Day 15 - Hindu and Buddhist Temples in Kathmandu

Today we got a new guide. He was also excellent. We have had nothing but great guides all through this trip. Our new guide’s name is Bishnu. He was a naturalist who worked at a national park in the south of Nepal. He has been interviewed on a couple of Discovery specials about animals in Nepal.

Our first outing was at the Boudhanath Buddhist Stupa. Legend has it that a local prostitute, who had four children by four different men, wanted to atone for her sins. She approached the “mayor” about building a shrine. He was skeptical and didn’t want to give her too much room. He told her she could only put up a shrine that was on a area covered by a single Yak skin. She was a clever hooker. She cut the skin into long thin stripes and make a large circle out of the pieces. She was granted the large section of land and this is the spot where the stupa stands today.

Boudhanath Stupa 

The next temple complex was one we were looking forward to see was a Hindu temple. Up to this time all of the temples have been Buddhist. It was the Pasupatinath Hindu temple. We could not go into all of the temple, but we got to walk around a few of the shrines and see some of the ceremonies going on. The guide pointed out the erotic sculptures on the sides of the temples. Kim must not have understood his English. She just nodded her head. I had to intrepret before she understood. He said they put it on because the lightening would have to turn its eyes and not strike the temple.

Unlike Tibetan Buddhists, who have sky burials, Hindus are cremated and the ashes are placed into the Ganges river. The local river empties into the Ganges, so this river is used by the people of Kathmandu as a cremation site and a place to release the ashes. There were two funeral pyres going while we were there. Fortunately, we were there after the cremations were started. Almost everyone is cremated with a few exceptions. Young children and pregnant women are buried as it is believed children are innocent and clean as are the women who serve as the vessels for the unborn children. Victims of snake bites are not cremated either. Their bodies are placed in boats and sent down the river. Snake charmers along the riverbanks will try to resurrect the bodies just in case the venom didn’t kill the person, but instead only rendered them unconscious.

Pasupatinath Temple 

Once a body is brought to the riverbank it is prepared. Including placing the head north towards the temple and the feet down the river. Fire is placed in the mouth to cleanse it from anything bad that was spoken during life. It takes only a couple of hours to burn the body and then place the ashes in the river. Only a few feet down river people were splashing and washing.

The Hindus mourn for a total of 13 days. On the 13th day the soul is released and it crosses the Ganges river holding onto the a tail of a cow for assistance. This is why cows are sacred in India and why so many of them roam the streets. Families will heat a spoon to red hot and burn a spot on the backside of the cow. This marks the cow as sacred and no person may hurt the cow. The cow is now left to wander the streets. It is considered bad luck to harm this cow.

Kim picked up a new friend. Since tourism is down, there are not very many Westerners. We were the only game in town for the local “merchants.” One young woman had an armload of necklaces. She kept saying “I will not bother you now, but you will buy from me when you are done.” She shadowed us throughout the tour. Whenever another Westerner around, she would disappear for a while, but show up again. She was pissed when I started to barter for the necklace. She wouldn’t budge off of her first reduction in price. We moved on.

Kim wanted to see some monkeys. There were monkeys all around this temple. I got a few good pictures. I tried to get a little closer to one for a picture. Apparently it was a little too close for the monkey. He screeched at me. It scared the s**t out of me. I wish I had gotten the picture, it would have been cool.

Bad Monkey 

Our last tour of the day was Bhaktapur. It was a palace complex and its public area is called Durbar Square. Nepal was divided into many different smaller kingdoms. The king of the Kathmandu kingdom had three sons. When he was ready to die, he divided the land into three sections. Bhaktapur is one of the three. At first all of the kingdoms got along. Over the course of time, the kingdoms started t o fight. In order for the citizens of one kingdom to worship without leaving their kingdom, the king built temples to most of the gods in the local square. What is left is a mixture of many temples. It was a beautiful area. We went to lunch in a pagoda on the top floor. We had a great view of only one of the three five level pagodas in Kathmandu. The Nepalese were the inventors of the pagoda.

Bhaktapur 

I thought the driving was bad in Lhasa. Kathmandu has a few traffic lights, but no one seems to pay attention. For the most part, everybody stays on their side of the road. The dividing line between lanes is a little nebulous. If our driver wanted to get around a car, he would go out into the other lane and pass. It didn’t seem to matter that there were many cars and motorcycles coming straight at us! When we got to intersections, it was complete chaos. It was like a free-for-all.

Since our last few meals in Tibet were not what we were used to, we decided to eat at one of the hotel’s restaurants. It was a swanky Indian (not American Indian) restaurant. When we were in Tibet, it was hard to get one person to wait on us. Here we were constantly being attended to by three or four people. When ever a plate looked empty, they would swoop in and take it. We both ordered, but they put half of each entree on both of our plates. We were not used to such service. What I ordered wasn’t too hot. Kim’s lamb was a scorcher. The meat just fell off of the bone, but it was way too hot. I’m sure when it comes out it will still be as hot. [Kim: It was the best meal we had since we started our trip. It was delicious. Good serve, linens, clean dishes, cocktails, appetizers, desserts. We are back to civilization!]