Nepal and Tibet

We awaken refreshed. Neither the hard mattresses nor the warmth of the room keep us awake. Our air-conditioner is not working. We look forward to another day of adventures. But first we need to find somewhere for breakfast as the hotel does not have a restaurant. Our guide had pointed out a courtyard café, not far from the hotel, and said it was a good place for breakfast so we set off through the very quiet streets in search of sustenance. We are very pleasantly surprised to find that this restaurant serves American breakfasts as well as cappuccinos. Usually, in Asian countries, I have to do without my coffee as I find it undrinkable but the coffee at this restaurant is very good so I am happy.
Our day is mapped out for us. There is to be a morning tour to Pashupatinath and Bodnath with an optional afternoon visit to Bhaktapur.

Bodnath
We soon arrive in Bodnath, which is in a Tibetan quarter, often called "Little Tibet" because many of the displaced Tibetans live and work in this suburb of Kathmandu. Our guide is annoyed with our driver because she had planned to visit Pashupatinath first. This is a Hindu temple and cremation site where she wanted us to see the cremations, which are carried out early each day beside the Baghmati River, Nepal's holiest river. She reluctantly decides though, to explore Bodnath now that we are here. We really do not know how we feel about this cremation inclusion, anyway.

Bodnath's greatest attraction is the massive Tibetan Bodnath Stupa. It is surrounded by monasteries, shops and prayer wheels. We approach it from a narrow side street and it certainly has a "wow" factor. It towers up towards the sky, draped in fluttering prayer flags. We are able to climb onto it and walk around it for a great view of the area. It is fascinating to watch the Tibetans, dressed in their national costumes, circumambulating the stupa and brushing their hands across the prayer wheels to make them spin the enclosed prayers to heaven. From a music shop on the kora, we hear the haunting voices of monks chanting the mantra, "Om, mani padme hom!"

We are told we can visit a school attached to a monastery, a little distance further on. We enter the courtyard through the wrought iron gates. Here we see a very young monk, feeding a furnace with incense, obviously his job for the day. He smiles as we photograph him. He has the very cheeky grin of a young teenager. We are lured up the stairs by the most wonderful chanting we have ever heard. There, in the front room of the monastery, are about twenty monks chanting to the rhythm of beating drums. They sing from their books of scriptures, which stand in front of them.

The monks are seated in a lotus position and are so intent on what they are doing they hardly notice that we are there. Someone asks one of the masters wandering among the students if we can take photographs. He agrees but points to the donations box at the entrance. We gladly contribute. This is one time I wish I had a video camera because I long to capture the sound. It is deep throated and rich. Some chanting is monotonous but not here. We linger for as long as we can but eventually go on our way as we are very thirsty and need a drink.

We go to a rooftop café where we are introduced to lime sodas. Fresh limejuice is squeezed into a long glass and topped with soda water. It is cold and very refreshing. It is to become my "latest fad". Apparently it is very popular in Nepal. Before we leave, we go to the music shop we saw earlier and buy the CD entitled "Tibetan Incantations". This place will be forever etched in my memory.

Pashupatinath
Our next destination is Pashupatinath, an important Hindu temple where, each day, cremations are carried out on ghats, which jut out into the Baghmati River. We do not know what to expect. Across the river from the cremation ghats, the bank rises in terraces on which are built temples and shrines. From here anyone can sit and view the cremations. Because we arrive so late, there are only the remnants of fires still burning. Male relatives of the deceased, along with other members of their caste are still dealing with the fire and we see them sweep the last remaining coals and ash from the body into the river. The Baghmati River is believed to have come from the head of Shiva, one of the many gods of Hinduism. The source of the river is in an ice cave in the Himalayan Mountain Range, 10 300 metres above sea level and flows out into the Bay of Bengal. This river is to the Nepalese what the Ganges is to the Indians. The women do not come to a cremation. The men alone prepare the body by opening the mouth and filling it with ghee. The ghee is lit before covering the body with straw so as to burn it more quickly. Sometimes the poor cannot afford the wood needed to burn the bodies of their family members so the half-burnt body is swept into the river once the wood they have is used up. There is no church ceremony but I'm sure many prayers are said. The Hindus believe that the remains of the body will return to the earth and the soul is set free by the cremation. I am secretly rather relieved not to see the actual bodies, as we would have done had we been earlier. I asked our guide what the people think of our being here.

"Don't they see it as an invasion of their privacy?"
But she says, "No. They see death so often. It is such an everyday experience that it has just become part of an ordinary day." I am really not convinced. Behind one of the ghats and through the smoke and flames, I spot a sign above a locked door. It reads, "Cornea Excision Centre". Rather grisly!

