Kathmandu

Our plane touched down in the Nepali capital early into the night. We were so excited to get going, we completely bypassed the visa-on-arrival application booth. A poor customs agent had to sort us out, and we ended up at the back of the line due to the mishap and had to apply and pay for our visas.

They let us into the country anyways, and we were on our way! We were picked up by Probin, who gave us some flower necklaces as a welcome present. The hotel he put us in was quite lovely. The hotel even reopened the kitchen for us so we could get some late night momo’s for dinner! The hospitality in Nepal, as we would quickly come to learn, is very wonderful. The entire culture works around a ‘guest is god’ type mantra.

We had one day in Kathmandu, and we spent it well. We have, for the first time in a long time, have done a fully jam packed tourist day in a city. So lets start at the start of it all.

We signed up for a city tour through our trekking guide. We are in Nepal for a massive hiking adventure, and a little add onto that was this day trip around the city. We we got our guide, Rama, and a driver, and hit up all the major attractions.

The first stop was the Pashupatinath Temple. This site is a very holy temple within the Hindu religion, and the largest Hindu temple in Kathmandu. And as luck would have it, we were in Kathmandu for Ugadi, a major new year for Telugu people (who generally reside in central India). So it was very very busy with many pilgrims from India.

Depending on who you are there are a few ways to explore the temple. You can give an offering to here, which is a near mandatory one in a lifetime thing to do for Hindus. The line to do this is around 3 hours long. If your Hindu and want to just see the temple, you can do that. And if you are not Hindu, you cannot go in the grounds to the temple. This is standard practice for all Hindu temples we visited (The reason as it turns out, is that in the 13^th century, a group of Muslims from India came to the Pashupatinath Temple and destroyed it, beheading all of the statues. With a careful eye you can still see those beheaded statues. After that, a blanket rule was put in place to protect the temples to protect them. Pashupatinath temple isn’t even the first Hindu temple that we’ve been to that experienced beheading. Angkor Wat, in Cambodia, experienced the same at the hands of Buddhist followers).

So we did the final option, which was just to walk around the outside of it. There was still a lot to see here.

For funerals, it is a great privilege to be cremated here at the Pashupatinath Temple. There are pyres along the river bank built for the ritual, after which the ashes go in the river, to eventually flow to the sacred Ganges. We witnessed in passing at least three cremations in action, and the preparation, including the body of a fourth. These all felt like very private moments for these families in grief, and we felt like we were intruding on the families. Not every tourist felt the same, and many photos of these families were taken, some with people posing in front of them. Rama was very upset witnessing this. So were we.

We continued to explore the grounds, and Rama would explain the Hindu legends behind each statue. We then got to a nice viewpoint where we could see the temple itself, and Rama continued with all of the legends. There was so much to learn.

Our next stop was the Buddhanath Stupa. This is that famous one that has the eyes on the top of it (lots of Stupa’s have the eyes on top, but this is the famous one). It was rebuilt recently too, only re-opening in 2018.

Nepal went through a massive earthquake in 2015 that destroyed many buildings, including a lot of heritage sites. A lot of what we saw in Kathmandu was recent construction, rebuilt to best replicate what was there before the earthquake.

And what was in front of us was wonderful. A massive white stupa (a man-made mound with a spire on top) with a square golden top, prayer flags flowing from top to base, stood in the middle of a large pavilion. With 4-5 stories of cafes, hotels and restaurants encircled the stupa. Everyone observing was walking in a clockwise manor, for good luck. Some were adjacent to the stupa, spinning the prayer wheels (which are metallic bell shaped things on a vertical axis that you can spin) for their walk around, again, for good luck. On the stupa were a collection of workers both repainting the stupa, and replacing the prayer flags.

There was a political rally while we were here as well. Rama was not thrilled about this either. He was going on about how it was very disrespectful to introduce political rally’s into a place of worship, which should be for quiet contemplation.

