Pashupatinath Temple in Kathmandu, Nepal

Yesterday we visited Pashupatinath Temple, considered by many to be the holiest place in Nepal. Pashupatinath is a cremation site on the banks of the Baghmati river in Kathmandu. There is a large Hindu temple along with many other buildings that support the cremation process during this difficult time for families. The Hindu cremation ceremony is a very personal experience and we witnessed an especially moving one yesterday.

My husband, Rene, is fascinated by the spectrum of life that is experienced during the cremation ceremony. At this ceremony the singularity of life and death becomes a very personal experience not only for the person being cremated, but for everyone who witnesses it.

Singularity, one point in which time or space do not exist, where there is no life or death, no here or there. The beginning and the end coincide. One point in which the life of the deceased and the life of the family participate together in a delicate ceremony. You see, in the Hindu tradition, from the moment of death until their ashes are swept into the river, the family is responsible for everything. In the western tradition when a person dies we call the mortuary, who comes to either the hospital or home and transfers the body to the funeral home to be prepared for the burial. The mortician prepares and dresses the body for presentation at the funeral in the casket. Then the funeral home holds a viewing in a nice room for friends and family to come and pay their respect in a more personal way than is possible at a funeral. At the funeral everyone dresses nicely in black and arrives at the church to sit stoically in the pews while the minister talks about passing from life to death. As sad and touching as these ceremonies can be, they pale in comparison to what I was able to witness at Pashupatinath yesterday.

After watching several families prepare their loved ones for cremation and seeing the pyres burning, we decided to walk through the “Indiana Jones” temples on the other side of the river. As we were standing and soaking in the experience we saw a large gathering on the side of the river where the ceremonies begin and we decided to sit and watch from the beginning. We saw a body being brought over on a stretcher that was covered with the traditional yellow and red cloth and placed with the feet almost touching the river. There was another smaller “package,” also covered in the traditional cloth near-by and then another body up on the top of the area. Soon we could see that this was not a single cremation, but there were 3 bodies being prepared side by side. As the faces were exposed for the mourners to see, we realized that this was a small family—father, mother and child—all being prepared at the same time. The gathering was very large and as the family took turns going to the river to dip their hands and bring water to their loved ones, several women fainted as they were consumed with grief. Men were holding each other up as they slowly proceeded to the bodies to participate and bless them. Rice is placed in their mouths, incense is burned and water is sprinkled over the bodies. Marigold garlands were placed over the bodies before they were placed on the bamboo stretchers to be carried over to the ghats. We observed this very personal ceremony as a large crowd gathered on both sides of the river, on the bridge and the temple above. Everyone present this day was part of the ceremony as we all sat and silently grieved for a family we did not know. We began to wonder what happened, what caused this tragedy, but could only imagine what took place. I was moved by the very personal experience and how every family member took turns going to touch and bless the bodies. Even through unbearable grief they slowly made their way to the river to say their good-byes in their own way. Everyone was silent as this unfolded before our eyes and we became part of their very tragic and personal experience. All who were present became one with the deceased and their families as the tears mixed with smoke and we sent our prayers towards the heavens.

Namaste!

