Bhaktapur

We've had a lovely 2 days in Bhaktapur. It feels more like India in as much as there are tourists but they fit round local life rather than the other way round such as in Pokhara or Thamel in Kathmandu.

The town is based around 4 squares that all have a different job, we havent quite got to the bottom of all of them but we can deduce that Potter's Square is mainly for people who make things out of clay.

But once you leave the squares you enter a labyrinth of small streets and alleyways, dotted with shrines and temples. Shops are holes in walls with older ladies selling penny sweets from big plastic tubs, or chewing tobacco (called Pan) in single serving sachets.

Now is also harvest time, all the rice has been harvested and needs to be processed. By hand of course. There are hundreds of women around the town flinging baskets of rice into the air to seperate the light outer casing from the heavier rice grain and then spreading it flat to dry in the sun. Once dried it's swept up, and into tubs or bags or whatever you can find.

Today we've finally found local food. We'd previously been overwhelmed by the number of cafes and restaurants for tourists. We had momos (a delicious steamed parcel usually filled with vegetables, chicken or my favourite, buffalo) followed by chai. With a new pudding for us Juju Dhau (literally King Curd) a set yoghurt that has a crust on top similar to clotted cream. It was creamy and delicious and obviously bad for us!

Finished the day of with a touch of souvenir shopping. Three small masks that symbolise some of the Gods. When full sized these masks are worn by dancers who twirl on raised platforms in the many squares to tell the stories of the Gods and their fury. We chose Shiva (the Destroyer. He's the blue guy, and a favourite here. So much so there's a TV show based on him!), Ganesh (the elephant headed son of Shiva) and Garuda (the vehicle of Vishnu, the Preserver. Garuda is a man-bird and is seen kneeling outside any Vishnu temple waiting to take his Lord wherever he wants to go).

We can't wait to explore further and see what else we find!

I'm uploading on my phone so I can't put the photos in order. Sorry! (also, we're still not entirely sure what all the colours are for. There's only ever red on shrines and foreheads...)

The Trip So Far

So - we're still in Kathmandu, and we've been here for around 25 days. We haven't stayed still for this long since we started the trip. Staying still has led to a couple of things.

We've been in danger of getting a bit lazy - Thamel in Kathmandu is so comfortable for tourists - cuisine from all over the world, morning coffees and internet cafes everywhere make it easy to sit back and relax.

We've got a new hobby: Peoplewatching. Because we can take our time walking through the streets, visiting monuments and sitting in squares, we can sit down and see what everyone else is up to - tourists with enormous cameras, Saddhus (Hindu Holy Men) asking for baksheesh (tips) for photos, and lots of local people just going about their business. We've found its a really great way to soak up the atmosphere and really get to know a place. 

We've had time to reflect on our trip. We've been away from home for 22 weeks and a day, today. We've started to look back at our time in India with fond memories, as it seems like ages ago now. That said, there's plenty of cultural imports from India to Nepal, so every so often Nepal can still feel like India. 

Anyway, the whole point of this post is to show off the fact that I've figured out how to embed googlemaps into a post. This wasn't difficult, but isn't easy on a phone!

So. Here is a map of everywhere we've been since we finished out volunteering placement with CCS in Dharamsala, on 27th July: 

4,500 Miles, 2 Countries,15+ cities. In case you didn't know - "Walking directions are in beta. Use caution – This route may be missing sidewalks or pedestrian paths"

 
View Larger Map

Hinduism, Buddhism and Tourism

Thamel in Kathmandu - Backpacker Mecca.

Lots of Nepali people say Nepal has three main religions; Hinduism, Buddhism and Tourism.

I'd say we've experienced all three to some extent since we got to Nepal at the start of September.

We've spent endless hours visiting Hindu temples and shrines - from multi-roofed pagoda temples in Kathmandu's Durbar Square, to small orange-tika covered Shivalinga shrines at the roadside. Every morning, (mainly) women walk through the streets with plates of offerings - rice, tika powder, flowers and much else to leave at thier local temple as an offering to the gods. Later, in the evening people would go back to temple to make further offerings - sometimes singing the Gayatri Mantra as they light butter lamps and throw flowers onto the shrines. This is all fantastic to see and take part in, as we have many times.

At Buddhist Stupas, Chortens and Monastries, we've seen devotees wake up at first light for morning prayers, meditating and chanting the "Om mani padme hum" ('Hail to the jewel in the lotus' - Lord Buddha) Mantra. This is accompanied by the crash of cymbals and the blowing of (massive) horns. After, devotees would share a cup of yak butter tea and tsampa bread. The devotion shown by the monks and nuns is impressive.

In Pokhara, Nepal's second city, you are overwhelmed by Tourism. Every morning, devotees to this cause  wake up late, go to a "German" bakery* and order a croissant and coffee. Later, purged of the sins of the night before, followers would tour endless shops, bartering for special clothes, jackets, walking sticks - all with the mantra "The North Face" printed on them. Devotees knew that these clothes weren't "pukka", but they continued. They must look the same as each other.

We've definitely had chance to emerse ourselves in all of the above. Personally I feel the most empathy with (and I am most interested by) Hinduism, and plan to read and learn a lot more about it over the coming weeks.

We hope to be spending a few days in Bodhnath, a pilgrimage site for Buddhists next week, which will be really interesting, and we'll hopefully learn a lot more about Buddhism. Every time I think I understand something, I realise I really don't.

*Before coming to Nepal, I didn't know that Germany was famous for its pastries. A lot of places here really make a big deal about being German. Odd then that they serve loads of Croissants and Danish Pastries...

