Mist, Monasteries & Malla Kings: A Day Between Clouds and Gods

The Morning Walk: A Human Tapestry Unfolds

We left the serenity of Namobuddha Monastery and retraced our steps to the bus like pilgrims back from revelation. Then came the trek — a downhill path lined with terraced potato fields, wild-growing cannabis, and children who wave at you without asking for money (a rare and beautiful phenomenon). The villages — timeless, unhurried — gave off a quiet dignity. It was a Nepal with nothing to sell us, making it all the more valuable.

If the monasteries are cathedrals of stillness, the morning descent from Namobuddha is a full-blown opera of life. We weren’t walking; we were slipping into the bloodstream of Nepal itself.

Through narrow earthen paths and impossibly green rice paddies stitched with rain, we crossed from one reality into another. The air was heavy with petrichor and the occasional murmur of greetings from villagers who didn’t smile out of politeness but from something more ancient and less transactional: curiosity—real curiosity.

We passed women in bright saris hunched over weeding fields, old men repairing wooden wheels, and children in crisp uniforms walking to school—some giggling, others solemn like tiny monks. Each face, sun-worn or smooth as clay, was a note in this polyphonic countryside melody. As we passed, a man smoking a bidi waved; a girl offered an unasked marigold. And all the while, the occasional tufts of wild hemp grew like rebellious teenagers between cultivated order.

There were no filters here, no curated experiences. Just barefoot truth. This, I realized, might have been one of the most quietly powerful moments of the trip—a pilgrimage not to a temple, but through the everyday sacredness of Nepali life.

The Sacred and the Sewage of Panauti

Eventually, we reached Panauti, a town as old as the myths that shaped it. It sits at the confluence of two sacred rivers: Rosi and Punyamati. Legend says a dip in their waters can cleanse your soul. Reality says: wear boots and avoid eye contact. The color of the water ranged somewhere between “ancient bronze” and “municipal regret.”

Still, the temple complex was stunning — wooden pagodas with intricately carved struts depicting everything from gods to acrobatic love scenes (the Kama Sutra is alive and well in Newari architecture). I didn’t bathe, but I left lighter.

As our boots hit the moist, uneven stones of Panauti, we stepped into a town and a page torn straight from an ancient manuscript. Panauti, believed to have been founded in the 13th century, sits humbly at the spiritual confluence of the Rosi and Punyamati rivers. Local legend holds that a third invisible river, Lilawati, joins them—a kind of metaphysical waterway for the soul. Pilgrims believe that a single dip in these waters during special festivals like the Makar Mela can wash away lifetimes of karma. The temples—carved and moss-kissed—felt less like buildings and more like sentient beings quietly observing us pass by, weighed down by our sins and selfie sticks.

Patan: A Kingdom of Rain and Red Brick

By midday, we were in Patan, the artists’ city, former royal capital of the Malla dynasty, and — this may be heresy — the most beautiful of the Kathmandu Valley’s three Durbar Squares. Everything glowed: the red brick, the rain-slicked cobbles, the dark wood balconies. And then, as if summoned by my arrogance, the rain returned.

We sought shelter and lunch in a panoramic restaurant called Three Star Club, whose name wildly oversells its ambition. But the view? Utterly five-star. We dried our jackets while watching the square slowly repopulate, like pixels loading after a storm.

After the rain, we toured the royal palace, a labyrinth of sunken courtyards and Newari art, and I got my Durbar Square ticket extended with the usual bureaucratic flair (two staff, three stamps, four deep sighs).

Patan, or Lalitpur (“City of Beauty”), isn’t just a city—it’s a fever dream in brick and bronze. Once the royal seat of the Malla kings, Patan’s Durbar Square is arguably Nepal’s most concentrated dose of cultural grandeur. The royal palace, whose red brick walls still whisper secrets of love, war, and divine meddling, houses an incredible museum of sacred art. But nothing quite prepares you for the Hiranya Varna Mahavihar, the Golden Temple, a 12th-century Buddhist monastery that glows like a treasure in a child’s fable. Its courtyards smell of incense and rain. Every statue seems to smirk with the quiet confidence of having seen generations come and go. And amid it all, Newari artisans still hammer away at copper and silver in alleys where history never quite stopped happening.

Gold and Gods and Very Large Poles

Our day ended with a visit to the Golden Temple, a twelfth-century Buddhist jewel hidden in a courtyard that smells of incense and damp stone. It is small, exquisite, and almost silent—until a scooter blasts past the entrance and someone starts playing reggaeton on a Nokia.

Back at the hotel, we were free to wander or witness the festival prep: two enormous wooden chariots carrying vertical poles taller than ambition itself. Yesterday, they had to cut power lines to get them through — a kind of urban sacrifice in honour of the gods. Religion here doesn’t ask permission; it simply proceeds.

Dinner was on the terrace of Café du Temple, with a glowing skyline of pagodas and the muffled roar of a city half-awake. The meal was good, the view was better, and the walk back to the hotel was filled with that rare feeling of being exactly where you should be.