Tihar

Today is Newari New Year, a part of the Tihar festival. Newaris are the indiginous people of Kathmandu Valley and we are now in the year 1138. Woo!

The Tihar festival is made up of several days honoring different animals and people.

First day, the crows, the messengers of death, they are fed corn and rice.

Second day, the dogs, they are the guides over the river of death and decorated with tika and garlands of flowers.

Third day, festival of light or Deepawali. The Goddess of wealth, Lakshmi, visits all the homes during the night. Everyone wants a visit and so they light their homes with butterlamps to guide her way.

Fourth day, Newari New Year and honouring your self. Mandalas are drawn by individuals (the circles of colourful designs), which are said to represent the God within yourself and your soul. According to this I am a compass and Martyn is chaos! There is then a long ceremony of puja, which we were able to take part in through our wonderful host, consisting of:

Making the mandala

Burning incense

Throwing wheat

Blessing a flower with yoghurt

Burning wicks

A massive tika

Having flowers poured on your head!

Eating an egg and drinking rakshi, local home brew :)

Saying namaste to the new year.

Followed by lots of food and booze!

Fifth day, Bhai Tika, honouring everyone's brothers. Brothers travel all over the valley to visit their family, especially sisters. They are honoured with a "panch tika" or five coloured tika. We can't wait for more colours and fun!

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!