Gordhamer Family News: May 2012

The second part of our trip, we took a small internal flight to Pokhara, northwest of Kathmandu and at the base of the Annapurna region of the Himalayas. We were excited to see the mountains, but our excited was greatly diminished when we landed only to discover that the same haze in Kathmandu was prevalent in Pokhara, preventing any view of the mountains. It was nice to get out of the big, noisy city though. Pokhara was definitely more cozy. Our first afternoon there, we hiked up to a peace pagoda and then up to Serankat, the highest point near

Pokhara at 5500 feet, hoping to see the sunset over the mountains, but again, the haze was too thick. We met an interesting kid though and spent some time talking with him. He was 12 years old, dressed in rags, and smaller than Xander. On the way down the mountain, we ran into a group of boys playing soccer with empty water bottles as balls. They were begging for our water bottle, so we quickly drank the rest and then tossed it into the fray to be kicked around with the others.

Playing the Tibetan game of goats and tigers with a shop owner. I wanted to make sure I understood the game before I bought it.

The peace pagoda. Not all that interesting.

Devil's Falls. This is right before monsoon season so the water level is pretty low.

Hiking up the hills to Serangkot.

There are so many interesting dwellings built on the steeped hillside.

The rest of our trip gets a little bit messy. We had quite a run of bad luck. Upon arriving in Pokhara, we learned that the country was going on strike Thursday, the next day. No taxis or shops would be open. Nepal is in the middle of writing a new constitution and some castes do not like how they are splitting the country into territories. So, we waited around Thursday without much to do and then had to walk to the airport. With our luggage. Once we arrived there, we waited around for hours, flights were delayed, then canceled. We were bumped onto later flights, etc. Then it started to rain. And our luggage went out on the bumped flight we were supposed to be on, but apparently it was overbooked. We had to walk back, without luggage, in the pouring rain. It was a little disconcerting, and then Joseph said, "Anna, look." And we turned around and

this is what we saw. The Himalayas. To say they are spectacular is an understatement. The rain had cleared the haze.

We woke up at the crack of dawn (luckily our rooftop room was still available for an unexpected extra night.) This was the view from the rooftop inn.

We walked again to the airport, as Nepal was still on strike, arriving for what was supposed to be an early flight. The plane was delayed in coming, several hours. When we all boarded and sat on it for an hour or so, they announced it had mechanical problems and we had to get off and wait for another plane from Kathmandu. The only good part about all this airport drama over two days, was that we met some cool people in the airport. And after spending 8+ hours together, we got a lot of chatting in. I am sitting with our Canadian friend and Indian family.

The valley steeps from the airplane flying out of Pokhara.

When we got to Kathmandu, we had several hours to make our connection to Singapore. After spending 5 hours in the airport, we heard an announcement that our flight was canceled. We would have to wait until the next day to get out of Nepal. By this time, I had the flu and was feeling really rotten with a fever and sneezing over and over again. We were bused to a hotel for

the night.

View of Mount Everest from the plane out of Kathmandu. Just stunning. I wish I could make it bigger, but I'm having blogging problems with Chrome at the moment.

WARNING: This is going to be a long blog post. I have been going through the 1500 pictures of Nepal that we took while on our trip last week, and narrowing it down has been quite difficult. I know this is a lot of pictures, but I am only posting them because I think are are interesting or worth seeing.

We arrived at noon into Kathmandu and immediately got right into the fray after checking into our hotel. As you can see, the streets are a bit chaotic. We rode one of the rickshaws down to Durbur Square--the historic district of Kathmandu.

There are cows roaming all around the streets in Nepal. Cows are sacred in Hindu religion so they are left alone. Running into a cow is as severe a punishment as hitting a person. So the traffic flow changes when a cow is present in the road.

Hindu women laying offerings on the sidewalk.

Durbur Square--the historic heart of the city with buildings that date back to the 12th century. The buildings are mostly made of brick and wood and the wood has very intricate carving detailing Hindu epic literature.

Joseph and I in the courtyard of the palace of Kumari Bahal--house the living goddess. Every 5 years or so, a young girl is chosen to be a living goddess, the incarnation of the virgin goddess. She is worshipped by the people and even the king. She istaken from her family and lives in this palace until 12 yrs old or so. Everyday at 4:00 she appears at a window behind Joseph and to the left more, and waves. We didn't stick around long enough to see her.

