristy district, boasting an extensive array of hostels, bars, restaurants, cafes, clothing shops, and other monetary depositories. But it also a healthy dose of genuine Nepali native life right alongside the goings-on of foreigners.

Durbar, the former royal headquarters, was first constructed in the Fourth Century, with additional structures added as late as the Eighteenth Century. Considering its overall age, it’s amazing that this 400 acre complex, composed largely of brick and wood, is still holding up so well. Well actually, it is and it isn’t. Some of the buildings have undergone extensive restoration; one of them was totally rebuilt after being demolished in the 2015 earthquake that hit 7.9 on the Richter scale. Still, its overall been quite an enduring monument to Nepal’s cultural history.

Durbar is built in the style of Newar architecture, named after the indigenous tribe of Newari people who inhabit the valley. Its characteristics include square pagodas with multiple tiered roofs and, perhaps most impressively, intricately carved relief details. All over the community, you can see evidence of it on doors and wall panels in finely sculpted designs.

One building, featuring an 8-storey tower, courtyard, and an adjoining facility, is designated as a museum, though there really isn’t much on display. As we climbed the stairs, in the turret, we’d come to locked doors; there were holes that we could peek inside and in some cases we could see antiques stored inside, but not on exhibit to the public. A rather curious arrangement, we thought. Meanwhile, out front, craftsmen were refurbishing a couple of old wooden wagons with wooden wheels.

It did occur to us that we might want to return to the square another day. In order to make that a possibility, you have to go to an office at the plaza near where vendors are hawking their wares and get an extension on your ticket. It doesn’t require any further payment, but you do have to show them your passport and provide a visa sized photo. Sitting there in the office, we marveled at the stack of large ledger books that the officials seemed to be still using for record keeping, or at least to have used recently enough to keep them on hand for consulting.

We went back home for a late lunch, and later in the afternoon our host family returned from a trip they’d made to the site of the recent catastrophic flooding in Nepal and China. They’d gone, in a borrowed vehicle, to deliver supplies to the victims (one of whom included their uncle, who’d lost his home in the disaster and was living in a tent). For the past couple of days they’d been assembling goods in the living room — folding blankets, bagging packages of toothpaste and other necessities. We wish we could have gone with them, but they already had a full vehicle and we didn’t want to get in the way. Instead, we asked them if we could donate some money to help purchase items. After a bit of hesitation, they accepted, and we gladly gave them some.

A little later, we hiked back through Thamel, for one more mission of the day: to undulge in a sound bathing session. Along the way we happened to notice a curiously gnarled tree trunk — except it wasn’t immediately evident to us that it was indeed a tree trunk, because it was covered in thousands of coins driven in with nails. (These were rupee coins, which apparently are obsolete; during our time in Nepal we have not seen any metal legal tender in circulation, but only bills. And nobody ever seems to have need of just a single rupee.) [LATER NOTE: No, Nepali coins are not obsolete. We later received a couple in change , and one was shiny new. But they’re evidently quite uncommon.] This is the Vaishi Dev Shrine, also known as the Toothache Tree. People have come here to nail a rupee to it in hopes that it will relieve them of a toothache, courtesy of Vaishi Dev, the Newar patron saint of that affliction. If that doesn’t work, there’s a dentist nearby.

Then it was on to the sound therapy studio. Kimberly had already had a session previously as part of her yoga training in Rishikesh, India. Dennis, however, had never experienced it. There are quite a few of these places around town, and they usually charge somewhere in the vicinity of 20 to 30 dollars for an hour session. But this one we found was on a donation basis. So we figured we could swing that without a big dent in the budget.

There was one other client in the studio, a young man. We lay down on mats and the facilitator covered our eyes and placed a big sound bowl between our knees. Then she began working her charms, making sonorous tones on a collection of sound bowls and other gizmos, sending good vibrations through the air and into our ear canals and chakras and bones and bearings. It was uplifting and helped soothed the stress from a day of schlepping all around Kathmandu, so we’d be better geared up to do it all over again tomorrow.

Events occurred 9/6/2026