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Published: November 26th 2008
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On our return from the Everest trek, we spent a few days eating, recovering, sight-seeing and having lots of hot showers back in Kathmandu.
The city has a well-established backpacker quarter, Thamel, packed with restaurants and shops with everything a foreign tourist could desire, from clothing to paintings, brand name outdoor equipment to Mexican food. It's so much that you begin to wonder how so many stores selling almost the exact same stock can all co-exist so close together.
And so we indulged in everything we couldn't get or wouldn't afford on the Everest trek: falafel, steak, beer, Thai food, laundry...it was great.
The weather was pleasantly a little cooler than when we had left. Still hot during the day, but refreshing at night.
The Kathmandu valley is blessed with an abundance of impressive temples and 'old city' neighbourhoods, most of which are in easy walking distance of the city centre.
Once you step out of the hectic but tourist-oriented Thamel, the streets get a lot more potholed and covered with varying quantities of garbage and dirt. We navigated our way through dusty neighbourhoods, having quick "where are you from?" conversations with the odd person while
dodging motorbikes, trucks and stray dogs.
Swayambhunath is a Buddhist temple built on a hill. The site also includes a number of other temples, a tribe of playful monkeys and great, if smoggy, views of the Kathmandu valley.
The actual stupa is the white and gold object with the eyes of Buddha gazing out in the four directions.
On another outing we visited
Pashupatinath, Nepal's most important Hindu temple. It sits on the banks of the holy Bagmati River and is visited by pilgrims from all over Nepal as well as India.
Pashupatinath is one of the most popular cremation sites for Hindus in Nepal. As such, the scene around the banks of the Bagmati is a melee of worshipers, mourners, tourists, bathers, local "guides," sadhus and beggars.
"Guides" are the persistent men, often claiming to be students, that befriend tourists and proceed to tell them about the temples and history of the sights with or without consent. These are found at any and all tourist sights. Unless they are told very strongly to leave, they will follow foreigners around for 10, 20 minutes or until the visitors start heading for the exit and then
demand payment for their unsolicited services. It can get pretty exasperating as we find ourselves constantly having to say "No, thank you, we don't need a guide." Sometimes quite firmly.
Sadhus are wandering holy men that have given up their worldly goods and are mourned as dead by their families to focus on spiritual practices. While it's true that sadhus partly survive off of the handouts of others, some of the ones we find at tourist sights have really made a business out of it. This particularly clowny batch at Pashupatinath lure in tourists with friendly smiles, waves and "Yes, photo!" only to demand a donation. In some cases demanding large sums of cash. It seems a bit out of character.
As you can see on the picture of the Bagmati River, there are stone steps leading down on either bank, these are called ghats. On the right side are the cremation ghats (you can see the smoke). There is distinctly sweet-smelling smoke that can be overpowering at times in the surrounding air.
We watched as one body burned and another was washed in the river and prepared for cremation. It's an oddly public ritual.
People
come down to river banks to bathe and wash clothes, dump garbage and send little floating candle offerings at sunset. Rivers in Nepal and India are believed to purify, so it's okay to pollute them because they are always washing "clean." They also receive the city sewage.
So a river bank in this part of the world usually involves a lot of garbage both on the banks and floating, brownish, opaque water and a constant parade of humanity coming by to toss their trash, take a dump, have a bath or swim, pray and whatever else you can think of. It's pretty hard on sensitive western eyes.
After Pashupatinath, we wandered further out into the valley to the
Bodhnath, passing the odd rice paddy and more livestock among the squat concrete houses and shops. Kathmandu has been quickly sprawling out further and further into the countryside as Nepali people continue to do what populations all over the world are doing: migrating towards the cities in search of some way to make a living.
The circle around the Bodhnath is one of those heavenly almost-traffic-free places where you can stretch your legs (still in a sea of humanity)
and not worry about motorbikes clipping you on their way by. In fact, the image that came to mind is of one of a European square lined with beautiful buildings. Only instead of a statue or fountain in the middle, there is this huge, impressive white and gold stupa to walk around.
The scene at the Bodh is very Tibetan. The ladies with their colourful multi-stripe aprons, those Tibetan-looking faces and the prayer wheels mounted into alcoves that are spun to clear away sins as they walk around the Bodh in a clockwise direction.
There is also a plentiful selection of Buddhist monasteries in the area, so monks in their yellow and maroon clothing are a common sight.
After doing a few rounds of the Bodh ourselves, we found a patio and awaited the sunset. We discovered that the menus of these rooftop patios were pretty pricey, but beer was cheap, so we lingered until the full moon candles were lit and the moon was high in the sky. Yes, how not-so-zen of us.
On another day we walked to the 'old city' of
Patan. Patan is know for its craftspeople: jewelers, wood carvers, tailors. It
was once a separate town from Kathmandu but has since been joined by urban development.
Patan has a Durbar Square which means a delineated area that contains a royal palace. This is another place with virtually no traffic, old buildings and teaming with tourists and temples of all ages.
As we walked back towards Kathmandu, we detoured through the Kumbeshwar Temple. A busy, smokey place with various, inexplicable activities going on. People coming in and out of temple structures, making offerings of flowers and food, lighting candles or sitting down to pray with holy men. We're not totally sure what the goats were for, but we have read that Hindus are not shy about the odd healthy sacrifice.
We crossed the Vishnumati River on the walk back to Thamel. It was another sad stretch of filthy river. Time to kick the habit of pausing for a breath of fresh air when crossing over a watercourse. Besides, you might get hit by a random plastic bag of garbage being thrown from a motorbike!
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