But along with the trek I got a free guided site seeing tour around many of the "tourist" areas of Kathmandu. The city is very densely packed, if you ever thought about driving here you would never complain about the traffic in the states again, which has taken some getting used to. I was somewhat expecting things to open up a bit outside of the tourist district but they really don't, and life changes from friendly shops and stalls to the rather harsh realiy of the third world. Fortunately the city has a lot of culture. On nearly every corner is a hindu prayer site where the religious of the area go every morning to pray. And the sites of the kings (Durbar squares) are amazing complexes. Very old and built to repspect their god (which they believed was the king) so the amount of detail in the architecture is unbelievable. The places I got to see today....
Swoyambuthnath - aka the Monkey Temple. Yup its littered with monkeys which was amazing. The temple, which consists of a very large and beautiful buddhist stupa, is on top of a huge hill on the outskirts of town. Approaching the temple from the east there is a large staircase lined with buddhist symbols and statues depicting things like the birth of Buddha. The stupa itself, and all stupas for that matter, essentially are large domes, white washed yearly, sitting on rectangular basis, sitting on smaller circular supports. On top of the dome is a tower with religious statues on the top. They are kind of hard to describe, but they consist of simple geometric shapes (circles, squares, etc.) resting on top of each other and are very impressive. The Monkey Temple's stupa was about 30 feet in height and 50 feet in diameter. Around the temple are several prayer sites where there were tons and tons of locals giving offerings to Buddha. The complex consisted of a few different hills, on top of the first was the stupa, and on top of the others were trees that were interconnected with thousand and thousands of prayer flags strung together. Very beautiful and colorful at the same time. Oh, and the monkey bit. Well they are everywhere and have always inhabited the area. The watch you go about your business with interest and clean each other all the time. Then of course they have to go pull on the stray dogs tails and cause animal riots around the area, highly amusing. The Monkey Temple was a very impressive first stop despite the fact that I got ridiculously lost (thanks Lonley Planet!) trying to get there.
The Stupa
They call it the monkey temple for a reasonPatan Durbar Square - Before Nepal was a unified nation it was comprised of 24 independent states, each of which had a king. The Kings built Durbar Squares for the coronations of their successors and as a capital of their domain. Patan happens to be one of the major Squares of the area. Its located just a few miles south of Kathmandu and is built around the Hindu religion. The square itself was extremely old and made up of a series of pagoda style temples where daily prayer still occurs. The area was filled with jobless beggars asking for your money. Apparently they just chase down tourists, try to bless them in some manner, then demand money. Nice tactic, thanks to my guide Bishnu for steering them clear. The square is rather hard to describe without seeing it since there are no distinct landmarks there, but similar to the buddhist site, the level of detail in the depictions of their symbols was amazing, particularly those of Ganesh, the elephant looking dude with 8 arms.
Pashupatinath - This was a difficult site to see. Its the largest Hundu temple in the area but is largely restricted to Hindu's so you can't actually go into....well anything. Its located on the Holy River, which is disgustingly polluted and people are required to drink out of that for religious reasons. Granted, only a mouthful of water once a year, but disgusting nonetheless. This is the place for Hindu funerals....and cremations, which take place out in the open. There were 5 bodies being cremated while I was there with a long line of dead bodies ready to be tossed into the fire. The remains are then placed in the Holy River which makes me wonder why people would ever want to drink from it. Since I couldn't go into anything it was difficult to see much, aside from the men who spend their entire lives at the temple. They never leave, for anything. They are all decorated with body paint and are sporting some pretty awesome beards if you ask me. But other than that and a few monkeys here and there, this site was rather disappointing.
Hindu Temple
Boudnath Stupa - Saving the best for last. Another buddhist stupa, similar in nature to the Monkey Temple, at least from a physical standpoint, but much much larger. One of the larges in the world in fact. The stupa is lined with prayer wheels where people walk spinning as they pray. Monks come and walk around the stupa all day in prayer, while most just visit in the evening. For each wheel you spin you are given a blessing, at least according to my guide. So I found the biggest wheel there and ran around it a few times while he snapped pictures. It was probably 10 feet tall, while most are only about a foot high, at least the ones on the stupa themselves. At the entrace to the stupa, buddhists do climb onto it for prayer, is a beautiful gompa where I got to see Monks in training. Inside were several golden buddha statues, about 8-10 feet tall which were amazing to see. I mean, they were very pleasing to the eye at least, my guide had to laugh at my excitement in seeing them.
The Stupa
Gompa at Boudnath
Chili pepperAll in all it was a long day of walking, about 10km (I'm switching to metric for the trip) but I got to see some really interesting stuff. But frankly, this isn't why I came to Nepal, just an added bonus, I'll get that tomorrow when I head into the mountains.
