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Published: December 5th 2007
Nepal is certainly a beautiful country, spectacular, is probably a more appropriate description. Its position between India & Tibet has contributed to much of its history. Its own internal history is one of competitive, mini-kingdoms & this is still quite visible today in the form of the three great towns of the Kathmandu Valley - Kathmandu, Patan & Bhaktapur. Beyond the Kathmandu Valley, of course, are the great Himalayan Mountains.
Nepal has a population of about 23 million with its capital, Kathmandu, having about 600,000. The temples of Kathmandu, Patan, Swayambhunath, Pashupatinath & Bodhnath all look quite time worn but are all still very lively places with the people using them for their prayer & worship, or because they are tourist 'hot-spots' where they can generate some income. (Bhaktapur has had a lot of German money spent on its restoration and upkeep & is not quite as congested as the other cities.)
The Nepali are quite a religious lot, not are there just the temple complexes mentioned above, but you see little altars or shrines on many corners, indeed, in many shops & houses. They seem to have an acceptance of their lot in life which allows them to get on
with things in a fairly good-natured way; their reward coming in their next incarnation as a luckier being. They will
Namaste you as soon as look at you.
Namaste is the traditional Hindu greeting, often accompanied by a small nod with hands brought together at chest level. This friendly, warm greeting is exchanged often & willingly by nearly all the Nepali & you find yourself involved in these exchanges as well. On our trek we 'Namaste'-ed just about everyone we passed!
We spent most of our Kathmandu time based in Thamel. A familiar & comfortable part of town; it is quite a touristy zone. This area is a sprawling set of streets & alleyways, many that are un-named, that house just so many hotels, restaurants, souvenir stalls, 'genuine' antique artefacts, internet cafes, laundry services, clothing shops, etc, etc, - all the things a tourist, mostly Westerner, would want. Apart from the stores & buildings there is quite a large band of wandering sellers, whose "shop is in their bag", as they rove these fertile streets with their stocks of tiger-balm, siringi, trinkets, etc. They've learnt, long ago, a second glance from a tourist is almost a sale, so get in
Voting
At the Aussie Embassy, Marg & Sue are waiting to cast their vote in the forthcoming election.there & close the deal. As a tourist, familiar with these streets, you've learnt to look down, away, just not notice these sellers. You seem to get recognised as
fresh meat early on & are attacked from all quarters until that newness has worn off (a couple of days), & they will leave you alone.
We stayed at the Thorong Peak Hotel where it cost Marg & I 850R=$15 a night. Kathmandu was quite a busy place when we first arrived but the slower season was approaching as we left the city. Most of the buildings here are tall, 4 or 5 floors would be pretty average, with many roof-top restaurants striving to be the highest in town & so provide mountain views. Most of hotels or restaurants have no lifts either, you have to lug you hefty backpack up & down or have 'the boy' do it for you.
Pashupatinath, 5km from Kathmandu, is one of the holiest temples in the world revered & worshipped by Hindu & Buddhist. Pashupati is an incarnation of Shiva, as the more passive, ‘lord of the beasts’. (We visited Pashupatinath on Wed 31/Oct and paid the entry fee of 250R=$4.50.) The Pashupatinath
Area is quite large & features the Bagmati River, temples, ghats, monasteries, stupas & other structures I don’t really understand. Pashupatinath is a popular place to be cremated, with burning ghats situated right in front of the temple for royalty & another four, or so, further south, for the common people.
This is a very busy & lively place, with many people involved in cremation ceremonies, but also the many tourists, the wandering trinket/souvenir sellers, would-be ‘guides’, sadhus, etc, and even quite a few monkeys who seemed to reside at the temple. The tourist interest in the on-going cremations can seem very crass & insensitive with some such photographers upsetting Sue who had just learned of an uncle’s death.
