Now there's a post title I never thought I'd write.
This is what one of the hotel guests told the staff this morning: the breakfast pancake was the best she'd ever had. Little did I know that later that day, pancakes would literally be raining down from heaven. I'll get to that in a moment.
Having slept the sleep of the dead after a long but thankfully uneventful journey despite the 4,500 miles distance from London to Kathmandu, I got up this morning at a respectable hour and hired a taxi to go round to some of the sights of the city. Kathmandu is a throng; a smoggy, dusty (many people wear masks), confusing mishmash of modern buildings and medieval temples and shrines whose arteries are clogged with slightly alarming traffic. While waiting for my driver after one of my sightseeing stops, he was a bit late so I took the chance to stand in the street and watch Kathmandu life go by. Mopeds dodged past fuming lorries and buses while cows travelled freely down the hair-raisingly busy street, grazing on heaps of rubbish at the side of the road. Although I was concerned about roadside hamburger, no one else appeared to be - obviously a normal occurrence. There was a large parade of women dressed in red celebrating a festival, who processed by with accompanying music. Six Buddhist nuns managed to pile into a tiny taxi, plus the driver.
One of the other many intriguing things I saw today was the Pastupatinath temple complex. Not being Hindu or Buddhist, I couldn't go into the temple to Shiva itself but I could wander around the grounds (both Hindus and Buddhists worship at the same shrines). There were shrines to Shiva where supplicants can pray for fertility, a home for elderly people set up by Mother Teresa when she visited and a hospice for those who are dying. The huts of holy men were carved into a cliff face that overlooks a river. And into that river, the Bagmati, the ashes of the dead are poured. I was particularly struck by this because rituals for the dead are carried out in the open, in contrast to our own customs. The dead are brought and purified by the stream's water by the relatives and then put onto one of the many pyres by the stream and burned. In contrast, there is a terrace that overlooks the whole temple complex where people come to ... well, just hang out. Ruben, my young guide, told me it was a favourite hangout for guys to come with their girlfriends. Admittedly the scene was peaceful from up there. And in the meantime, you can observe worshippers clustering around the main temple, bells ringing to send prayers up to heaven. I suppose that all these activities in one place really do make up the circle of life.
A wall painting of the god Shiva at Pastupatinath.
Last of all, as the scorching sun gave way to the late afternoon haze, we went up out of the city to the hilltop stupa, Swayambhunath. A stupa is on object of worship originating from the Tibetan Buddhists. It's a large, white dome said to contain the remains of buddhas past. There were some tourists here but also a large number of Nepalese people, young and old, tourists themselves, families, all taking in the cleaner air above the city and relaxing, young monks from the nearby monastery playing football in a courtyard.
The atmosphere was like that of a lazy Sunday afternoon in the park - with a touch of festivity from the colourful prayer flags festooned everywhere. I love these flags - there's something so joyful about them fluttering in the breeze and sending the prayers written on them up to the gods' ears. All around the base of the great stupa are prayer wheels - you must turn them with your right hand clockwise and move around the stupa clockwise because that way you may chance to meet the god who travels anti-clockwise.
People began looking up at the top of the stupa, to the golden tower above the three staring, all-seeing eyes. Normally I try not to take photos of myself when I'm travelling but made an exception on this occasion because of the view. When I looked up I saw that a couple of girls were pointing and giggling at something behind me. Sure enough, there was a brute of a monkey perched on the wall, stuffing his maw with something. When I looked up past the tittering girls I saw a group of men had scaled the tower and one if them was hurling pancakes at the whooping crowd below who scrambled to grab them. One lady caught one and offered a piece to me - I asked her what was going on and she just said 'it's a festival'. [UPDATE] According to my city tour guide, this is 'prashad' - a chance to receive some of the food offering that's being made to the god].
So yes - the weather in Kathmandu this afternoon was hazy with a chance of pancakes.
[UPDATE] I also found myself in the right place at the right time the following day in Durbar Square. This was the scene.
One moment I was heading back to my hotel after a long, restful afternoon spent with a coffee and a book at the edge of the square. The next moment I walked headlong into an enormous mass of bodies, surging towards a giant, coniferous tree that dipped and swayed alarmingly as it was pulled along in a wooden cart. You can just about see that there are people perched on the tree that looked to me like Christmas decorations though they were clinging on for dear life. The tree was accompanied by a procession of drummers and my heart began to match the hammering, although I didn't know what was happening. The air was fizzing as the crowd, as one, strained to get closer - men, women children, motorbikes, bicycles, taxis - it seemed as thought the whole of Kathmandu was there. There were several hairy moments when I was sure the tree would topple as it turned a corner and then it reached an impasse as it tried to get from the square into a smaller side street but somehow they got through once the crowd realised they couldn't progress unless they moved. Then when the tree was gone, business as usual took another twenty minutes to resume as cars, bicycles mopeds and people competed with each other to move in the limited space.
I had witnessed part of the week-long Newari chariot festival celebrating the rain god Machhendranath, which falls at the end of the Newari calendar year, not long before the monsoon sets in.