At Bhaktapur, an ancient Newar town in Kathmandu

A view of the Kathmandu Valley from Swayambhunath

Namaste from Nepal

1. Learn to squat.  While most restaurants in the big cities have “Western toilets,” asking for one promises to get you strange looks.
2. There is always room.  There is a great movie in theaters right now, “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel,” which takes place in India.  However, almost everything about it can be applied to my experiences in Nepal.  As one character says while trying to squeeze into a bus full of people, “There is always room.”  This can be said about most things in Nepal—the busses, extra guests at a local’s home, even your belly when your host fills your plate with daal bhat for the third time.
3. Don’t eat that—but don’t be afraid to try the local food either.  Every single person we met (tourists, trekkers, aid workers) spent at least an entire day sick.  Somehow, none of us did.  We were very careful about we ate, making sure that everything was cooked before we tried it.  Thankfully, most Nepali food is cooked, and the tea is boiled.  But after a week of filling ourselves with rice and lentils, we had to force ourselves not to order salads.  With that in mind, is would be an injustice to travel to Nepal and deprive yourself of the Nepali cuisine.  Even after we came home I still craved momos, a Nepali-style dumpling, and Chicken Sekuwa, grilled spicy meat.
4. Look up!  Yes, you will step on spit and cow dung, that part is almost inescapable.  But fussing over and side-stepping an on-coming luggie will only make you miss the beautiful scenery.  Even in the streets of Kathmandu where the mountains aren’t visible above the colorful handing garlands, the bright marigold wreaths and beads around brown necks are only the surface of the onslaught of the attack on your senses.  At every turn, a new sight, smell, feeling awaits.
5. Don’t refuse an invitation.  If someone offers you tea, accept.  We must have insulted many people trying to rush off to make the bus get to a meeting on time.
6. On that note- don’t expect the locals to follow the same timetable as you.  The local busses are rarely on time, and it is best not to let yourself get too frustrated.  I cant count how many times we were told, “Don’t worry about it! There’s nothing you can do.”
7. Bring an umbrella.  I finally understand why people carry umbrellas when its not raining.  The temperatures got up to 100 degrees with little shade or wind for relief.  Almost every day we wished had brought an umbrella with us.
8. Watch out for others’ umbrellas.  It seems that on the crowded streets of Kathmandu, you are more likely to be poked in the eye by an umbrella than mugged like most tourists in other cities.
9. Old dogs can learn new tricks.  (Thank you Marigold Hotel, again)  Three weeks in Nepal taught me that most of the Western comforts I took for granted weren’t actually a necessity and our habits were born out of complacency and were ready to be shaken.  We got used to brushing our teeth using our sterilized water.  When we first arrived in Kathmandu, just crossing the street without crossing signals seemed a sure death wish.  We followed closely behind the locals, as my mom screamed at my dad for almost getting us run over.  After just a few days though, we learned to navigate the busy streets on our own with just a few Nepali words shouted at us that we were probably better off not understanding.
10. The world is big, the world is small.  When I was little, there were two places in the world that I considered to be the most different, exotic and unlike anything in my own world: Kathmandu and Timbuktu.  The names just oozed adventure.  Never did I expect to actually visit one of these places.  And being there exceeded every expectation that I had accumulated in preparation.  It is a world different from my own in every way imaginable.  And yet, at its root, it is exactly the same.

A monkey stealing some food

Young monks

Prayer Wheels

-Post by RPS

Note: Please be warned that some of the following images are a little graphic.  I have decided to post pictures of the cremation ceremonies because it is what this sacred place is about.  It was a beautiful and moving experience for us, and while it might be shocking to many readers from Western cultures (as it was to us at first), that is a large part of why it affected us so much.

Three monkeys silhouetted like statues at dusk in Pashupatinath

The banks of the Bagmati where the ashes meet the water

Cremation Ceremony

A colorful reminder of life in the midst of this humbling, yet sacred place

We took a short 25-minute flight from Pokhara to Kathmandu, flying along the mountain range.  The Pokhara airport is tiny, and the metal detector in the “security” section was broken.  The flight announcement we were told would be made was actually just a man running around telling passengers it was time to go through security.  While waiting for our flight, we saw a small Buddha Air plane take off.  We were told that was our plane.  The small propeller plane made its way to Kathmandu and back in one hour, getting us in the air just in time to see the Himalayas peaking its white tips high into the sky.

The two curtains behind me block off the security rooms at the airport.  There are no x-ray machines and the metal detectors weren’t working, so the men and women were taken into the separate rooms for a pat down.

After we landed in Kathmandu, someone pointed to small figures running across the runway.  I turned and saw dozens of monkeys running from one end to the other and over a high fence into the trees.  I shouldn’t have been so surprised to see them.  Animals run free all over Nepal.  In fact, Chitwan, in Southern Nepal, has a large National Park that houses Bengal tigers, leopards, pythons and the second largest population of Asian Rhinoceros.  In Kathmandu, large cows with fresh marigold wreaths around their necks sleep unharmed like center dividers in the busy streets.  But for some reason, the monkeys on the runway completely caught me off guard.

Dozens of monkeys ran across the runway and climbed over the fence.

We arrived back in Kathmandu around noon, and seeing the drive to the hotel in the daylight gave me a completely different perspective of the city.  Our first time there, it was pitch black when we arrived, and my mom joked that it was a good thing I couldn’t see where we were going.  This time, I saw the back alleys, the rubble on the side of the road, the pothole-ridden street that led to our hotel.  I was thankful that I had already seen Kathmandu in the daylight, because if this were my first impression, I would have asked the driver to turn around.

The Kathmandu baggage claim.  The men stand on the carts waving the luggage until someone claims it.

