Kathmandu! Arrrrrh….. intrepid fairy-tale hunters, what can I tell you of this teeming mountain home of thousands? Perhaps at first glancing out from within a sardine-can bus it comes upon a passing traveller as cart-wheeling bursting DIY concrete rice fuelled metropolis, its narrow streets swarming with herds of jostling motorbikes and tuk-tuks struggling for space under a blanket of heady fumes. Or maybe more accurately after a few days exploring the shadows of the exquisitely carved arches of multi-gabled temples that beckon you to enter from every street corner, you will hear the growling of the guarding dragons that recount a history that appears lost in myth and magic. In ancient times travelling merchants, mystics, monks and royal households descended the paths of silk and spice from China to far distant Europe, carried perhaps on the backs of strange and peculiar animals and machines never seen before so far from home. A citadel, once separated from the rest of the world for generations that retains some of the greatest stories of adventure ever told by travellers and locals alike around the fires that keep the Himalayan winter nights at bay.
I am just the latest in a legacy of adventurers to taste what has always been an exuberant dancing cacophony of human cultures. Modern Kathmandu is changing fast with millions of people from across Nepal, India and Tibet making it their home.
See if you can find where I am staying in Kaushaltar, it is in the district of Bhaktapur on the fringes of town. This is where we meet the children of the Life Vision Academy. They are perhaps fifty in number and have come from all over Nepal to live in this school. We will hear their amazing stories of survival during our time with them, as they join Hylton Red House and Old Hall Drive Primary Schools in England to search for the fairy-tales from the mountains that surround this valley. Take a look in the galleries for our art work and listen to the Nepalese language in further articles.
Hello to Hylton Red House and Old Hall Drive from Kathmandu!