A little way along, we are shown the royal ghats where the cremation of any member of the royal family is held and, therefore, where the family who was massacred the previous year was cremated on one huge funeral pyre, so huge that it took a whole day to burn. The only people who are not cremated are children under the age of two or sadhus, people who have led a particularly holy life. These bodies are just floated downstream in tact. This may seem extreme and even more so when it must be pointed out that many people use the water of the river to bathe, wash clothes and also for cooking.

Also living in the holy area of Pashuputinath, are many sadhus. A sadhu is a Hindu holy man who spends his life wandering the country, seeking spiritual strength. They cast aside anything temporal and spend their life in prayer and meditation however, some go a little overboard, dressing in brightly-coloured loin cloths, covering themselves in ash and posing in a most interesting manner, a foot tucked behind the ear. This is all in a bid to have us pay to take their photographs. And pay we do! A photo opportunity like this does not come along every day.

One of memorable and amusing occasions on our visit to this place is when some of our group need to use the facilities. Someone suggests that the best place to "go" is down behind some long grass near the riverbank. At this stage none of us have yet had to "squat", as we know we will be doing as we cross the Tibetan plateau, so some of the ladies make their way, giggling and shy, down a steep path to some privacy. Those of us left waiting suddenly realized that the long grass is marijuana growing in wild profusion in this humid climate. Marijuana and hashish are readily available in Nepal even though it is now illegal. Back in the 6o's and 70's, the days of "flower power", hippies travelled to Nepal just to be part of the legal drug scene. Sadhus had been using marijuana for a long time, regarding it as having religious importance. Perhaps it helped them to meditate. There is a street in Katmandu named after the dread-locked hippies of those times. It is named "Freak" Street. Tourists used to visit the street just to observe the stoned, caftan-clad youth of the world as if they were "freaks".

We do not plan on letting the ladies live their detour into the marijuana plot down. They find it very amusing when the fact is pointed out to them. One lovely lady, who is nearing her seventieth birthday, cannot believe that she has just relieved herself amongst the marijuana plants. Actually, I think it gives a whole new slant to the term "peeing in the pot"!

We set off in the afternoon for our visit to the medieval city of Bhaktapur. It is very hot and humid now and we really do not know whether we should be going out as we are both tired but, at the risk of looking like geriatrics, we just "go with the flow". We are feeling really flat but on closer inspection of the faces in the bus, we are not the only ones. It is late and we haven't yet had lunch so we make this a priority once we pay our way into the Bhaktapur World Heritage site. We find a restaurant right in the centre of Taumadi Square and climb the narrow, dark staircase to the third floor where we all choose tables out on the narrow veranda, which runs right around the building. We have a great vantage point to watch the comings and goings in the square.

We order our meals and while we wait for them to arrive, lime sodas in hand, we settle in for some good people watching. People actually live and work in the area so we watch them as they go about their daily routine. It is indeed a living museum. One man is selling cooked vegetables from pans resting in baskets, which hang from a pole slung across his shoulders. There are children herding a young heifer through the square and others chasing one another, just like kids all over the world. Mothers in bright saris, with sleeping babies in their arms saunter in the afternoon heat to who knows where. Across the square, on the roof of a building, we watch monkeys playing and behind the dark shutters of the rooms below, we can see the vague shadows of people inside. There are the ubiquitous hawkers desperately trying to sell their wares. I have my eye on a great t-shirt in a stall below but Robert tells me we need to change some travellers' cheques before we can buy anything.

Our vegetable noodles arrive. Boy! Are they good! Exactly the right thing to have ordered for our first lunch in Nepal! Once we finish our meal, we feel better already.

Bhaktapur
Re-fuelled and refreshed, we set off to see Bhaktapur at leisure. The town is indeed very old. It reminds me, in parts, of Sienna in Italy. Both are medieval towns. We see the area where pottery is crafted in the way it has been for centuries. We see tailors, butchers and other tradesmen working almost in the square. There is such a feeling of community here. Women gather together at the town pump to wash their children and their clothes. Older children are already at work, hawking wares so as to make a small sum of money to add to the family's coffers.

However, it is the buildings that skirt this square and Durbar Square that we have come to see. Directly opposite the Nyatapola Restaurant, where we have just had lunch, is Nyatapola Temple, a very impressive building that dwarfs everything else in the square. The towering, five-storeyed pagoda can be entered by a long flight of steps flanked by large statues of elephants, lions and deities.