Phewa Lake at dusk

It is likely that the types of tourists who visit are the reason that Pokhara has maintained its charm.  Although the street signs are in English and the restaurants serve hamburgers, the trekkers and the hippies, not always mutually exclusive, respect the landscape and genuinely love the country.  Many vagabonds stop in Pokhara on their way to another place and end up spending years there, lured in by the bohemian luster.  Dreadlocks and flowing skirts float past you with cheery far-off smiles as you make your way to the next shop with hanging scarves and colorful woolen rugs.  Caught somewhere between 1840’s Paris and a Moroccan bazaar, this little city entranced us too.

We spent two days in Lakeside Pokhara, basking in our post-valley luxuries.  We relished the air conditioner, refrigerator, and wifi, and even the 14-hour long government-inflicted blackouts everyday couldn’t hamper our moods.

Dad and Mom at Phewa Lake

On our first night, I ordered pizza at a wonderful restaurant called Moondance.  I devoured it, thankful for the break from our twice-daily daal bhats.  But after that night of satisfying my Western cravings, I continued to enjoy the Nepali cuisine, which is delicious.  I had had Nepali food before our trip, but I was not prepared for how much I would love every dish I tried.  There are many different types of Nepali foods, the most common of which is daal bhat, but the flavors resemble everything from Indian to Hawaiian.  Some of the spices are familiar; they use garlic and onions in almost every dish, with cilantro, ginger and cardamom permeating even the smallest serving of pickled vegetables.

Even after we left the valley, we continued to enjoy the local foods.  Our daily lunches consisted of chicken momos, a Nepali-style dumpling, and garlic naan.  We soaked up the laid-back hippie lifestyle, feeling comforted to be surrounded by English-speaking Americans and Europeans again, but thrilled by the unique Lakeside Nepali culture.  We spent our time in Pokhara wandering the streets, in the hot sun, visiting the small shopkeepers with their windows draped in cashmere and prayer beads.  Beautiful dilapidated but colorful rowboats floated on the lake like petals on a pond, and the entire Lakeside seemed to be enveloped by a sense of calm.  Our time in Pokhara was absolutely perfect.

In the late afternoon Shree came down from the chicken farm with a live chicken in his arms. He put it in the storeroom to wait until the water boiled, in order to pluck the feathers. With a quick slice, and a dunk into the boiling water Shree began plucking. Since we didn’t have the knives to butcher it, Shree took the chicken to the local butcher. He asked me how I wanted the chicken cut and I told him that any way the butcher did it was fine with me.

I had begun to cook the potatoes, onions and garlic when then the power went out. It was getting dark, and this reminded me of the times when I was using a camp stove. The kitchen does not have any running water or refrigeration and without light it was hard to see what I was cooking. When Shree returned with the butchered chicken, he handed me a small black plastic bag, full of a cut-up chicken, every part of it including the bones and organs.

Nabaraj and Shree returned with the local wine and a few neighbors stopped by to taste American food. We all laughed and had a good time. Even Shailee and Bimala (Shailee’s cousin who lived with them) ate with everyone in the living room. Funny thing though, the chicken tasted Nepali. I think the spices are embedded in the wok. When Shree asked me what the name of my dish was I said “motorcycle chicken.” He just smiled and knew why. I named it that because the chickens are carried, live, to the markets tied to the handlebars of the motorcycle.

Shree, proudly holding his chicken

We wanted to take the local bus so we could experience exactly what the villagers experience when they have to make the journey to a better hospital.  It was not an easy trip.  After a long walk along the rice paddy fields and across the river, we caught the bus outside of the school.  When we got on, there were no seats available, at least not inside of the bus.  There were several men sitting on top of the bus, though.  When we started careening around the mountain roads, I half expected to see bodies flying off the roof.  It goes without saying that we chose to squeeze ourselves into the aisle like cattle.

The bus was unlike anything I had seen before.  The outside is decorated in bright paints, often with the words “Handsome Man,” or other means of identification marking the front bumper.  The ceiling on the inside of the bus had bright paintings plastered along it, while punched tin decorated the window frames.  With the Nepali music blaring, the bus quickly made its way across a river (not by bridge) and along the bumpy road.  Imagining a woman in labor or a sick child having to endure this trip was difficult.  It was not an easy journey.

A Local Bus

The inside of the bus, with colorfully decorating ceilings.

Punched tin decorating the windows on the bus

The bus crossing the river (with a man washing in the background)

The hospital director at the Besisahar Hospital was extremely kind and welcoming to us.  He answered all of our questions about the statistics, such as the chances of survival after a hospital delivery versus a home delivery, and gave us a tour of the facilities.  We wanted to understand how they became self-sustaining and how the government and the NGO, both of which supported the hospital, worked together.  The visit was very promising.

