It was Saturday, and the day for our self made "grand tour of Kathmandu" (trademark, patent pending). We needed a car so the helpful guy was nice enough to find us a driver (one of the few in the city that actually had has!). He negotiated a price that includes getting us to the airport at five in the morning on Monday, and is not paying they guy until after he drops us off, so that should help ensure we have a ride then.
The has issue has turned into a major issue in the city. The selfish benefits to us are that the air is cleaner and the traffic is almost non existent - neither are normal conditions in this city that is busting at the seams (their infrastructure is rated 137th out of 140 countries...).
We were cautiously interested in seeing the impact of the earthquake on all of the historical sights today. We'd heard pretty bad reports.
First up was Swayambhunath, also known as the monkey temple (the placed is absolutely covered in monkeys), that is just on the outskirts of the main city, perched atop a huge hill. Like many religious sites in Nepal, it is revered by Hindus and Buddhists, though it is mainly a Buddhist site - one of the most popular pilgrimage sights in their religion.
Our driver dropped us off at the back entrance near the top, so we didn't end up having to go up the 350 plus steps to reach the top (how lazy of us!). The sight is very cool, with nice little shops surrounding the way up and the sight itself, though not in a tacky way in my opinion. We actually did quite a bit of shopping, including a CD (I think the first one we've bought in over ten years!) of Tibetan monks chanting that they pumped subliminally throughout the place.... It worked....ommmmm..... It worked.....
The main attraction, the huge stupa at the top of the hill is pretty spectacular. It was missing it's prayer flags and there was obvious damage to a few of the smaller surrounding buildings, but the stupa was intact. We spoke with one shop owner and he said there was just one fatality in the complex during the earthquake - a painter on a scaffold that got hit by a falling brick.
There was a definite lack of tourists at this sight. This is one of the biggest attractions in Kathmandu, and we were virtually the only western tourists in the place. Sad. The shop owners actually seemed shocked to see us stroll by. I can't imagine how these people are putting food on the table.
We were in the complex for a good hour before walking back down to the car and heading to stop number two: the Pashupatinath Temple complex. The whole place is hundreds of hectares of land with many temples dedicated to Hindu gods. The largest temple is off limits to non-Hindus, but the main point of interest for me was showing the girls the Ghats on the holy Bagmati River.
The ghats feature a very active crematorium on one side and the other side is there for people praying and preparing offerings with Hindu priests. Layered into that are tourists, cows, local kids swimming in the filthy looking water, yaks, and hundreds of people doing all kinds of religious ceremonies and prayer. It's quite the place to people watch, and we did for a while. The kids protested a bit - they seemed uncomfortable with all of the visual stimuli.
We watched a gathering prepare a body for cremation. They took turns taking water/milk that was poured over a Shiva Linga and dripping some of the liquid onto the face of the deceased young looking man. When they were all done, they put the body on a stretcher of sorts and walked it down to the cremation area. It gave me a bit of a chill.... Life is short.
One of the standouts at this place that I remembered from '97 was the number of sadhus. Sadhus are essentially Hindu wanderers looking to achieve the last level of enlightenment, they are often dressed and made up quite.....colourfully, and are happy to pose for a few rupees (their main source of income here).
We left the cacophony of noises and people and headed across the city to the relative quiet of the most revered Buddhist site in Nepal, Boudhanath. The famous stupa is located in the middle of a neighbourhood - you would hardly know there was something to see here, until you go down the alley and it opens up to a giant circular piazza with a huge stupa in the middle. Unfortunately, it had been severely damaged in the earthquake, with the entire top section destroyed.
We walked slowly around the funky little cobbled street area that winds around the entire site - it's a place once again chock full of souvenir shops, restaurants and cafes. Again, it should have been full of tourists, but it was relatively empty.
Not getting the picture I wanted from the Boudhanath, I spotted this beauty on the way out of the city. I love these stupas with their prayer flags.... So zen like.
I took this little video to remind me how bad the fuel shortage is and it continues after to show some of the crazy things you see on the streets of Kathmandu. The car, truck, bus and motorbike lineups were several kilometers long at every gas station....several kilometers of vehicles, just sitting on the road, waiting to be fed.
Kathmandu has two little brother city-neighbourhoods just outside the main city that are pretty interesting. They each have a "Durbar Square" - a kind of central square with monuments, buildings and artifacts. We chose the lesser interesting of the two to go for lunch. Patan had a lot of damage in the quake. As we drove towards Durbar Square, we passed a row of thousands of motorbikes waiting in line for gas, most seemingly unattended by their owners which didn't give much hope that things were moving too much.
Our driver dropped us off at the square, but we used trip advisor to find a cafe for lunch and wandered through alleyways for ten minutes to get there. Most of the fun in Patan and Bhaktapur is getting lost in the streets, alleyways and squares.
There was a ton of temporary shoring in the little city - some of the buildings looked condemned, but others with shoring were business as usual.
After lunch, we meandered back to Durbar square. Patan is famous for arts and crafts, but to be honest, it was filled with most of the same stuff we'd seen everywhere else in the country - nice stuff but not different. The square itself hadn't done so well - lots of damage and barricades to prevent injury. Still, it had a neat vibe that you find in all three Durbar squares.... Meeting place, people watching and ancient Nepalese buildings and artefacts.
We headed for our final destination of the day, the city of Bhaktapur. I loved this little place the last time we came - it's a great place to get lost. We walked up to Durbar Square first and checked out the damage.... It was pretty extensive as predicted.
Luckily not everything was destroyed.
We wondered around, ducking in and out of alleys and main streets, shopping a little of course (Beth found these scarves that she just had to have!) and doing a lot of people watching.
At around four, we found our driver, got back into the car and made our way back through this ghost town that Kathmandu has become. Our hearts go out to the locals, but they are a very resilient people. They remain quite "even" and happy, despite all the problems their country is facing now.
For dinner, we found a nice little vegetarian Indian restaurant that was packed with locals. We're trying to soak it in - this was our second to last night in South Asia.... Indian food will not be as easy to find coming up, though I'm sure we'll do alright base on what I know of Turkish food :-).
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