We gradually make our way to Durbar Square, where the Palace, with its fifty-five windows, dominates the scene. We "ooh" and "aah" over the fabulously carved door and windows, the big bell and especially the golden gate. We have to be crafty to outwit the hawkers, who pester us at every turn. We buy two beautiful prayer bells from a stall because lunch did not cost us what we expected it to. Everything here is so cheap. We notice other wonderful things that we can only glimpse at for we haven't any cash left.

One young man, about twelve years old, befriends me. His name is Ram. I am suspicious right from the start because he tells me he only wants to practise his English on me. His English hardly needs any practice. He is really very well spoken. His knowledge of Australia also astounds me. He talked to me of emus and dingos, where most non-Australians would speak of kangaroos. He says he is in Year Seven. Some of the Year Sevens I teach in Australia do not speak English so well. I tell him that I have no money left, in the hope that he will leave me alone but he looks genuinely hurt and says he is not interested in money. How small does that make me feel? I wander along chatting away to him until we reach the bus. Just before I say goodbye to him, he says,"

"I never ask anyone for money but I am wondering if you would be so kind as to buy me a soccer ball. I love to play soccer with my friends but I do not have a ball."
I knew there was a catch. I would like to give him the money for the ball simply because he has worked so hard to win me over but we have none. I don't think he believes me. But what can I do? I rummage in my camera bag and find a pen for him. He seems pleased with the small gift and waves as we depart.

Back in Thamel
Back in Thamel, I wash my hair and, for the first time on an overseas trip, I have not brought a hair dryer and intend going "a la natural" from now on so goodness knows what I'll look like from here on in. Robert goes out with a few of the others in our group to buy two new sleeping bag inserts to use with the sleeping bags we will be hiring for our nights in "simple" hotels as we cross the mountains of Tibet. He brings them back to the hotel but then sets off again, around the corner to Shephi's shop where leather coats can be tailored for a song. Our guide wants to buy two, so a few of them are going as a group to try to have more buying power. I eventually follow Robert to the shop and I too, decide to buy a coat because, at eighty Australian dollars, it is too good a bargain to pass up a lined suede coat made to size. I also take a fancy to the Pashmina scarves. These are made of the wool of longhaired Himalayan sheep, which is woven with silk. I choose three small ones for gifts and order a larger one in red for myself as well as a lovely pencil box for Danielle. Shephi gives me the scarves and the box even though no money has passed hands. He also does not require a deposit for the coats, which we shall pick up on our return to Kathmandu in about ten days time. A trusting soul!

Again we return to the hotel and by now, our new best friend, the doorman, rushes to open the door when he sees us coming and, with a huge grin on his face, salutes us as we pass through. We come and go so often on our stay in Kathmandu, the poor fellow must surely be suffering from tennis elbow from all his saluting. By now, we have our air conditioner working, so it is always nice to return to the coolness of our room, as the air outside is very muggy.

Before dinner, we meet in a bar just across from our hotel. It is a very famous bar in mountaineering circles - "The Rum Doodle Bar". It has been frequented, over the years, by some of the world's most famous mountaineering groups. We meet in the "Forty and a Half Thousand Feet Bar" where dangling from the ceiling are huge cardboard feet on which are the signatures of those who have made it to the top of Everest and some of those who have not. On the ground floor of our hotel is the Sir Edmund Hillary Travel Company and in the staircase of the hotel are signed photos of summiteers like Rob Hall who features in the book "Into Thin Air". We scan the feet for famous signatures and we see George Mallory, Edmund Hillary, Tenzig Norgay, Ang Rita Sherpa, Rob Hall and Gary Ball to name a few. I am an avid reader of mountaineering tales so I am impressed to think I am in the same bar they have frequented.

Robert is excited. Twice today a young drug- dealer on the street has offered him marijuana. He is nearing sixty and has never been offered drugs before. (It comes from spending his teenage years during the 60's in a small Australian country town.) He is feeling very young and trendy. As we walk through the dark but still busy street to Helena's Restaurant, the same fellow approaches him again. Robert whispers to me to look behind discretely as he told me about him earlier. When I turn to see him I notice that he is just a young, cheeky-looking fellow, not some sleazy criminal so I wag my finger at him and say, "You're a naughty boy! Go home!" He just grins and goes on his way. He doesn't worry us again. It is probably not the usual way to deal with a drug pusher but it works.

I am pleased to have our guide suggest a restaurant each night, as it could be risky if we decide to go it alone! Tonight she organises for us to dine at a long table up in the rooftop restaurant, Helena's. We grunt and groan our way up about seven flights of stairs, absolutely positive that she has us in training for Everest itself. It is lovely to end our day under the stars talking over the day that was and the days that are to come with our new group of friends.