After some chicken momos, a Nepali dumpling, and naan, we took the bus back to the valley.  This trip was even worse than the way there.  Many of you might know that personal space is somewhat of a commodity in the United States.  Here in Nepal they have no conception of it.  We were fortunate to find seats on the bus, but it quickly filled.  A girl about my age stood next to me in the aisle and motioned to my seat, and not understanding her, I thought she wanted to put her purse on the ground next to me to keep it safe.  By now, I was used to being taken by surprise, and yet when she lifted the armrest and sat on my seat, I was dumbfounded.  There was not much space left on my seat, and I hadn’t moved over, so she was, basically, sitting on my lap.  Unapologetically, she forced her weight against me, until an English speaking Nepali man who had engaged us in conversation noticed me making a “is this for real?” gesture to my mom and asked the girl to stand up.  I endured her dirty looks as I enjoyed my roomy seat the rest of the way home.

When we were about 15 minutes from the school where we would get off to walk home, the bus stopped on the side of the road.  The driver and the money collector left the bus.  It was hot and the sun was setting and we were getting restless.  We waited, an entire bus full of people, without any explanation for an hour and a half.  We saw one of them sitting on a rock smoking a cigarette.  Some people got out to stretch their legs.  But when my mom and I complained to Nabaraj, he said cheerfully “Don’t worry!  There’s nothing you can do about it.”  What?!?  There’s nothing you can do about it?  At home, this would never happen.  The bus driver doesn’t just leave for a smoke and come back an hour and a half later without telling the passengers how long he would be gone.  We could have walked home and had our daal bhat 2 by the time they came back.  But now, we would be crossing the river in the dark after the bus dropped us off at the school again.  I learned two things about the Nepali people that day.  First, personal space is a luxury; second, the people have little say in what happens when other people, especially the government, are involved.

When the sun sets in the Lamjung Valley, the villagers enjoy their daal bhat and turn in for the night.  Tired and sore from a difficult day of plowing the fields or hauling rocks up the mountainside, most residents have quiet evenings.  One night towards the end of our stay, Nabaraj asked if we would like to try the “local wine.”  This sounded tempting enough, so he and our friend Shree visited “The Gurung down the road” to buy some homemade millet wine.  As my dad described in his earlier post “Mite,” the wine tasted like something between moonshine and mothballs.  For me, who doesn’t usually drink alcohol, I was repulsed.  It looked like water, and, thankfully I caught a whiff of what was in the glass I was about to sip as I raised it to my lips.  “When you visit us in California,” we told them, “we’re going to take you to this place called Napa.”

However, the wine served its purpose.  The exhausted men relaxed and opened up to us, and our laughter filled the sleeping valley with echoes.  Seeing the serious men and their obedient wives finally relax was rewarding.  It was still an early night, and no one exceeded the stage of Social Lubrication, but it was a wonderful evening.  By 10 PM, we joined the rest of the villagers in a deep sleep, and the fireflies scattered as some of the men stumbled home.

One day we went to visit Avasar’s Little Star English Boarding School, a 30-minute hike from Nabaraj’s house.  Getting there isn’t easy.  After you walk along the ledges of the rice paddies, as you do to get to most places in the valley, you make your way across a river.  Right now, during the dry season, the stream is small, and fairly easy to cross for the accustomed Nepalis.  Finding steady rocks that poke out of the water so our shoes don’t get wet is sometimes trying for us, but the kids usually just stomp right through the water.  During the monsoon season, which will begin in a few weeks, the river swells to shoulder high, posing a big problem for half of the villagers who live on this side of the water.  The small kids need to be carried across to make it to school.  Moving the school wouldn’t solve any problems though, because the river runs straight through the village separating the residents.

By the time we arrived, out of breath and sweating from the intense heat, I had blisters from my new sandals.  As I stood complaining to my dad about my sore feet, we watched the kids playing soccer during their break.  One 11 year old boy, D.P,, hobbled after the pack of his classmates chasing the ball.  D.P. has a drop foot, a condition that prevents him from flexing his one foot, causing him to limp.  This is a condition that is easily fixed in the US with physical therapy or splints, but not in Nepal.  Thankfully, here his peers never tease him, but always wait for him to catch up with the rest of the pack.  These children have touched us beyond imagination.

The children of Little Star English Boarding School.  “Boarding” refers to a private school.  The other type of school in Nepal, the public schools, are called “government schools.”

My dad “helping” the men dig.  The classrooms are being renovated as more students arrive.  Nabaraj hopes to purchase a new plot of land nearby as the school continues to establish itself as the premier private school in the area.