Kankrevihar temple, Surkhet

We are waiting for the last of the team to arrive and are still in the town of Surkhet, down at about 700m altitude in the middle of a roughly circular valley surrounded by hills. The town has got increasingly busy over the 13 years since my last visit and has a large bustling bazaar and on a sunny day like this is a great place to soak up the atmosphere of being back in Nepal.

This morning I went on a short sightseeing trip to the remains of the Buddhist Kankrevihar temple which is about 15 minutes drive outside Surkhet on a wooded hill in the centre of the valley.

 

View of temple platform, surrounded by carved stones

The temple had either collapsed or been destroyed at some point in the past and the site was

Unfinished business in the Himalaya

In 1998 I spent two months walking across Nepal from the southern Terai to the mountains and valleys north of Jumla. Logistically the expedition was totally self-supporting (bar the odd bit of spinach) and worked its slow way across a changing landscape from the flat plains of the Terai through arid foothills, across alpine meadows to wide gravel valleys with braided rivers, lush terrace systems and dense forested slopes. The aim was to carry out a reconnaissance of surviving monuments along a 'royal road' between the Summer and Winter capitals of a medieval kingdom that helped shape modern Nepal: the Khasa Malla.

Camp at contemporary temple site at Dullu