We had lunch here, which was a lot of momo’s. Momo’s are Nepal’s version of ‘everything is pie,’ (In London, at the start of our trip, we witnessed a very drunk British man ranting about how any filling wrapped in pastry is just a pie. Dumplings, meat in pastry, it’s a pie. Empanada, perogies, the list goes on. It’s a joke between us now). The momo consists of a meat or veg filling within a wrapper, served with a curry sauce. They are normally a snack, but if you have enough like we did, they make a meal. We spent lunch contemplating newfound lessons that we had learned about ourselves over the last nine months or so.

We then sped across town to another temple. Well, we went as quickly as we could in Kathmandu traffic. The traffic here is baffling. There are no stop lights. Instead, each intersection has a traffic cop directing everybody. The streets have so sense of hierarchy to them, and we were constantly weaving through neighborhoods. We did multiple U-turns in the middle of the road, and traffic, blocking up to three lanes at a time. This seems like a standard move, as its easier to do a right turn, U-turn, then another right rather than going straight though an intersection. We made it in one piece, and never really felt nervous at any point. Even if there is an accident, no one is going fast enough to do a lot of damage.

Next was a monkey temple, and there were a lot of monkeys. Over 1000 apparently live in the temple and nearby park. They were causing a complete ruckus. I think that people forget that these are still wild animals. We watched a small child get bitten on the arm. Rama insisted that they take him to the hospital for a rabies shot. I guess he got bit a lot by monkeys as a kid, so he knows from experience. We also saw one take a swipe at an under gentleman who was posing next to one for a picture. And finally, we watched one do a quick dash and grab of a child’s Coca Cola, and then proceed to chug the whole bottle in front of its victim.

This temple had a lot more souvenir sellers than the others. I’m not really sure why. But the paintings were very beautiful.

Our final stop on this tour was the Durbar Square. This area has a collection of all sorts of temples. Some are still in a bit of disrepair due to the earthquake. Others are fully rebuilt in all of their glory. Some survived. The whole square was a maze of temples that Rama explained to us. They all looked somewhat the same to the untrained eye, but each one was for a different god, and praying at different temples would yield different results. The one fun fact is that the temples are made with carvings of people in erotic moments in the roof. This is to prevent them from being destroyed by Parvati, the god of fertility.

With that, our tour was over, and Rama and us parted ways. We had a lot of errands to run and not a lot of time, so we quickly headed over to the Thamel district for supplies. We were heading out on a big hike the next day, and shipped all of our hiking stuff home while in Brazil. So we needed new hats, gloves, rain pants, everything for the massive adventure.

Thamel was quite the district as well. It is the main tourist hub, and activities happen late into the night. There are all sorts of shops. The classic souvenir shops exist (carrying the classics like fridge magnets and post cards and custom t shirts), as well as some Nepalese specific ones, which have lots of incense and singing bowls. Quite a few art galleries are around as well. And most fun of all, the map stores. With all of the Himalayan treks around, any good trekker will bring a paper map with them. I got to check out all of the maps, and learned about quite a few hiking regions that I didn’t know existed before. All for the next exploration.

Our tour company outfitted us with a celebratory dinner. We met up with Probin again, and he took us to a touristy dinner and a show type place, where we could watch a traditional form of dance. The restaurant was completely deserted, save for a large group from Quebec. So it made the show a bit awkward, especially because the other group wasn’t that interested. We chatted with Probin about his and our lives. He’s a Man City fan, and claims that he was before they started winning all the time. All those fans say that, I’m not sure I believe them. We had more momos and dal bhat. Dal bhat is a Nepali staple. It is composed of rice, curried potatoes, lentil soup, and sometimes some boiled greens. We would have a lot more dal bhat in the next couple weeks.

To end the night, the dancers invited us all on stage to learn a dance together. They put the music on, and we just did our best to follow along. It was a lot of fun having the entire audience up on the stage.

One day in Kathmandu and it was a crazy one. We packed late into the night, preparing for a long a grueling next day. An early morning and long bus ride awaited us in the morn.