This is what one of the hotel guests told the staff this morning: the breakfast pancake was the best she'd ever had. Little did I know that later that day, pancakes would literally be raining down from heaven. I'll get to that in a moment.
Having slept the sleep of the dead after a long but thankfully uneventful journey despite the 4,500 miles distance from London to Kathmandu, I got up this morning at a respectable hour and hired a taxi to go round to some of the sights of the city. Kathmandu is a throng; a smoggy, dusty (many people wear masks), confusing mishmash of modern buildings and medieval temples and shrines whose arteries are clogged with slightly alarming traffic. While waiting for my driver after one of my sightseeing stops, he was a bit late so I took the chance to stand in the street and watch Kathmandu life go by. Mopeds dodged past fuming lorries and buses while cows travelled freely down the hair-raisingly busy street, grazing on heaps of rubbish at the side of the road. Although I was concerned about roadside hamburger, no one else appeared to be - obviously a normal occurrence. There was a large parade of women dressed in red celebrating a festival, who processed by with accompanying music. Six Buddhist nuns managed to pile into a tiny taxi, plus the driver.
One of the other many intriguing things I saw today was the Pastupatinath temple complex. Not being Hindu or Buddhist, I couldn't go into the temple to Shiva itself but I could wander around the grounds (both Hindus and Buddhists worship at the same shrines). There were shrines to Shiva where supplicants can pray for fertility, a home for elderly people set up by Mother Teresa when she visited and a hospice for those who are dying. The huts of holy men were carved into a cliff face that overlooks a river. And into that river, the Bagmati, the ashes of the dead are poured. I was particularly struck by this because rituals for the dead are carried out in the open, in contrast to our own customs. The dead are brought and purified by the stream's water by the relatives and then put onto one of the many pyres by the stream and burned. In contrast, there is a terrace that overlooks the whole temple complex where people come to ... well, just hang out. Ruben, my young guide, told me it was a favourite hangout for guys to come with their girlfriends. Admittedly the scene was peaceful from up there. And in the meantime, you can observe worshippers clustering around the main temple, bells ringing to send prayers up to heaven. I suppose that all these activities in one place really do make up the circle of life.
A wall painting of the god Shiva at Pastupatinath.
Last of all, as the scorching sun gave way to the late afternoon haze, we went up out of the city to the hilltop stupa, Swayambhunath. A stupa is on object of worship originating from the Tibetan Buddhists. It's a large, white dome said to contain the remains of buddhas past. There were some tourists here but also a large number of Nepalese people, young and old, tourists themselves, families, all taking in the cleaner air above the city and relaxing, young monks from the nearby monastery playing football in a courtyard.
The atmosphere was like that of a lazy Sunday afternoon in the park - with a touch of festivity from the colourful prayer flags festooned everywhere. I love these flags - there's something so joyful about them fluttering in the breeze and sending the prayers written on them up to the gods' ears. All around the base of the great stupa are prayer wheels - you must turn them with your right hand clockwise and move around the stupa clockwise because that way you may chance to meet the god who travels anti-clockwise.
People began looking up at the top of the stupa, to the golden tower above the three staring, all-seeing eyes. Normally I try not to take photos of myself when I'm travelling but made an exception on this occasion because of the view. When I looked up I saw that a couple of girls were pointing and giggling at something behind me. Sure enough, there was a brute of a monkey perched on the wall, stuffing his maw with something. When I looked up past the tittering girls I saw a group of men had scaled the tower and one if them was hurling pancakes at the whooping crowd below who scrambled to grab them. One lady caught one and offered a piece to me - I asked her what was going on and she just said 'it's a festival'. [UPDATE] According to my city tour guide, this is 'prashad' - a chance to receive some of the food offering that's being made to the god].
So yes - the weather in Kathmandu this afternoon was hazy with a chance of pancakes.
[UPDATE] I also found myself in the right place at the right time the following day in Durbar Square. This was the scene.
One moment I was heading back to my hotel after a long, restful afternoon spent with a coffee and a book at the edge of the square. The next moment I walked headlong into an enormous mass of bodies, surging towards a giant, coniferous tree that dipped and swayed alarmingly as it was pulled along in a wooden cart. You can just about see that there are people perched on the tree that looked to me like Christmas decorations though they were clinging on for dear life. The tree was accompanied by a procession of drummers and my heart began to match the hammering, although I didn't know what was happening. The air was fizzing as the crowd, as one, strained to get closer - men, women children, motorbikes, bicycles, taxis - it seemed as thought the whole of Kathmandu was there. There were several hairy moments when I was sure the tree would topple as it turned a corner and then it reached an impasse as it tried to get from the square into a smaller side street but somehow they got through once the crowd realised they couldn't progress unless they moved. Then when the tree was gone, business as usual took another twenty minutes to resume as cars, bicycles mopeds and people competed with each other to move in the limited space.
I had witnessed part of the week-long Newari chariot festival celebrating the rain god Machhendranath, which falls at the end of the Newari calendar year, not long before the monsoon sets in.