Kathmandu, Nepal

Well, after a little bit of trouble getting things going we made it to Nepal and right now we are in Bandipur.

But let's start from the beginning. We spent 4 days in Kathmandu. It's located in the Kathmandu Valley pretty much in the center of the country. What a culture shock: There is sooo much traffic and no traffic rules, traffic lights or respect for other drivers, instead everybody just drives as fast as possible on either side of the road honking their way through other cars, motorbikes, rikshaws, bicycles, pedestrians, dogs, cows, goat and garbage piles. The city is very noisy and crowded, but surrounding it are some very nice sites.

One night we spent in Bakhtapur about an hour east of Kathmandu. It's a beautiful town, because there is very little traffic and garbage. The main attractions are Hindu temples and Buddhist stupas. We also saw pottery makers, people painting very intricate mandalas (called thanka), and metallurgy. Because electricity is a rarity in Nepal, people still live like you would imagine life in the middle ages. Brick or clay houses (with beautifully carved balconies nonetheless), wood stoves outdoors and common washing areas that are scattered all over town. The pottery for example made on hand-thrown wheels and dried outdoors before it gets painted with natural colours.

Back in Kathmandu we walked up a hill in the west with a very large Buddhist stupa called Swayambanath. The eastern steps are steep and lined with many little shrines, statues and stone panels. At the top, the stupa is a large white-washed up-side down bowl topped by 13 golden rings and painted Buddha eyes. Again it is surrounded by other Hindu and Buddhist shrines. The two religions though based on different principals (one on the belief of many gods, the other on the philosophy of world peace rather than a central god) still co-exist and often intermingle within the same sacred sites. All the shrines and statues are dyed red and yellow from fruit and flower offerings. People also offer rice, which explains why the entire hill is populated by the rhesus monkey. They are quite the cheeky animals and eating food in their vicinity is entirely impossible as they grab anything edible within their reach. Following the visit to the stupa we hiked downt the hill on the opposite side and up the next in search of a small hidden shrine. Instead however we ended up at a Buddhist monastery that provided a very peaceful place to have lunch and a surprisingly good view of parts of the city. The entire valley is constantly covered in either thick fog (in the morning) or heavy smog from the vehicles and wood fires so that seeing the surrounding hills and mountain ranges is impossible.

Another important town south of Kathmandu is Patan, where we enjoyed a walk through the narrow streets lined by tall brick and wooden buildings. The central plaza, called Durbar Square is home to various Hindu temples. Some are only one storey high while other reach up to five levels on top of several large stone steps. Many date to the 17th century, while very few are older and date to the 15th century. Many of the older ones were destroyed in earth quakes and not always rebuilt in their original form.

The final destination from Kathmandu was Boudha (aka Bodnath), which lies about 30 minutes to the east. It is a very important pilgrimage place for Buddhists because there is one of the larges stupas in all of Nepal and people from all over Asia come here to pray. The large up-side down white-washed bowl-shaped stupa again is topped by 13 rings (representing the 13 steps to reach Nirvana if we remember correctly?) and the typical Buddha eyes, nose (also the number 1) and the third eye. We were allowed to walk around on the second step in a clock-wise direction and admire the peaceful atmosphere of the place. Many pilgrims walk around the stupa at the base turning the many prayer wheels and performing chants and prayers. Some even move around on their knees and bellies. From there we took a short walk south to a Hindu monastery called Pashupatinath. Unfortunately non-Hindus are not allowed inside (yet to admire it from the outside they are still required to pay 250 Nepalese Rupies a person - about 4 dollars, which we avoided by admiring it from across the river).

So much for our time in Kathmandu. In summary, we've seen more Hindu and Buddhist temples than we could ever imagine. Especially the Hindu ones are pieces of art with beautiful carvings (and some tantric Kamasutra scenes), paintings and balconies. Overall, however, Kathmandu is way to crowded, noisy and smelly for our tastes. For political reasons, garbage pick-up is often infrequent causing it to pile up on the streets and electricity often is only available for a few hours at night. As a result the city is pitch black by about 8pm and night life as far as we could tell is scarce (unless you're into smoking some illegal drugs etc.). Running water also existant is usually freezing cold and the air quality is rather poor. So it was certainly an interesting experience, but a few days there were plenty.