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Today we had a tour of Kathmandu, mainly focusing on temples. We went to a Hindu temple and 2 Buddhist temples, one of which is the oldest temple in Nepal. I don't have the names with me so I will have to add them in later. The Hindu temple was first. We didn't get to actually go in, but we got to wander around the outside. The temple had a river flowing from it, eventually connecting with the Ganges, that they cremated people by and dumped the ashes into. We sat on one side of the river for a while to watch the ceremonies. Nepalese Hindu cremation takes place within 1-2 hours of the death. Since families tend to all live close together they don't have to spend a lot of time contacting relatives. The bodies are brought to the temple naked but wrapped in fabric. It is believed that since we enter the world naked we should also exit naked. There are then various blessings that are done and goodbyes are said before the cremation takes place. Once the wood has been stacked up the body is carried onto the platform and circles the wood three times in a clockwise direction. It is then laid on the wood with the head facing towards the temple and the son lights it on fire, starting in the mouth, first circling the body 3 times in a clockwise direction. The son then gets his head shaved. I have to admit it was kind of unsettling to watch these cremations, but at the same time it was a touching ceremony to return them back to their gods. Probably not something that we'll ever get the chance to see again.
The second temple was a Tibetan Buddism temple. The actual temple was filled with 33 million Buddha statues so no one could go in. The temple had a face on it, the left eye stood for justice, the right eye for peace. It would be much easier to explain this if there were pictures, but I haven't yet found a computer that can load them.
Our final temple was the Monkey Temple. It is the oldest temple in Nepal and, of course, was amazing! Everything is really intricately carved and there are prayer flags EVERYWHERE! Seriously, everywhere that they could be strung, they are. It looked really neat though! This temple was up on a hill so it had a spectacular view of the city of Kathmandu! Once again, I wish I could load the pictures!
Now for some more about Kathmandu...first of all, driving is insane! There really aren't any rules. Most of the streets are tiny and 2 small cars have trouble passing eachother. Then you add in a bunch of motorcycles, bicycles, and pedestrians and you have yourself some close encounters! Nobody drives extremely fast, just extremely fast for the size of the roads. So if two cars were to run into eachother I don't think it would be too big of a deal, but for pedestrians it would be a completely different story! We definitely have to be on our toes when we walk down the streets!
Cows and monkeys are everywhere and they pretty much have free rein. Cows because they're holy, monkeys I think because they can't really be controlled. We've only had a couple times where we've had to wait for a cow to cross the road or get out of the way before we could continue, but I'm sure it's a pretty common experience!
Our guesthouse is right in the tourist part of town so it's a good place to just walk around and see what types of things are for sale before actually deciding what to get for souvenirs. It also has a lot of nice restaurants which we've gotten to eat at. The food is similar to Indian food from what I can tell so far, just with a lot less meat. But I think the food we've been eating is extravagant and once we leave Kathmandu, and especially when we're living with the families, the food will be a lot more basic!
Well, I think that's probably about enough for now...
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Tosha
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DANG
hey Eryn, Wow I wont lie I'm pretty jealous that your getting to see all this and do all this traveling. I think this blog is very cool and I love reading about all that you do. I bet those ceremonies were amazing and I'm glad to hear what a great time you're having. Keep posting and I'll keep reading :)