Tuesday, November 27, 2007

K-K-K-K-K-K-Kathmandu!

We left Zhangmu, Tibet on the morning of the 23rd, headed for Kathmandu, Nepal - oddly it was more difficult to get out of Tibet (China) than it was to enter Nepal. Since China is all on once time zone, we expected to lose a lot of time as we crossed the border, but the 2 hour 15 minute time change caught us by surprise. As we continued down the river valley that we'd been following from the day before, the basic plant life we'd been seeing turned into downright tropical plants - coffee, banana and palm trees! The villages also changed quite a bit - most of the houses were more fit to handle oppressive summers than freezing winters - there were holes in some walls and almost no chimneys. As we continued down, the villages looked more like Carribbean, third world towns, with terraced fields and populated with Indian people than the Tibetan villages we'd seen the day before - apparently the mountains were quite a cultural (as well as physical) barrier. Shortly after the literal low point of the day, as we began climbing back up to Kathmandu, we caught another glimpse of the Himalayas. I'm not sure if there's anywhere else in the world where you can bask in a subtropical climate while staring up at some of the largest mountains in the world. The juxtaposition of terraced rice fields and snowcapped mountain peaks plays with your mind a bit but is spectacular none the less. When we arrived in the Thamel area of Kathmandu, where we have been staying for the past few days, we were stunned by the number of occidentals here - walking around here, you do not feel like you're in the middle of Nepal - every bar has a live cover band playing American classic rock. The town itself is somewhat like a combination of a carnival, the movie "Fear and Loathing" and a hippie fantasyland. Nepalese walking around on the street try to sell you tiger balm - when you turn them down, the same guy successively offers buddha sculptures, then chess sets, then small musical instruments, then hashish, then rafting trips, then trekking trips - its quite bizarre.

We spent the next few days checking out other parts of Kathmandu - fortunately the rest of the city is not geared so much towards tourists. We visited Durbar Square, Old Town, Swayambhunath, and took a mountain flight. Our walk to Durbar Square took us through some of the more authentic sections of Kathmandu - most of the signs were not in English and the streets were punctuated with small shrines and temples. Some of the houses were notably skinny. Durbar Square is a collection of temples that used to house the king centuries ago (he has since moved across town) and is notable as a UNESCO world heritage site. Most of the temples date from the 17th and 18th centuries but some are significantly older than that. Many of the temples are simple, but some are spectacular structures built up on many layers of giant brick steps with multiple roofs. What is striking about most of the buildings is the quantity of ornate carvings - each roof, window and door is more impressive than the next often with full scenes depicting gods and animals. I've included a photo of "The Peacock Window" from Bhaktapur, just outside town, its supposedly the best example of this type of carving but I'm much more fond of many of the less known (often not even preserved) carvings found along random back streets. My favorite part of Durbar Square was a carving of Bhairab the most terrifying and destructive depiction of Shiva - a Hindu god. Although Bhairab was wearing a belt of skulls and standing on a human, the carving was so overdone that he looked more ferocious, as in the way you might describe an angry puppy, than terrifying.

The Old Town section of Kathmandu is, in many ways, much like an extension of Durbar Square. While there are not as many temples in one space, there are small shrines and temples along the roadside and in city squares with much greater frequency than you see in other parts of town. Its a great place to stroll around and get lost for a few hours - most of the residents don't speak English but all were very friendly and happy to try understanding our bastardized attempts to speak Nepalese.

On our last day visiting sites in town the visit to Swayambhunath and the National Museum turned out to be quite an adventure - not so much because either place was particularily spectacular but because the "easy," fifteen minute walk that Lonely Planet describes between the two sites was not so easy and took us about an hour. By the time we reached the National Museum it was actually closed and we had to visit its lesser neighbor, the Nepalese Military Museum. Aside from a few rifles and uniforms the museum lacks any real artifacts. A few paintings that depicted the valiant Nepalese army in battle looked almost like caricatures - the soldiers had over sized heads and there was a comical amount of blood. Swayambhunath, nearby, is a hybrid Hindu and Buddhist holy area overlooking Kathmandu from a hill on the outskirts of town. The area is more commonly known, however, as Monkey temple because the whole site is - well - covered in monkeys. We saw some great temples and walked around the giant Buddhist chorten (half of a sphere on top of the ground with an antenna coming out the top) - there were some great shrines but not a lot else.

I've neglected to post pictures of the chorten because it looks exactly the same as, but a little smaller than the Bodhnath Stupa we visited today - I will post about that and other day trips around the Kathmandu Valley soon. I apologize if some of my descriptions of the religious sites we've visited have become a bit lackluster - we've seen a lot recently and they begin to blend together. I've been told this phenomenon is called "being templed out."

The day after Monkey Temple, Ellie and I woke up early for our much anticipated flight around the Himalayas. We got to the airport and found out our flight had been delayed - probably for the best too considering all the fog outside. When we finally drove out to the plane, we passed what I believed to be the Nepali Air Force - this consisted of three tiny helicopters and two propeller driven planes. We hopped in the plane and took off - as the plane climbed above Kathmandu, the snowcapped Himalayas rose above the city. The mountains are huge and accentuated by Kathmandu's low elevation - the peaks seem much higher from this side than the Tibetan side. The view from the plane was stunning - the Himalayas are, hands down, the most awesome display of natural beauty that I've ever seen.



2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Really enjoying my look-ins on your "excellent adventure." The pictures and accounts have been great, and the video of your flight over the Himalayas was spectacular.

hc

Anonymous said...

not supposed to use electronics on airplanes.