In a valley about 7km south of Banepa (36km from Kathmandu), the small town of Panauti sits at the junction of the Roshi Khola and Punganiati Khola. Like Allahabad in India, a third ‘invisible’ river, the Padmabati, is said to join the other two at the confluence.A popular tradition asserts that the entire town is built on a single piece of solid stone, making it immune to earthquakes.Panauti once stood at the junction of important trading routes and had a royal palace in its main square. Today it’s just a quiet backwater, but is all the more int eresting for that. The village has retained and restored much of its traditional architecture and has a number of interesting temples, one of which may be the oldest in Nepal.