Kamikaze Canuck

We have arrived in Kathmandu and so far life is pretty dang good. Our guesthouse “Hotel Friends Home” has been outstanding. Great service, hot showers (rare in Asia), and a great breakfast (fruit, yogurt, museli, eggs). I'm kind of feeling a bit pampered to be honest. It's a bit more than Meg and I usually like to pay for a room but after two solid days of traveling – I'll pay the extra money to get a good sleep.

We didn't get one.

Not because the guesthouse isn't great. But because I can never sleep in when I arrive in a new country. I'm just too excited to see what's out there. I feel like a little kid on Christmas morning (and Megan says she is the parent who wants two more hours sleep). So at 6 AM I was up on the roof of our 5 story guesthouse looking out over the sprawling concrete jungle that is Kathmandu.

After breakfast we ventured out of our guesthouse for the first time. It was like stepping into a bee hive. Rickshaws, taxis, and motorbikes honked their horns while trying to dodge pedestrians on narrow, poorly paved streets. People dressed in colourful garments scurried around the streets in a hurry going wherever they were going. Taxi drivers hollered at us every few seconds trying to sell us a ride and electrical wiring hung in large tangled balls everywhere you look.

All the while, dozens of stray dogs watched all this mayhem unfold while trying to make sense of the whole thing.

An old man sees a stray piece of food (bread I think) laying on the ground in front of Megan and I and rushes over to pick it up and cram it in his mouth. We walk past the man and look at each other as if to say “Did you see that”. It kind of made me a little ill to be honest. Or maybe guilty for being so privileged.

We pass by a Hindu ceremony on the side of the street where a couple dozen people are praying to a statue of one of the Hindu Gods. Incense is burning and everyone has a red powdered dot on their forehead. A man is walking around splashing water on everyone. Pedestrians stop their day to take part in the ceremony before rushing away. We have no idea what's going on but we stop and take in this event for a while.

After walking around the chaotic city streets for several hours we duck into a small restaurant for some sanctuary. The restaurant is called 'Utse' and is ran by friendly Tibetan owners who claim to have opened the first restaurant in Kathmandu in 1971.

I ordered 'Tongba' off the menu which is described as (and I quote): 'NECTOR OF THE GODS – Tibetan finger millet hot beer'. This is what came:

We were instructed to pour the thermos of boiling water over top of the large wooden cup of fermented millet. Then we were given an hourglass to time how long we were to wait before we should drink the concoction. This stuff was strong – seriously strong. Tasted somewhere in between Japanese sake and a Guinness-type beer. It took over an hour before we had emptied all of the hot water out of the thermos and finished the drink. Well worth the $1.50 it costed us.

The food so far has been excellent. I would have to say I prefer it to Thai food (which was the former benchmark for outstanding food). A typical dish would look like this:

 

Nom nom nom………

 

 

The 2nd day we hired a guide called “Badri”. Usually I'm not a big fan of hiring guides but it would be impossible for Meg and I to makes sense of Kathmandu without one. Badri took us around to numerous important sites around Kathmandu. I'll touch on the two coolest sites we went to.

 

Megans favourite place was called Boudanath Stupa.

 

Originally built in the 5th century, this stupa is the largest in Nepal (maybe the world) and an important place to Buddhists around the globe. The interesting part about this site is not the stupa itself but the surrounding Monasteries where monks can be seen chanting and praying. We kind of felt like intruders stepping into these monasteries, but our guide assured us it was ok. It was actually really interesting.

 

I've never actually witnessed 20 monks chanting at the same time but it was almost eerie. Sometimes as a tourist, you don't get to see the real thing. You get taken to these BS shows where they tell you it's the real thing but it's only a facade to make money. This was the real deal. I actually have a video of this that I shot from the hip so no one could see me:

 

 

The second place we went was by far my favourite. Pashupatinath Temple – The Nepalese version of the river Ganges in India. We watched the Hindu process of cremation outside the temple in front of the river that flows past it. I'll try to do my best to explain the events although I may miss the odd detail. I swear I'm not making this up.

 

A father had died so his family had literally carried him to the temple wrapped in orange cloth:

 

 

 

The family layed the body near the river where they burned incense near the body and scooped water from the river into his mouth. Our guide called this the purification part of the ceremony.

 

Then they packed the body over to a large cement pad with wood and straw stacked upon it. The family then packed the body around the wood/straw stack three times in a clockwise direction before placing the body on top of it. The oldest son then took a burning stick and walked around the body three times again before lighting the cloth nearest to the mouth of the body on fire.

 

All this time, family members are crying loudly. Hysterically I might even say. Just watching the body burn. The whole thing was so real that I will not be posting the more graphic pictures on this blog. It may have been the most interesting I have seen during any of my travels. After the body had been burnt, they scraped the ashes into the river.

 

 

One of the most bizarre parts was that there were two men standing in the river while the ashes floated by.

 

I'm tired and my beer is empty so I'm going to hit the hay (great beer here by the way).

 

 

Sorry Milton.

 

We just arrived from an 8 hour bus right to Pokhara where we are starting to prepare for our hike so I'll update again soon. Here are some other pictures we've taken over the past few days: