Asia Adventure 2012: Kathmandu

After another delicious buffet meal at the Yak and Yeti, Dinesh greeted us again and introduced us to Sagun Panday, Guide for our morning tour.

Today is Sunday which is the first day of the week which ends on Friday. So the weekend consists of one day, Saturday. When we arrived yesterday, the drive was quite peaceful, but today, it was very busy and to add to the busy-ness was an afternoon rally being staged by one of the political parties. So there were busloads of people arriving to attend.

We visited Pashupatinath Temple which is one of the most significant Hindu temples of Lord Shiva in the world and the oldest Hindu temple in Kathmandu. It is located on the Bagmati River which was dry, dirty and full of debris, mainly related to the daily cremation and memorial ceremonies. A community group was busy dredging the river to clean it up and while others were burning the debris collected. The temple itself was only open to Hindu worshippers, but the grounds across the river containing the Shiva temple and votive shrines was open to anyone. (Note: memorial ceremonies include feeding the deceased. They are conducted on the anniversary of the deceased person’s death. It is believed that 1 day in the next world is equivalent to 365 days in the physical world and deceased persons should be fed every “day”.)

We met the “Holy Hippies” which is a group of Indian holy men who have long dreadlocks and full body paint. They sit on the stupas everyday earning money posing for pictures and they donate all money to support the needy.

Monkeys run free everywhere and there are tons of them!

Our next stop was to Boudhanath, which is one of the holiest Bhuddist sites in Kathmandu. Located in the middle of a densely populated, dusty street, the site was like a village in and of itself, fully contained on all sides. Located in the centre, the stupa is one of the largest in the world and is surrounded by a circle of shops and restaurants. It was just gorgeous and once inside this complex, you would never know you were in the midst of a busy city. We purchased the Circle of Life painting from Tushita Heaven Handicrafts and Thangka School where painters are trained. The paintings can take up to 6 months to complete and have varying quality levels depending on the proficiency of the painter, detail of painting, and amount of gold paint used.

Getting back to our hotel took quite due to traffic in the intensely clogged streets (somewhat due to the rally), but eventually we made it back. Dinesh had dropped off 2 duffel bags for our hike so we reorganized between what to take and what to store at the hotel. As time went on we ran out of time to venture out for dinner and opted for dinner at the hotel again.