Golden Temple and Patan's hidden bahals

Patan has well over a hundred bahals and bahis, the courtyard monasteries of its Buddhist Newar families. We begin at Kwa Bahal, the Golden Temple, north of the Durbar Square. Its main shrine faces a courtyard of gilded roofs, bells and prayer wheels, and the boy priest on his month's duty sits beside it. Look up at the carved struts and the small figures of monkeys and guardians round the roofs.

Then we walk south and east to Mahabouddha, a tall shikhara covered in thousands of terracotta tiles, each moulded with a small Buddha. It is modelled on the Mahabodhi temple at Bodh Gaya and is easy to miss, hidden in a courtyard barely wider than itself. Next door, Uku Bahal has an extraordinary crowd of metal animals and shrines in its yard.

We finish in the north at Kumbheshwar, a Shiva temple with five roofs, and its pond, where Hindu and Buddhist practice sit side by side. On the way we stop at small chaityas and stone water spouts, and explain how the Buddhist and Hindu communities of Patan share festivals, gods and guthis.