Kathmandu, Nepal (7 April 2016, Thurs)
2nd day we are going to have tour of Boddnath and Pashupathinath which are both inscribed in the World Heritage Site. We left the hotel at about 9 am and the tour master is Mr. Ram who told me that I look very much like a Nepali woman and he said that it iis as if Nepali and Filipino people just came from the same father.
Pashupathinath is a holy site for the Hindu and this is where the dying come for cleansing in the river that runs through it and this is where cremations happen pretty much like the ones in Varanasi. We are watching from across the river what is happening on the other side. It is like front seat as the river is anyway not to wide and we were on a certain high point that you look down on the other side. There was a family who ram said came to cremate a dead person who came from abroad. They opened the box coffin which was sealed tightly for travel and his body was extracted from the box and put on a metal gurney to be lowered close to the water where the family members one by one came to pour milky water on his head. The wife struggled to come and just broke down when he saw his husband and wanted to touch him and his family has to drag her away. It is heart wrenching to see this as I was thinking that probably the husband has been gone for years and this is the first time that the wife will see him and he is there lifeless on a metal gurney.
We then left and took some pics with the sadhu, itinerant Hindus and went to Boddnath Stupa which was said to be to be the biggest in the world. It is surrounded by shops. After going around the stupa and visiting a Buddhist temple, Ram brought us to a shop where they make Thankas. There were quite expensive. I liked a Mandala Thanka in the traditional cloth which costs US$ 450 (can get 20% discount) but Bernard is in no mood for shopping on the first day as always!
We were then returned to the hotel at about 1 pm. This tour is part of the package. While we still have plenty of time, we visited Kathmandu’s Durbar Square which is just a few minutes away from Shakti Hotel (Thamel) where we are staying. While there are plenty of beautiful buildings that collapsed and some which are precariously propped up by wooden planks, the place still has the old world charm. Still very impressive and there are still plenty of old buildings to see. The woodwork on the buildings are particularly impressive.
The British colleague of Bernard, Stuart said that this is the dirtiest place he has ever seen. It was indeed dirty but there is nothing shocking when you come from India. It is definitely not dirtier than most parts of India including Delhi though of course it is way poorer so no cleaner areas such as the wealthier areas in India. Stuart obviously has not yet visited Varanasi where the cars, tuktuks, people with their vegetable carts, tourist walking along with the holy cows pooping while scavenging on garbage strewn all over just a few inches away from where people walk, eat, sell stuff! Well, the air though in Kathmandu is dusty and so no blue sky :)
We met Arjun again in the evening and we bought a daypack for Bernard to replace his old heavy yellow backpack. We found a nice one at a shop called Lowe Alpine for US $ 130. Arjun then left us in a popular pizza restaurant called Fire and Ice (in Thamel). This restaurant is recommended in the lonely planet and it offers quite a good variety of pizza. There is a queue but it was worth the wait as the food was good. I ordered San Miguel Beer (Philippine beer) which turned out to be widely available in Nepal.
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