Saturday, March 28, 2015

The Best Taste of Patan (पाटनका मिठा स्वादहरु)





Whenever I have friends coming in from abroad, I take them on a stroll to Patan Durbar Square, in and around Patan’s other attractions and then, once their stomachs have toughened up a bit, to little corners that are a food lover’s paradise. It is like a ritual. These places, often named after the family names of their owners, offer the best of Newari food that you can get.

Bulal(बुलाल)

Apart from the usual Newari dishes, this food joint is your go to place for kar thwon or hard rice beer (which is slightly red in color). This eatery would make for a good visit in the evenings to enjoy a glass (or two) of kar thwon with tidbits like chhoyla, fried tongue and spicy sukuti on the side.

Kawaacha(कंवचा  )
Located in the back alleys of Chyasal, Kwacha is a popular Newari food joint that I personally frequent, perhaps because it is located very close to the Patan Durbar Sqaure and offers a lot of variety. The eatery derives its name from its founder Bekha Man Byanjankar who is also known as Kwacha. While Kwacha offers a variety of Newari delicacies including fried tongue, brain, liver and lungs. This place is especially known for the takkha and nyakhhuna, special Newari meat delicacies that are only eaten during the winter. Takkha is made of buffalo meat and is jelly-like in nature. Nyakhunna is similar to takkha but is spicier and includes bits of dried fish.


Honacha(होनचा)
Perhaps the most widely known from this list, Honacha is a hole-in-the-wall eatery that serves baras (lentil patties), chhoyla (spicy buffalo meat), dyakkula (buffalo meat curry), spicy potato curry and sukuti (dried buffalo meat) along with local alcohol such as chhyang and aila. Honacha overlooks a corner of the Patan Durbar Square, the area behind the Krishna Mandir. This eatery has been around for more than 60 years and is your go-to place to try out various kinds of baras (such as plain bara, baras filled with eggs, and bara filled with meat and eggs).

Myakaji(म्याकाजि)
This over 20-year old eatery in Pinchhe (on the way to Gwarko from Patan Durbar Square), offers the best palu kachila (spicy, marinated uncooked ground buffalo meat) along with a range of other Newari fare. The place is also famous for the salami that they make. Drop in for a midday snack and make sure to try the diverse menu.

Visiting Yala यल: Patan Durbar Square

As you pass through the narrow, sun-deprived streets of Patan, you can hear, in between the roar of the vehicles zooming past, the monotonous melody of hammers coming down on metal. The artists of Patan are at work. Walking in Patan is like taking a tour of an artist’s studio; everywhere there’s an artist engrossed in making something or the other. And all around there are works that every artist wishes to match.
Patan Durbar Square is one of the most prominent places in Patan. It is also the ideal place to start one’s tour of Patan, for in the museum housed in the old palace are vital information on the esoteric art of sculpting that adorns almost all the famous structures of Patan. A visitor to the museum returns with enough knowledge to understand and appreciate the architectural feats of Patan.

The best place to test one’s recently acquired knowledge of sculpting – what facial expressions and postures of the various Hindu and Buddhist gods symbolize – is the Rudravarna Mahavihar. Located a mere 500 meters from the Patan Durbar Square, it is one of the oldest monasteries of Patan. It was built in the 6th century AD by the Licchavi king, Shiva Deva. In the past, the monastery also had a community of artisans that were specifically settled nearby to promote the growth of the various forms of art. The monastery has two courtyards, the larger of which is filled with stone and metal statues. The main shrine, which is three-stories high, houses an idol of ‘Kwapadhya’, the Shakyamuni Buddha. This statue is unique for its red face, which adds to the aura created by its intricate ornaments and the skillful metalwork surrounding it.

A five-minute walk north of Rudravarna Mahavihar is the Mahaboudha Temple. It is probably the only Buddhist temple in Nepal to be built in the shikhara style. The temple’s outer walls, which are made from terracotta, are covered in images of the Buddha. It is because of this feature that the temple is also referred to as ‘the temple of 9000 Buddhas’. The temple’s unique style was inspired by the temples of Bodh Gaya in India. It is said that Abhayaraj, the builder of the temple, conceived the idea of Mahadboudha Temple while on pilgrimage in India.

Another architectural masterpiece of Patan is the Golden Temple. The temple is full of artwork of all kinds from its pagoda roofs to its numerous metal sculptures. The temples and monasteries of Patan, most of which lie concealed behind houses, seem to preserve in them fragments of the past. The environment around them seems to have changed very little. In Patan, it seems, the houses haven’t crowded these historical and cultural monuments, but that they have given them refuge by enclosing them.











Patan is an artistic labyrinth: in nondescript alleys, in between modern concrete houses, behind simple looking low doorways are gems of architecture. Behind every mundane house is a relic of the city’s past. A visitor to Patan is best advised to tuck the map in the backpack. For every temple or monastery shown on the map there are a couple of inconspicuous but intriguing ones waiting to be discovered by anyone who will explore little passages between houses, duck and pass beneath low doorways, and let curiosity get the better of him or her

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

How to enable rewrite module in XAMPP, WAMP and Apache

  1. Open apache’s configuration file using your favorite text editor. The configuration file generally locates at:{apache_dir}/conf/httpd.conf
    If you are using XAMPP or WAMP package then you will find the file at:{xampp_dir}/apache/conf/httpd.conf
    {wamp_dir}/apache/conf/httpd.conf
  2. Search for the following string:#LoadModule rewrite_module modules/mod_rewrite.soand uncomment it (remove the ‘#’ sign).
  3. Now search for another string AllowOverride None and replace it by AllowOverride All
  4. Finally save the changes, close your text editor and restart your apache server.

