Rana garden story12/27/2023 ![]() ![]() Nepal’s capital has also dealt with excessive noise pollution, prompting officials to ban car horns in Kathmandu last year. Nepal’s air quality was recently ranked as the worst in the world in an Environmental Performance Index report. The expansive space, for which you have to pay a fee to enter (100 rupees for Nepalis, 200 rupees for foreigners), is a reprieve for locals looking to escape Kathmandu’s pollution. Around 800 people visit on Saturdays and public holidays. Staff members say that on any given day, the garden gets about 300 visitors. It’s a great place to read or sketch or take a nap. You may observe some canoodling as you walk through the garden, but young couples are not the only ones flocking to the Garden of Dreams. Public displays of affection are frowned upon in Nepal, and the nearly 76,000-square-foot neoclassical-style garden, commissioned by Field Marshal Kaiser Shumsher Rana in 1920, has plenty of quiet spots that make it ideal for privacy-deprived Nepali couples. Inside the grounds of the Kaiser Mahal, a former Rana-dynasty palace, at the eastern edge of the Thamel neighborhood, the Garden of Dreams is a popular meeting place for Kathmandu’s young lovers. The Nepalis at the table looked at each other, mischievous smiles forming on our faces. “And what do people do there?” he furthered inquired. “It’s a park-like garden in Thamel, that used to belong to one of the Rana aristocrats,” one of us answered. “What is the Garden of Dreams?” a friend who was recently visiting Nepal asked when he heard the name come up in conversation.
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