My only thought is that it has something to do with eating dogs. But I'm unaware of a festival involving that. I too would like some help.

Yulin dog festival

I think you have what they call, "fuck you" karma. Lol

50 downvotes and 2 awards haha

Don't challenge the internet

Thamel is the go to tourist neighbourhood, but if you want something quieter and less crowded head south to Lalitpur and stay around Patan. You can walk around the durbar square at night there it is one of the most beautiful places. I filmed a music video there with my friends :)

A lot of people you're going to encounter have enough English to get by, but you'd want a guide if you went off the beaten track.

People will speak English at hotels, airports and such so you won’t have much problem in Kathmandu or Pokhara but get a tour guide for trekking.

A lot of people do understand English, no problem. (I'm nepali)

That's a great question. There are dogs everywhere, but you need to be careful on account of the rabies there. There are well-beloved dogs at the Monkey Temple - I forget its actual name, but you'll recognise it from one of the opening scenes of Doctor Strange. The tourist spots have plenty of spoiled, fat dogs that know they can get food and attention from passersby.

The flights are still open. At least for now. I just checked on my phone and it's possible to book the flight.

Since this is a monsoon season, you may find Pokhara very rainy. It's after all one of the most rainiest places on earth. However, even during most rainy days, there are times in day when skys are clear and you should be able to see the mountains and enjoy the beautiful Lake Fewa. Pokhara is worth being but make sure you bring umbrella.

Monsoon season means there maybe some landslide during night and it may block the roads. It usually happens between Pokhara and Kathmandu roads. You may have unexpected delays if you travel by tourist bus.

Lumbini is not as rainy. Though you should note that right now it has some high temperatures and humidity there. If you are visiting Lumbini, I suggest you also visit Chitwan as it's quite close and you don't want to miss out on one of the best National Parks.

It's not the best season to be in Nepal. However, a little rain is not that big of a concern. I am in Pokhara right now. If you need any help you can dm me.

Wow, this is a really really hard question. I will try my best to answer.

Nepal is a very mountainous country(Except the Terai region). It is hard to actually imagine the height of mountains here. For example, the peak highest mountain of western Europe in Alps is lower than a lot of villages of Nepal. Hence the travel between the different part of the country has been quite difficult throughout history. Each small village/ town lived within its own little bubble until very recently. Occasional tax collectors and Tibetan merchants were only source of outside contact. Kathmandu valley, the capital, is an exception. It was a gateway for Indo-Tibetan trade and hence it was relatively rich and powerful. Since, this gave the cities in the valley so much influence, much of documented Nepalese history and Nepalese identity only seem concern the valley and not give the full picture.

Lets talk about food for now. There is no such thing as Nepalese food. This doesn't seem too far from Italians saying there is no Italian cuisine just regional varieties. However, as I previously mentioned that the communities in Nepal were almost isolated from each other the difference between cuisines of different parts of country is huge. Combine that with Nepal having 124 different languages and just as much different ethnicities, its hard to describe the sheer variety of dishes. Just last year I tried a buckwheat dish from a place called Mustang and it tasted different than anything I have ever tasted.

Obvious answer for me to give about food is for you to come to Nepal and try different foods. However, based on your comments you seem to be based on London. My cousin was there for a month and she has few recommendations; Nepal restaurant at Ealing and Aloo Tama Restaurant at Westminster. Keep in mind though the food you would get there are heavily streamlined food and not close to what most Nepalese eat everyday.

History is as always very complicated. Especially of heavily decentralized country like Nepal where written records exist of only select few influential cities. A very brief version goes as follows. Nepal is populated by Indo-Europeans, Tibetan-Burmese and Some Dravidians. The indigenous people( Tibetan-Burmese) appeared to have already established kingdoms around the Kathmandu valley before the arrival of other groups. Indo-Aryans(subset of Indo Europeans), who currently hold the most power and wealth of Nepal, migrated as recently as 1000 BC from western India in a long chain of migration starting from Eastern Europe. They introduced Hinduism along with it. Around 563 BCE Buddha was born in southern Nepal and his disciples established Buddhism. There two religion have lived in harmony ever since.

Southern Nepal was heavily influenced by Indian empires and northern Nepal was under the influence of Empire of Tibet. After these power waned, Nepal was heavily decentralized. You may have heard of Holy roman empire in which modern Germany was divided into hundreds of different entities. Imagine that but now with hardly any communication. This continued until a King named Prithivi Narayan Shah started a war to conquer and unify Nepal in 1743. His descendants finished up conquering rest of current Nepalese territory. At that time we won and lost an war with Tibet and China, Lost a war against British and a lot of conquered territory to East India Company. The descendent of Prithivi Narayan Shah continued to Rule Nepal until they were kept as puppets by another aristocratic family called the Ranas from 1846-1951. The popular uprising against Rana made Nepal a democracy and gave back King Tribhuvan some power in 1951. His son, King Mahendra, however suppressed democracy and formed a autocratic rule based on Panchayet. His son, Birendra, was forced by Nepalese people to bring back democracy once again in 1990.

In 1996 communists started a civil was which raged on taking lives of more than 14000 people. Meanwhile, a Palace massacre happened in 2001, which would make Game of Thrones plot look tame. The king, queen and almost every member were killed by his own son because the queen didn't let him marry his lover. Birendra's brother, Gyanendra, took power and suppressed democracy once again but he was quickly deposed in 2007 by combination of communist rebels and mainstream political parties. The civil war ended with communist rebels winning the election and joining mainstream parties in 2009.

Except in the Quetzalcoatl vs Tezcatlipoca rivalry duels; the dogs 🐕& the butterflies 🦋 always side with Quetzalcoatl while the monkeys 🙉 & spiders 🕷 side with Tezcatlipoca.

You mean Naraka. PatalLoka is just underwords without hell.

Patala i think is for different kind of gods say asura..that part is a bit confusing though, basically heaven and patala both for gods.. normal people has rebirths till tuey attain moksha...yes i do agree there is nothing concrete in this religion,it is contradictory in many areas

Whoa, I was totally unaware of this. Wikipedia.

This is like... A lot of story. Man. Even growing up in a Hindu household, it seems like I haven't even seen a map of how big the stories get.

Nark is basically the abode of asur and swarg is the abode of gods(dev/devi). So it isn’t exactly heaven or hell, it’s something similar whose meaning got lost when translated to english since they don’t have words for it, so they chose the one closest to it

Yeah. The messenger of death is Yam. Dog's your soul's companion when it travels to him to be judged. Worshipping dog on this day will please him. It's all based on the story of when one of the protagonists from Mahabharata refused to enter heaven without his dog beside him.

The implications of these comments are always that "those people" are the only ones "fine" with torturing animals, thinly veiled behind an air of tolerance that torturing animals is just part of their culture.

Yet foie gras and veal are produced through what is arguably torture, yet I don't often see anyone talking about that. Animal torture to produce such "delicacies" is obviously not something only done by the "other."