Around Kathmandu

Namaste!
So I left you last time around midnight in Delhi and now it is 4pm and I am in Pokhara, the second biggest city in Nepal on the edge of Lake Phewa and withing clear sight of the Annapurna region of the himalayas in the clear mornings. The annapurna region contains three of the world's fourteen 8000 metre peaks in it so it is an impressive sight! But more of that after the trek I am starting tomorrow, for now I will fill you in on all the adventures of the journey.

We arrived in Kathmandu on a plane from Delhi full of keen treckers. I was luck enough to bag a window seat and the landscape coming in looked so hilly (I would say mountainous but here that means a whole different thing. I find it similar to talking to Scottish people about rain...our standards just arenb't the same) that I was not sure there could be anywhere flat long enough to buil a runway! But lo and behold we rose up the final peak to cross an impressively large plateau craddled on all sides by 'mountains' and full of Nepal's capital city, Kathmandu (1400m).

We were met (after a condiderable visa faff) by Purna, a friend of a friend I had met in England and who runs a trekking company here and so had organised our programme and he dropped us off at our guest house.



Here is a picture of me at said guest house for 2 reasons:
1) to prove to my Mum I wash clothes
2) because Lou has requested in the comments section more pictures of me*




*If you would like to make a comment (eg. please can we have less pictures of you washing clothes) then please do






The next we took a look around the sites of Kathmadu. I did not have very high expectations as I had never really heard of any but this left be open to being completely blown away! We started off witha trip to the temple, Pashupatinath. In Nepal hinduism and Buddhism mix freely and most temples are devoted to both, this one included although foreigners are not allowed inside the religious buildings they are welcome to takle a look around (for a price).

Here is a picture across the first bridge you come to in the enclosure:



On the left of the river is the main temple building, which was unfortunately shut because it was festival time. On the right is a line of mirror temples, looking in one end you see the same thing reflected over and over. There are litterally hundreds of these small shrines/ temples throughout the complex, each to a different God. On the left, just out of view stands the main temple building. The yellow blob that you can see on the steps of the river is a dead body covered in a golden cloth with insence burning around it. It will stay there for a few hours until all the relatives have come to pay repects and then be burnt on the platform just infront of it. This side of the bridge is reserved for important people and the other side (behind me as I take this picture) were aready burning the bodies of common folk.



As we made our way clockwise around the temple (as is apparently required of hindu custom) we came to a cluster of holy men (sadhus) who were more than happy to pose for a photo for a dew backsheesh. They live in houses partly made out of caves in the rock of the gorge just upstream of the temple and reply on donations and begging to survive.

No one knows exactly how old the templ is, with estimations from a thousand to a few hundred years. No one knows how many temples there are either because they keep being added to while others fall into disrepair and the complex is huge. At the top of the steps lived lots of monkeys who would stand up and snatch rice crispies out of your hand and shove them in their mouths like a messy two year old given the chance (which we did give them, because it was fun to watch).

After the temple we went outside to see the locals playing a very tall bamboo swing (or ping as it is/ sounded alot like to me, in Nepali), and Purna's wife managed to negotiate us a quick go, which was alot of fun! I have included a picture again mainly to keep my Mum and Lou in good blog-reading spirits.

After the temple we went back into the centre of Kathmandu to Darbur, again I didn't expect much and so was massively impressed! Because Darbur square is actually two squares packed full to the brim of temples whic themselves used to be covered to the top in gold (but the government sold for money because they were in a fix). I am going to put together a panorama which will astound your socks off too but I can''t from here so are going to have to come back in a month or so and look again :)

Finally Purna took us in to the courtyard of the Kumari house, an intricately decorated building on the edge of a square with a queue of people to prayer longer than you find in midummer in Thorpe Park. The Kumari is a girl chosen by the government aged 7 or 8 who then lives in the Kumari house until she starts menstraution (and so becomes impure). The Kumari is never allowed to leave the Kumari house apart from when she is taken on parades and spends most of her time on one seat giving tikas (the red spot hindus wear) to worshippers. Even when she leaves she will go to live ina special house paid for by the governmenta nd is never allowed to marry or have a boyfriend. A few years ago a kumari ran away bringing disgrace on herself and her family and cause a big scandal. Here is a picture of the courtyard of the kumari's house and a fraction of the queue waiting for her...