Sadhus are that set of people who have left mainstream society in search of spiritual enlightenment or fulfillment. They are often dressed in bright clothes & have lines, tilaka, painted on their foreheads. They exist by seeking alms from others. Some, however, may be just sophisticated beggars - posing, at a price, for tourist photographs. We found a 'sadhu' made up to look like Hanuman, the monkey god, complete with face mask & long tail!
From here we walked the
kilometre or two to Bodhnath - just asked directions from locals when we felt unsure. Bodhnath (entry fee 100R=$1.80) is a huge stupa, the largest in Nepal, & the religious centre for Nepal's Tibetan population. The round structure has had buildings built up pretty close to it, but there is still adequate space for the Tibetan community to circumambulate the stupa wielding their prayer wheels. This is quite a popular activity in the late afternoon or early evening. The stupa originally on this spot was probably built around 600AD with the current stupa dating from the 14 century.
On Sat 17/Nov we walked the couple of kilometres from Thamel to the Buddhist temple of Swayambhunath, situated on a big hill west of the city. It is locally known as the 'monkey temple' after the large clan of monkey living on this hill. Geologists believe the Kathmandu Valley was once a lake & that the Swayambhunath hill was an island in that lake. Again, construction dates are vague, but some construction occurred here in 460CE & by the 13 century it was an important Buddhist centre. Ransacked by Mughals in 1346, it was restored in the 17th century. Entry here
cost 100R=$1.80 and the main access is by a great stairway. It was a very busy place, being Saturday, many locals were there taking in the views over the city from up high. It's quite a congested place with lots of temples, gompas, images, statues, etc.
We visited Kathmandu's Durbar Square on Tue 30/Oct with an entry fee of 200R=$3.60. Durbar in Nepali means 'palace' and in Kathmandu, Patan & Bhaktapur there are durbar squares in front of the old palaces. (The King no longer lives in the old Royal Palace in Kathmandu.) Clustered around the Durbar Square are the Royal Palace, numerous temples, the Kumari Chowk (House of the Living Goddess) & the Kasthamandap (House of Wood). Durbar Square and Basantapur Square adjoin each other & are very much the centre of old Kathmandu & are great places to look over, or perhaps, better still, to sit & watch the crowds & traffic come and go. The tempos (3-wheeled 'taxis'), tourists, locals carting loads from their heads, beggars, sadhus in spectacular colours, cars & taxis in & out - all very eye-opening.
You don't seem to see much in the way of simple machines. Certainly, no wheel-barrows. You
see shovel loads of material being added to the basket dangling from the head of the co-worker. It's surprising, sometimes sickening, to see the size of the loads that are carted this way. The taxis are almost all Maruti Suzuki 800cc cars, small, so they suit the streets, but what a bugger when you're trying to move three westerners, with luggage, like us!
Wed 21/Nov we made our way to the Australian Embassy in order to cast our vote in the election the following Saturday. Quite a nice experience, visiting the Embassy when there is no personal crisis & you can appreciate the peacefulness of the compound.
Visited Patan's Durbar Square on Thu 22/Nov'for the entry fee of 200R=$3.60. This was not that dissimilar to the Kathmandu version. I thought this area looked older, a little more dilapidated. I noticed one high wall with some substantial props holding it in place. Streets in these neighborhoods looked particularly narrow.
Our drives in & out of Kathmandu, to Pokhara & Hetauda, gave us a good look at the roads, countryside & villages we passed. The roads are heavily trafficked with huge trucks & buses so it is little wonder
that they are in a sorry state of repair. The dust of the roadsides is lifted by the traffic & whitewashes the village trees & plants quite noticeably - a good rain would be needed to turn these plants green again. The building of houses, shops, etc, doesn't seem to follow building codes and often looks to be pretty ad-hoc. One house will put a crude concrete slab at the front of their house with the next place not having one, just something to trip over now. Generally, the towns are dirty looking & you will usually see rubbish dumped in certain concentrated areas but also strewn all over. the vast majority of residential places do not have running water to their interiors. You see water plumbed to streets with people filled large pots for carting back to their houses. Consequently, lots of washing happens in the local streams & these get polluted.
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