Faces of Kathmandu. If wrinkles could tell a story . . .

Joseph and I chatted with this lovely girl in Durbur square. She wanted to paint henna on my arms. She was so cute and friendly.

In the mid-19th century, the conquering king became fascinated with European architecture and introduced European neoclassical styles to Kathmandu. It is quite a contrast to Nepalese style and seemed out of place.

Joseph standing along the old palace where shops are now competing to sell their wares to tourists.

Nepal is a colorful place. Puppets.

After Durbar square we headed to a small village called Kirtipur outside Kathmandu. There are steep paths winding through the old, medieval looking village, with rocky paths, working villagers and roosters, cows and dogs. It was so much quieter and nice to get out of the city. We enjoyed interacting with the locals.

Kathmandu Valley as seen on the way up to Kirtapur.

Women working in the fields. A lot of the harvest was wheat and we saw corn. I guess they grow rice too but not until the rainy season starts in June.

I loved this picture because of the intense orange and if you look closely at the little boy, he is carefully setting up rocks as his toys. We watched him as he played cars or something like that with his rocks.

Some school boys waving to us out the window.

Kirtipur was first an outpost in the 12th c. to a nearby larger city before becoming an independent kingdom. I guess in the 18th century, there was a very prolonged and terrible siege by the conquering Shahs. Apparently, come of the weapons from the battle are hung in the village temple--and if you look closely at the top tier of the temple you can see the knives hanging. This is a Hindu temple.

The following morning our first stop was to Boudda. We toured the largest stupa ( Nepalese Buddhist temple) in all of Nepal. The surrounding compound and village area is home to over 16,000 Tibetans since 1959. According to the guide, Boudhanath, the temple area, is one of the most flourishing centers of Tibetan Buddhism in the world outside Tibet itself.

Close-up of the stupa tower. These eyes are a symbol we saw throughout Nepal, painted on doorways and on every small stupa.

Buddhist prayer flags that stream all over the temple. They have prayers printed on them and the people believe that the wind blowing the flags will carry their prayers up to some supreme being.

Another picture standing on the stupa.

A Tibetan woman worshiping at a stupa door (which doesn't open. You walk around and on the stupa, not in it.) You can see the prayer wheels at the entrance. They spin the wheels as part of their prayers.

Miniature stupas that contain ashes of devoted monks and Buddhists around the temple complex.

We stepped inside a monastery meditation taking place in a building next to the stupa. They kind of sing and chant with intermittent drums ind gongs. It was really interesting.

Joseph sitting outside the monastery. Notice the ring in the woman's nose. A lot of the women had these pieced nose rings handing pretty low from their noses.

Like I said, Nepal is a colorful place. Tibetan beads for sale.They wear a lot of red, turquoise and blue.

After spending the morning in Boudda, we drove with our guide down to Bhaktapur, said to be founded in the 9th century, former capital of the valley, and flourishing trade route to Tibet. Another Durbar Square, or city center, with old Hindu temples and palaces with intricate carving.

Gotta throw some pictures of us taken by the guide, but the close-ups are way better.

These bells are found all around the Hindu squares in various sizes. The Hindus ring them when they enter the temple to wake up the gods.

Golden gated entrance to the royal palace. Inside the palace there is an area where every year Hindus sacrifice a certain number which is quite large, like 116, goats and such to Vishnu or Shiva--one of the gods. Only Hindus are allowed into their sacred area.

A woman sitting outside a palace door. We noticed a lot of people just sitting around in Nepal.

Walking outside Durbar square and around Bhaktapur was interesting as well. We saw construction where some men were digging a foundation by hand with metal plates. They had an assembly line going scooping in the maze like trenches, then passing the metal plate full of rocks and dirt down the line and up to the man standing on ground level. Joseph jumped in and stood in the line, passing some plates up to the man on ground level who dumped them into a big dirt pile. A very time consuming way to move some dirt I must say. But there are no bulldozers here.

We came across some women getting fresh water for the day from the town well.

You might be able to see from the picture how deep the well is. Let's just say, if you were unfortunate enough to fall in, you would be hurt and unable to get out.