After a late breakfast back at the hotel we went to visit
another Buddhist Temple - Boudhanath.
Considering only 10% of the population are Buddhists (80% are Hindu) there are an awful
lot of temples around.
This place was huge, the largest stupa in Nepal and originally built in 14th Century it’s now surrounded by shops and restaurants and has a great feel to the place.
This place was huge, the largest stupa in Nepal and originally built in 14th Century it’s now surrounded by shops and restaurants and has a great feel to the place.
The eyes of the Buddha follow you everywhere.
When we first arrived there was a ceremony going and there must have been 400/500 monks plus ordinary people all praying. Unfortunately by the time we’d walked round the place and got to “free time” the service was over and all the monks were pouring out of one gate.
We think they'd probably only gone for lunch as a lot of monk regalia was left around.
As with most sites of this nature it attracted society’s
unfortunates so we had to be quite hard faced or we would have been giving
money right, left and centre. I’m never
sure when cases are genuine, especially when children are involved, but someone
with only half a leg clearly isn’t faking it and I feel compelled to give them some
money (especially as I’m prepared to pay a dollar for a photo of a Sadhu).
As non-Hindus, we weren’t allowed in the actual temple but
from the opposite bank could observe what was going on. The Hindu religion requires bodies to be
cremated within a few hours of death and the son of the deceased plays a very
important role (if there is no son, then the nearest male relative has to step
up). From what Krishna told us and from
what we observed at a distance, the body is doused with an accelerant by the male
relatives and then a flame is placed in the mouth of the deceased by this son,
from then on other flames are then put all around the body and once these take
hold, the body is covered with straw. It
takes approximately 4 hours to burn and then one particular part of the skull
which remains intact is taken by the eldest son and placed in the silt of the
river bed. Eventually all the ashes are
just pushed into the river – and they wonder why the river is dirty!
I’d been looking forward to seeing from Sadhus, whether they are real Holy men or just people who dress up
for the tourists’ money I don’t know but I was happy to pay to photograph them. I believe cannabis plays a large part in their lives.
We then went to a Singing Bowl demonstration. These vessels are supposed to have healing
properties and will cure all sorts of problems (headaches, back pain etc) simply by sound waves.
The most fascinating aspect was when he filled a bowl with
water and just ran the hammer around the outside and the water immediately
jumped about.
From there we went to the other old city of Patan and again
the earthquake damage was extensive, particularly in the Durbar (Palace) Square. It’s hard to imagine they’ll ever finish the
reconstruction and the mess, dust and rubble along with the pesky motorbikes
don’t make the place very pleasant to visit.
Most of these places were built around the same time as the Dzongs in
Bhutan and for me there are similarities in their design but they hold none of
the beauty of the Bhutanese ones, these are just stone or red brick and wood,
no paintings or colour.
There are one or two undamaged bits
Old men doing what old men do the world over – nothing!
Candyfloss seller
Bead sellers
