On Our Last Day in Nepal...

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Today was our last day in Nepal. Funny how you can stay put in a country for almost 4 weeks and start to feel comfortable with it and start feeling like it's a home away from home. Now our time here has come to an end, but we've really loved our time in Nepal and the people have been just so amazingly friendly and helpful. We will definitely have to come back again!! We are sad to leave but there's less excitement when things become comfortable, so it's time to move on and explore new lands!

Anyways, we planned to spend our last day visiting the last few sites we hadn't been to. We woke up and had a leisurely breakfast and then around 10:45, a bunch of us (us, Nasrin, Erik, Katie and Pauline) hired a driver for the day and hopped into a van and off we went. The Ottawa guys are also leaving tomorrow so this was a last day for us all (except Nasrin).

Our first stop was at Boudhanath, home to Nepal's largest stupa (a Buddhist holy site) and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We figured that we'd only be there for an hour max because as there isn't a lot to see there. However, there were a lot of shops so some of the girls did a bit of souvenir shopping there as well, which slowed things down a bit so we were more like 3 hours (including lunch). Oh well, in Nepal nothing happens quickly so we're right on Nepali time. After shopping we recognized that we better start looking at the stupa so we started walking around it (clockwise only of course!!). There were a lot of Buddhist monks walking around as well. This is a very holy place for them, so they come from far and wide to worship here. I don't know if we ever wrote about it in our previous blogs, but if you were to look at the stupa from an aerial view you would see the mandala pattern. The mandala is a design by the current Dali Llama and is a symbol of the universe. We bought a mandala painting a few weeks ago. As we walked around the stupa we saw two Asian girls taking what looked like modelling or fashion photographs. It looked really funny so we started taking some of our own (but I don't think we're as good at it as they are).

After making the complete circuit, we stopped for lunch at this pizzeria called the Roadhouse Cafe (they also have one in Thamel).

The next destination was called Pashupatinath, also a UNESCO World Heritage Site. This place is a truly different place. Pashupatinath is a site of cremation for the Hindu people. There are some Buddhist cremations as well, but cremation is very important in Hinduism. The Bagmati river runs through the centre of the site, dividing the life side and the death side. When you come in, the cremations take place on the left side of the river and there are lots of temples on the right side of the river for people to pray in for various reasons. The cremation side also has various temples, including the Pashupatinath temple, a Hindu temple dedicated to Lord Shiva (which is the Hindu name for what the Buddhists call Buddha). Non-Hindus cannot go into the temple. This is one of the most important Hindu temples in Nepal, and holy men from all over the world come here to worship.

On the banks of the Bagmati river, there are stairs that go down to the river, along with slanted platforms where they lay the body (which is wrapped in white clothes with a orange cloth on top) while it becomes purified by the river. They also wet the body with the water and pour some in the body's mouth. The body lies on this platform until it is ready to be brought to the area where they perform the cremation in open air. We saw a body that was going through this purification stage. The way this whole process works is that families often walk with the body on a green bamboo stretcher to get to Pashupatinath. I guess they perform some ceremonial blessing thing that I'm not sure about, but then eventually they bring the body down to the river for purification (the Bagmati River contains holy water). Then once the purification has ended (it took maybe 30 minutes for the one we saw), the body is put back on the stretcher and brought to the other side of a bridge, where the cremation sites are. The cremations take place in open air, for everyone to see, on a platform that is covered by a roof (for the rain). From there, the body is placed on some wood and the family gets to pay their last respects. They walk around 3 times. Then they add some hay and light it on fire. It takes about 3 hours for the burning to complete. At that point, the family gets the ashes and they throw some into the water and put the rest into the ground. This is supposed to symbolize giving back the body to the elements of the earth. The smoke from the fire is releasing the person into the air, then the person is released back into the water and finally to the Earth.

We were fortunate to get to see some of this go on, from the purification, to the different stages of burning. We saw loved ones walking around and wailing as they said goodbye. There were about 4 other cremations going on at the same time on other platforms, and they were in different stages of their burning. Obviously this site is still greatly in use today. They do cremations 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They do about 50-60 creations a day. It costs the family around 80 USD to do the cremation, depending on which clothes you choose, which wood you choose and which platform you choose — you can pay more to use the higher caste platform. Although the caste system is not in much use today, previously, the further up the river you were cremated, the higher caste you were in (and the royalty had their own platform). Today it doesn't matter except for the special platform.

All this information is coming from the guy that Elysia had hired when we got to the site (there are casual guides everywhere, looking to earn a buck. Elysia felt very uncomfortable going there and not understanding what was going on, so we're glad we did this). The tour only cost 500 rupees for all of us although he was trying to charge 500 each (but Elysia was firm and said she would not pay anymore than that..., but I think we gave him 600 because it was well done).