KTM Duke 200 RC Nepal











13 Facts That You Must Know About Nepal

There is lot more in Nepal than Mount Everest and Himalayas. Nepal is a beautiful country rightfully called a paradise on earth. Nepal is truly a god’s playground with stunning landscapes, majestic mountains and mesmerizing lakes.

Have a look at some of the facts that you must know about Nepal.


 Out of the world’s top 10 tallest mountains, Nepal has 8 including Mount Everest (all rising over 8000 metres/ 26, 247 feet).
Nepal is a habitat for 900 species of birds i.e. about 8% of world’s total bird species. This makes it a wonderland for bird watching.

 Not A Single Drop Of Blood Has Ever Been Shed In Nepal In The Name Of Religious And Ethnic Riot.


The Kali Gandaki Gorge in Nepal is often considered the deepest gorge in the world.

 Nepal is the only country in the world home to a living goddess, the Kumari.
 Nepal is the oldest country of South Asia, and it was never colonized.
 Nepal is the only country in world with non-quadrilateral national flag.
 Unlike Other countries, Nepal has Saturday as public holiday, not Sunday.
 Nepal is the only country in the world to not have a time offset in multiples of 30 minutes from UTC. The time zone here is GMT+ 5:45.
Kathmandu has more UNESCO World Heritage Sites than any other city in the world.

World’s tallest grasslands are found in Nepal.

World’s most extreme (longest, steepest and fastest) zip-line is built at Sarangkot. A zip-line rider rides down the cable for two kilometers and gets to view surrounding peaks of Machhapuchhre and Annapurna.

Proud to be Nepali
All Nepalis know these facts will say – I’m proud to be a Nepali!

Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Register your personal .np domain for free

If you are a internet enthusiast and willing to get your own domain then it’s a no big deal. Unlike other domain registration .np registration is free of cost and every body can register .np domain. I am going to explain stepwise how you can get your personal domain.

Step 1

First thing first, if you want to register a domain you may want to go briefly through the Terms and Conditions.

Step 2

Check whether the domain you want is available or not(Check Domain Availability). For personal user, use your citizenship names for the domain registration. They only let your domain registered according to your citizenship name and it’s a first come first serve basis.


Visit the mercantile office. See the required documents below before visiting.

Required documents for .np registration:

For Official Request

A application letter written in the company/organization’s letter-head pad signed by authorized officer.
A copy of company/organization registration certificate issued by the respective government bodies must be dropped to the Host master at Mercantile communications, Durbar Marg. Kathmandu.

Online form (admin/ technical contacts and valid name servers). (Administrator’s contract address in the online form should be from the company owner)

NOTE:- A company/organization only can select domain names based on its company/organization’s name, product’s name, service’s name and brand name.

For Personal Request

1.A application request letter.

2.A copy of the applicant’s citizenship certificate must be dropped to the Host master at Mercantile communications, Durbar Marg. Kathmandu in order to verify the authenticity of the applicant as only Nepalese citizens are entitled to register personal domains.

3.Online form (Administrator’s contract address in the online form should be from the domain owner)
NOTE:- Personal Domain name should be selected based only on his/her name as mentioned in citizenship certificate.

Step 3

Fill out the online form. There are two things you need to know before applying online form. Primary and Secondary name server. Get DNS server information from your webhost.

For 000webhost its

primary name server ns01.000webhost.com

secondary name server ns02.000webhost.com


You can apply using any name server and change it later. But keep in mind that they will take a day or more to change your server information. So its better to put the DNS server information of the server where you will be hosting your site.

Step 4

Get yourself a web space through webhosting company. Now the webhosting company charges a cost for that and the rates depend. But if you are not willing to pay, then there are plenty of free webhosting site that provide you free webhosting facility. Unless you want to go commercial and have large web space those free webhosting should be good enough to keep your site up and running.


000webhost is good at providing free webhosting facility. You can try others if you like.


Step 5

Download a nice theme from the internet for your site or make your own. If you want a blog then wordpress would be great. Now get the ftp details from your webhost. Use ftp client like filezilla or fireftp(if you are Firefox user) to connect to your server and upload your files.

More FTP clients including filezilla can be found here.


Hope this was helpful.


Sunday, March 8, 2015

Happy Women's Day

International Women's Day (IWD), also called International Working Women's Day, is celebrated on March 8 every year.[2] In different regions the focus of the celebrations ranges from general celebration of respect, appreciation and love towards women to a celebration for women's economic, political, and social achievements. Started as a Socialist political event, the holiday blended in the culture of many countries, primarily in Europe, including Russia. In some regions, the day lost its political flavor, and became simply an occasion for men to express their love for women in a way somewhat similar to a mixture of Mother's Day and Valentine's Day. In other regions, however, the political and human rights theme designated by the United Nations runs strong, and political and social awareness of the struggles of women worldwide are brought out and examined in a hopeful manner. This is a day which some people celebrate by wearing purple ribbons.