old patan, old england

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just went to patan ... which is like the old kingdom next door to this just south of the river... almost like pest to buda ... which, reminded of somewhere, yes india but something else too, and in the end i half shut my eyes and felt the shape of the shadows and the shape of the space and i realised its england, old england, the bits of mediavel england you see in london or old bucks and berks market towns or old B&Wmovies... of before everything got regularised... windows, sizes street-width, street, corners, pavements, doors, eaves, overhanging balconies... back when it was all irregular and bowed and ununiform... and houses of different material and style and age next to each other... of bowed streets thickening and widening and thickening and curving for no reason apparent anymore... of timberframed windows... and there is of course zero cultural connection between the two except its all the human race responding to similar challenges... and the ornament is of course very different... and they are big on courtyards through courtyards, many of which have pagodas or stupas inside, some fabulous to see ... but its a striking similarity when you see it
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line-up of a hundred plastic water-containers inside the empty tank at durbar square... in every direction women carrying water head away from the durbar square, though i can't see where the water is from
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the mahabuddha... a small temple in a not-much bigger square... made entirely from terracottta tiles and looking very good..
and part of the reason it looks so good, and better than most other temples and stupas in kathmandu-patan... is because it was destroyed in the 1934 earthquake... the same earthquake nehru mentions as having destroyed much of Bihar... and was afterwards rebuilt pretty well...
but the hilarious thing is that in a corner of the smalll courtyard is a small and goodlooking shrine... which was made from the bits of the large temple that were left over when they rebuilt it...the bits they couldn't get in the 3D jigsaw
so they got 1 and a 1/3 temples for the price of one...
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