The hidden gems of Kirtipur
As monsoon makes its way into Nepal, I go on a last-minute photo tour around Kirtipur Municipality for a project
Last week was a busy week at Kirtipur Municipality, as we’ve got a few projects in the works. Much of the hubbub around the office has to do with the end of financial year in Nepal. For projects that were languishing in the to-do pile, this means a last-minute flurry of commencement—and the whole of Kirtipur seems to be in a state of being dug up, built out, reinforced or re-sealed in a scattering of retaining walls, new footpaths and widened roads.
One of the two software projects I’m working on is a website to promote tourism in Kirtipur Municipality to an English-speaking audience. It’s actually a project that belongs to a colleague and fellow Australian Volunteers Program volunteer who fulfils the role of Sustainable Tourism Officer for Kirtipur municipality. She arrived some 6–months before Athena and I, and made my transition into volunteering at Kirtipur Municipality much less confronting.
With two months remaining on her assignment, and an unfortunate overlap of our escape-monsoon holidays—my colleague and I are left with about 6 weeks to deliver a comprehensive website promoting tourism around Kirtipur. And with a mishap in communication between the municipality and one of its contractors, we’ve been left with a photo-album-sized hole in our resources for this website—so what better way to resolve it than to go for a photo tour and capture some photos for the website ourselves!
Thanks to this project, I’m starting to get familiar with the attractions that Kirtipur has to offer. Pictured below is the Hilltop Town’s largest temple, Bagh Bhairab.
The views of Kathmandu Valley from behind this temple are extraordinary—and yes—you’ll be able to see the Himalayas in the distance on a clear day. Attached to the topmost section is weaponry that was captured from the Ghorka army during their two failed attempts to conquer the lands of Kirtipur. Even though Kirtipur (and more broadly Nepal) enjoys an ethnic harmony these days, it stands as a symbol of Kirtipur’s resilience.
Newari culture is not at all unique to Kirtipur, but the municipality, businesses and residents do their best to preserve the culture here, and that’s immediately apparent in the intricate architecture of Kirtipur’s buildings. The painstakingly crafted wood carvings that adorn windows and doors throughout the Hilltop Town in Kirtipur give the area a real charm, and sense of pride in its workmanship.
Apart from the obvious attractions in Kirtipur, there are the not-so-obvious ones. One of these is the food! It didn't take me long after starting my role at the current municipality office to find the local haunt for fresh, cheap and authentic Newari food. For NPR रू95 (approximately AUD$1.25) I get my usual, a plate of freshly-cooked chilli buffalo—a slightly gamier form of beef—along with some spiced boiled potato, beaten rice and spiced chickpea. You can get this sort of food all around Kathmandu Valley, which is the home of Newari culture; but I reckon nobody does it better than Ravi and his wife, in their little eatery beside our office.
So now that I’m wising up to the delights that Kirtipur has to offer, I’m excited to present this tourism website along with our Sustainable Tourism Officer. Not only that—I’ve committed to making the whole project open-source, so that if there are other municipalities around Kathmandu (or budding web developers who would also like to showcase their town), they can access the source code, as well as the development setup and deployment details on Kirtipur Municipality’s BitBucket project page. And if some time in the future— when I’ve concluded my time at Kirtipur Municipality—the organisation would like to extend the website or add more content, everything that a developer would need is available in the documentation within.
We’re aiming for a late August launch of the website, which will eventually be available at v̶i̶s̶i̶t̶.k̶i̶r̶t̶i̶p̶u̶r̶m̶u̶n̶.g̶o̶v̶.n̶p̶ (updated to https://visitkirtipur.com)—assuming of course our visas come through and we’re able to continue our work here.