This experience was something very different than you would ever experience at home. This might all sound very morbid to you, but it's a very important part of their lives and is very culturally interesting. It's such a weird feeling that we're on this amazing trip and we go to visit this cremation centre, where people are saying their final goodbyes to their loved ones with tourists, as well as locals looking on. Indeed, there was quite an audience watching. Locals often come to this site to worship in the temples on the right side of the river. Then they sit and watch the cremations. We saw all of this process happening, and there were multiple cremations going on at once. People sit and watch it like a show. This is a very different custom than what we're used to in North America. I really believe that this is a culture that is more adept at dealing with death than we are. I would be that the reason why is because the majority of people (whose loved ones are getting cremated, that is) would be extremely uncomfortable sitting and watching their loved ones burn. I think most of us would want this done where we can't see it and pretend it never happened. Meanwhile in this culture, they witness the entire thing, like they have accepted what had happened and is ready to deal with it with the community. Perhaps it's easier in this culture because they believe in reincarnation, so this isn't the end but just the continuation of a journey towards nirvana. Whereas, if you don't believe in reincarnation, the unknown may make it difficult to accept death...., anyways these are just my two cents — it's not meant to spark debate. In any case, this is a very humbling experience to go through, and has really changed the way I think about the culture. In any case, death is usually a private affair in our culture, but something very public here.

Other things I just wanted to mention. So the Bagmati River is supposed to be sacred water, which is why they believe it purifies the body and why they throw in the ashes. Although people were swimming in there, I would definitely not want to step foot in it. Not only do people throw the ashes in, but also a lot of other things that they believe are offerings to the gods, so the water is very polluted. The Bagmati River actually turns into the Ganges River, which you always hear of being extremely polluted and that people in India dump the dead bodies into (probably for the same reasons as in Nepal). Locals do swim and bathe in the Ganges though. We thought it was funny though, because we saw this woman sweeping up the garbage on the walking area alongside the river. Then she swept it right into the river. The guide told us that it's holy garbage. That made us laugh. This just sounds like an excuse to pollute but apparently holy garbage makes someone out there happy...

After we watched a new body being prepared for burning and the fire started, we decided to head out. On our way out (as well as in), we were being harassed by ladies selling necklaces. Elysia's philosophy is to just keep waking and ignore them (which normally works), but Mike made the mistake of stopping to look even for just a second. They eventually roped him into buying him a necklace. Then he walks a bit further and another lady comes up to him and says that he should buy from her because he bought from her friend. So eventually after some haggling, he bought another one. The rest of us kept saying no, but the ladies kept saying our friend bought from their friends so we should get one from them..., it went on and on for so long (as we entered and exited). It was quite annoying, especially since you don't really see this often in Nepal. For some reason the whiny beggars are congregated at this site. Eventually we escaped back to the bus, but the women followed us all the way there and we literally had to shut the door on them.

After this, we very quickly went back to the monkey temple because some of the Ottawa guys wanted to buy souvenirs from the stonecutters we met a few days ago, so we found her on the stairs at her shop. Our friends bought some stones from this really nice family. Mike had brought them a package of spices just to thank them for the tea and offering us dinner (when we saw them earlier), which we didn't really have time for.

Finally, it was our last evening in Nepal. We had grandiose plans to go out for our final dinner at some wonderful place for dal baht, but we could never decide on where to go. We went up to the roof (basically our backyard because that's where our bedroom was) and we met up with everyone else (except a few sickies) that was here from Elysia's class to volunteer, and the Ottawa med students, and we drank beer for awhile, watching the sunset that didn't really exist because of the clouds. After a few beers we still couldn't decide where to eat so we decided just to stay at the hotel and have dal baht, so 11 of us went downstairs and sat outside and ate our daal bahts. We had a lot of fun just talking, and I'm pretty sure the Nepalis were thinking that we were such rowdy Canadians. We called it a night around 10:15 — these days we're all so exhausted by the end of the day, we always seem to go to bed early. And that was pretty much the end of our Nepal trip. It was fun, and we were sad to leave, but all good things must come to an end.

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Photos

The Group in front of the BIG Stupa
L-R: Pauline, Erik, Katie, Elysia, Mike

Practising our Photo-Bombing Skills
L-R: Pauline, Erik, Katie, Elysia, Mike, Nasrin

Happy to See the Stupa
We made sure to walk around it clockwise for luck!

Selfie!
L-R: Pauline, Elysia, Nasrin, Katie, Mike, Erik

Pashupatinath
This river flows into the Ganges - it is a holy river.

Ceremonial Preparation Area
On the left side of the river, bodies are prepared for cremation by going through a ceremony where their feet are put in the river and river water is poured into their mouths. On the right side, people watch.