Okay, so I tried to go to the Palace Museum again on Wednesday, and it was closed!! I swear when I went there last week it said it was closed on Mondays and Tuesdays and all public holidays, but apparently it is Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Boo to that.

In any case, at least I did find that Vietnamese restaurant. I went there first for lunch and it satisfied my craving for something different. I had some pho which was yummy, and I ordered some papaya salad but it sucked! It was not anywhere near close to the Lao way — it wasn’t spicy at all (literally no peppers), they used lemon instead of lime, and it wasn’t fish salty… lol. It was also a gigantic portion and I only ate a bit of it. When the waiter came by to clear it, he saw how much was left and said, “It wasn’t good?” I said, “I liked the pho, but not the salad.” He had no response. haha. I did have a coconut juice though, straight from the coconut! It was yummy.

After lunch I tried to get a taxi to get to the museum. It was less than a kilometre away and they were all overcharging me, so I ended up walking there. It was closed (grr) so I headed to the nearby Garden of Dreams, which was really nice. It was so quiet, and green and pretty. I spent the afternoon there, walking around and enjoying a glass of red wine and vanilla ice cream. I then took a walk through the touristy Thamel area (it has lots of touristy shops and restaurants) and stumbled across a Buddhist stupa area. There was a big one in the centre, and lots of little ones around it. I have no idea what it’s called, but I thought it was nice. Pictures below!

–Bea

There’s a bar called Booze Belly!

I just thought this would be a nice photo

The Department of Money Laundering Investigations!!

The entrance to the garden

Fountain at the entrance

People just hanging out, reading books, taking naps.

The Kaiser Cafe

Garden of Dreams

Inside the exhibit featuring all of the flowers in the garden

View from the window inside the flower exhibit

There were lots of couples there…. making out… lol

Pretty gate

The strangest flower ever.

I met Americans now living in Abu Dhabi who took this photo for me! They said there were a lot of Canadians in Abu Dhabi teaching.

Elephant statues outside of the Kaiser Cafe

The pretty pond

My feet!

A sphinx

This was a random water way that I thought was really cute

There are carvings in all the buildings

Palm tree!

The goddess of money. It used to be a Greek goddess, but when they were restoring the garden, they made it more Hindu.

There were lots of tall trees there!

Pretty gate

Practicing on my camera

Another small tree. I forget what they’re actually called.

Cactus! I’m going to name her Lucy II 🙂

The smallest palm tree ever!

I thought the Kermit bag was cute

Ashtray and centre piece for the Kaiser Cafe tables.

Gigantic bamboo!

A poem in the Kaiser Cafe

Woman sitting on a wall cleaning

Love palm trees!

Practicing with the camera again.

View from the Kaiser Cafe

My wine and vanilla ice cream from the Kaiser Cafe

Kaiser Cafe menu

Calla lilly!

I thought this was a nice ad

Bob Marley blanket for sae

Tiny street in Thamel!

More tiny streets in Thamel

Feminist hardcore punk… I wonder what kind of music that means…

Tiny streets of Thamel

A small Buddhist stupa

Sunset on stupa

Nice building

Me in the middle of it all

Random Buddhist stupas in the middle of Thamel

Buddhist statue

Stupa

The famous eyes. I learned that the squiggly thing that appears to be a nose is the symbol for the Nepali number 1

Buddha statue

Someone left their helmet in the stupa… Helmet Buddha?

Carving on one of the stupas

Random Buddhist stupas in the middle of Thamel

Random Buddhist stupas in the middle of Thamel

My Vietnamese lunch. The pho and coconut juice were good, but the papaya salad sucked!!