Pashupatinath

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The next day we met up with the people on our Everest Base Camp tour. Chris from Wellington, NZ and Louise and Dave from Chester in the UK. We were introduced to Padesh our Kathmandu guide for the day. He took us out to Pashupatinath. This is Nepal’s most important Hindu temple on the banks of the holy Bagmati River. The river is considered holy despite how polluted it is. The most interesting part was the cremation ghats along the river which are used for open air cremations. The bodies are wrapped in shrouds with garlands and laid along the river bank for the ceremony before being cremated on wooden pyres. While we were there we witnessed a few of these cremation ceremonies. Quite amazing and not as disturbing as we had imagined.

Next stop was Bodhnath. This is an enormous Tibetan Buddhist stupa. The whole area around the stupa is crammed with monasteries, painting workshops and other Buddhist related shops. We visited the Thanka Art School. This school teaches students to become Thanka master painters which takes about 10 years. The detail in the paintings and precise geometry and patience involved in preparing these works of arts was amazing. A small painting would take 2-3 students 3-4 months, while a large painting 9-10 months. Only the master was allowed to apply the 24 carat gold to the paintings. I really wanted to buy one but at US$150 for a small painting, I did not think the budget could cope at such an early stage of our trip!

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