Dasain - or how I stopped worrying and learned to love the Kukri

Dasain is the biggest festival of the Nepali calendar running for 15 days throughout October. It is a primarily family affair, so we as mere tourists haven't seen all that much. Until today!

Today is the 8th day of a 15 day long festival and the start of big celebrations in the main square and around the town. Be warned, Dasain is a bloody festival. There are many sacrifices to the angry Goddess, Durga, she is a terrible incarnation of the much more pleasant Parvati.

Over the course of several days there are buffalo, goat, chicken and duck sacrifices with the blood being used in a ritualistic way to bless temples, shrines, cars, motorbikes and houses.

There was a ceremony today in a side square where the fearsome Gurkha soldiers are selected to sacrifice buffalo in the square to music and drums using their Kukri knife, which is also ceremonial. They have to slice of the head in one blow to show how hardcore they are.

Just in case we were unsure as to where to stand

We thankfully missed the ceremony, we heard the drums a little late and went round to see what the kerfuffle was about and found many, many (think 15/20) buffalo heads on the floor!

On the way to the square, we did witness a goat sacrifice. We saw the crowd, and joined them. There was one goat and 3 men holding it down. The man with the knife counted to 3 and.... BANG!!! 3 soldiers that we hadn't seen let off their guns into the air at the same time! I nearly had a heart attack, I did not expect that!

Goat with head still attached. We do have the after photo, but we thought it was a bit much!

In a less bloody ritual, families were queuing round the whole square and out into the street to offer puja (prayers and offerings) to the Gods in the main temple in the square. Women would carry their puja plate with all the different offerings of tika (red powder that is put on the forehead to symbolise the all seeing 3rd eye), food to feed the Gods, flowers (normally carnations), money, milk and a lit butter candle. All of these items are placed on the shrines and the person receives prasad (holy food) back from their offering to share with their family.

So many people que

An example of a Puja plate. Swastikas have been used in Hinduism for millenia, it means peace.

We joined in and offered our puja to Bhairab, another fearsome God that Nepali people seem to favour, he is the aggressive incrnation of Lord Shiva (the destroyer). We gained our Tika and threw small flowers in our hair and revelled in the holiday spirit!

Puja offered at a small shrine. Yep the red stuff at the top is blood...

Offerings that are left outside peoples houses are unceremoniously swept up into a pile, probably to be burnt later in the day...

We'd not seen the square so full, vibrant and happy. We can't wait to do it all again tomorrow!

Rivers, waterfalls, leeches and fingers!

For Martyn's birthday we decided to spend 2 days throwing ourselves off waterfalls in a controlled environment. We joined up with a company called Borderlands that has it's resort 30km from the Tibetan border (hence the name). It is a beautiful place with a river running behind the resort.

As we booked with a company, we were placed with one more person, Sanjay (everyone say hi!). He's originally from Gujarat but now lives in the UK, he's a puppeteer, actor and magician! We all hit it off really easily and it added another fun dimension to the trip.

On day one we trekked up a grassy hill to the top of a river so we could start travelling down it. Unfortunately this is the exact type of terrain that leeches love! Martyn and I were wearing sandals. Eek! We managed to spot a few as we were walking and flick them off but they're sneaky little buggers. We got to the top of the hill and checked our feet. At first glance it looked like we were OK, but on taking off my sandals all of the leeches had congregated under the straps! I had 17 leeches spread over 2 feet! Eww!!!!

After we de-leeched, we started the day. We were learning the basics of how to abseil down waterfalls and understand the differences when running water was involved. Thankfully we'd all abseiled before and so it was fairly easy. Just getting used to the first part of leaning back, over a cliff, with nothing but a harness, rope and karabiner to hold you up was difficult but we soon got into the rhythm.

It was great fun, we all felt confident in our abilities and having 2 brilliant guides in Bobby and Ishwar definitely helped up learn faster and have a great time.

On day 2 we were all full of confidence and excitement ready to go. We were told that we were going to be abseiling bigger falls, jumping off things and having a few slides down the river. We weren't disappointed!

There were 8 different 'stages' that we went through on the second day. The first being a slide, it was in 2 stages and we were supposed to stop in the middle which the 2 boys managed fine. I however didn't seem to be able to stop in the middle and flew down the whole slide in one go. I ended up coming out of the slide upside down! All Martyn saw was my helmet and my feet, in that order! At the bottom I realised that my ring finger was a bit sore, and it had the familiar feeling of a break (uh-oh!) so we strapped it up and carried on.

This knocked my confidence a bit, which was a shame but we still carried on. The next waterfall had a short rope, so you reach the end of the rope before you reach the end of the waterfall! You had to jump down into a pool. That was scary but once I actually jumped it was great!

The waterfalls got progressively bigger, including a massive one that had an out-crop that meant when abseiling down you ended up behind the water. It was stunning, once under the water you were in your own little world, I even saw a rainbow due to the sun shining through the water.

The largest abseil was so big that we had to stop halfway down to reattach the rope to start another part. The water was so strong and loud we could barely hear ourselves think! It was truly spectacular.

At the end of day 2 we were soggy, battered and bruised but infinitely happy. We would recommend it to everyone!

A walk round Kathmandu

I'm not going to write much about these photos, basically we went for a walk from Durbar Square to our hotel and I took photos the whole way. It had rained the day before and there are a lot of people so some parts of the roads had turned into a mud pit!

Along the way are many puppets, who are based on the Hindu Gods, and stalls selling all kinds of things.

The square itself is full of pigeons, and many locals feed them as offerings to the Gods. This is seen in many Hindu places; fish, cows, monkeys, pigeons, goats, crows are all fed in and around temples.

I hope you enjoy the sights as much as we do!