Body
(Re)colonizing Tradition
A Pedestrian Guide to a "Traditional" City
Welcome to Bhaktapur
[1] The Tea Stall at Guhepukhu
[2] Nava Durga Chitra Mandir
[3] Khauma Square
[4] Tourist Motor Park
[5] Indrani Pitha
[6]Lasku Dhwakha Gate
[7]Char Dham
[8]Cafe de Temple
[9]Batsala Temple
[10] Batsala Temple
[11] City Hall
[12] The Procession Route
[13] Pujari Math
[14] The Peacock Restaurant
[15] Sewage Collection Ponds
[16] Bhairavanath Temple
|
[8] Cafe de Temple: Generating Tourism
The country is fast losing its original image as a "peaceful, friendly, and mysterious" country. Efforts must be directed to restore this image. Major tourists sites should be made clean and pollution free. The government should (after the institutionalization of Ministry of Environment ) be able to enforce the minimum environment code of conduct, at least in and around popular tourists¹ sites. ‹Chand Diwaker, "Tourism for the Next Millennium," The Kathmandu Post, 25 March 1999
Just to your right, past the rows of tourist shops, you can see Cafe de Temple Restaurant. Walk through the Marlboro umbrellas, into the building, and up the stairs to the roof garden. Wave down a waiter, and order a Coca-Cola that is bottled nearby at the local plant in the Valley.
In capitalism we are what we buy, and tourists get to know the city in a theater of purchases.
As such, in the tourist map, Bhaktapur¹s culture is not only on display in the form of "authentic" sacred object and antiques, but it is commodified through souvenirs into commodities for sale. For the tourist, everything is tinged with a monetary nimbus. In fact, the smokeless industry of tourism is now Nepal's largest earner of hard currency. In Nepal, tourism is an important source of foreign exchange and major employer (Kunwar 1989, 195). Yet, the symbolic capital that tourism harvests is not natural, but must be produced from indigenous social patterns. Thus, tourism is not something that just "happens." It must be planned for and managed like any other industry.
|
Maps
Mandala Map
Tourist Map
Government Map
Pedestrian Tour Map
Bhaktapur Durbar Square
Tacapa Map
Satellite Photograph
Kathmandu Valley
Goddesses
|