Divali: The Festival of Lights

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Day 72- Location: Kathmandu, Nepal

13/11/12

It was the third day of Tihar, called Divali (or Diwali), the Hindu festival of lights. I wanted to go around in the evening to see the lights and so I had the day free. I wandered up to Thamel. It was still super-busy in town and I walked some of the backstreets on the way, coming across food stalls selling sweets and cakes for the festival, and many people selling mallas (marigold garlands). In Thamel I went around the shops asking about prices of sleeping bags, jackets and other bits and bobs I’d need for another trek. Now that winter was coming it was going to be very cold up in the Everest region where I was interested in going. Prices wildly varied and in some cases I knew you could get half of what they were originally offering. I also popped into the courier agency I’d used to send my passport application and they confirmed it had arrived in Hong Kong. Good.

A weird walking guy. These iPod t-shirts are really popular here and Facebook ones too.

A guy with a really weird walk. These iPod shirts are really popular here and so are Facebook ones.

 

Busy festival market

Busy festival market

 

Festival mallas

Festival mallas

 

Tihar food for the brothers and sisters day

Tihar food for the brothers and sisters day

Today there were groups of kids going around from shop to shop with drums or tambourine shakers chanting out a repeating song. They would stand in the doorway of the shop making all this noise until the owner brought out some small money to give to them. I saw this throughout the day with loads of groups. It’s kind of their version of our Halloween trick or treat (though no tricks!) and with so many shops in the area they must leave with a good haul!

Children's band

Children’s band

I had a tasty English breakfast bun in a restaurant and continued my hunt, asking about tours and trekking in travel agencies. I found a camera shop which was the first I’d found in Nepal to offer sensor cleaning as a service. I had two spots on my sensor which I couldn’t remove with my blower and so every photo had two dark marks in them. The guy knew what he was talking about and said they could also look at my broken big lens and my broken waterproof camera. I decided to come back later to get everything fixed.

Thamel

Thamel

 

Street butchers. Nice jaw bones.

Street butchers. Nice jaw bones.

 

Some dogs get walked just like home. They are always posh breeds. I was told they often escape and breed with the street dogs to make the funny hybrids you see around!

Some dogs get walked just like home. They are always posh breeds. I was told they often escape and breed with the street dogs to make the funny hybrids you see around!

I walked to the KEEP office that I’d been to before with Camille, to get some more information on treks. Unfortunately it was closed for the festival. On the way I saw a man decorating the ground in front of a hotel entrance with coloured powder. Behind it, leading into the hotel grounds was a trail of orange paint with little red footprints. I asked what it was for and they told me it’s for Laxmi, the goddess of wealth. Further through the day I’d see people doing the same outside many other homes and businesses with designs of varying intricacy.

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I walked back to Freak Street. On the way I bought a hoody, the nights were getting way too cold now for the few layers I owned. I had a nap at the hotel and around 4pm went to the tempo stop near the bus station.

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I caught a tempo going to Bodnath stupa, which I’d visited about a week ago but in the daytime. As today was the festival of lights I was hoping the place would be lit up and I knew the locals did their rounds there in the early evening. Half an hour later I arrived and entered to find the place packed. There were crowds of people walking around the stupa, way more I’d seen the last time I came. There were a lot of Tibetans and some groups of women were singing. A line of beggars were along one section and people would stop to give each one money. The sound of drums, cymbals and horns wafted down from the monastery windows. The sun was already setting and I only got a few golden light photos before the shadow came – I should have come half an hour earlier.

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The line of beggars

The line of beggars

 

Making the daily prayers

Making the daily prayers

 

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Another Laxmi line being constructed leading into the business.

Another Laxmi line being constructed leading into the business.

After a few rounds of the stupa I was hungry and climbed up to a rooftop restaurant in the circle of buildings. The view was good, the stupa in full view and the sky slipping into twilight, temple tops, roofs and the hills in the distance silhouetted against the orangey blue. As I tucked into the tastiest pizza I’d had in my travels (it was only a veggy one too!) I soaked in the atmosphere as loud, alien sounding horns boomed out with the sound of chanting and drums waving over the site.

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It was dark now and I did some more stupa circuits. Outside the shops butter lamps had been lit around the ornate designs painted on the ground in front of each one. Other lamps sat in hollows along the stupa wall. I passed a monk who was sat meditating despite the bustle and hustle passing him.

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Inside a doorway in the stupa wall was a small area where inlaid statues were lit by lamps. I had my tripod and took photos of them, a young kid was watching with interest. I called him over so he could see the camera screen, and let him push the remote trigger to take photos, which he loved.

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Outside I walked by tables full of lit butter lamps for sale, and one small shrine was covered in them, a monk lighting and placing them on steps around it.

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I caught a taxi to Thamel and we drove by buildings wreathed in coloured electric lights. It looked like Christmas. So many buildings had rows of lamps and the Laxmi paint designs on the floors. It was really nice.  In Thamel I dropped my camera off to get the sensor cleaned, and then walked back to Freak St. The lamps sitting along the narrow old streets on the way made for a charming scene, it felt like I’d entered a fairytale book. I popped into the local bar to use the wi-fi and then went to bed.

Budhanilkantha

During Tihar dogs are blessed by the locals and some get tikkas and garlands.

During Tihar dogs are blessed by the locals and some get tikkas and garlands.

Day 71 – Location: Budhanilkantha; Nepal

12/11/12

After a late breakfast I considered my options. As the Hindu Tihar festival was starting I didn’t want to leave Kathmandu completely, but the options for sights to visit in the area were becoming limited. I decided to check out Budhanilkantha, a holy site near to the city where there’s a big reclining statue of Narayan, the creator.

National holiday = an even busier city

National holiday = an even busier city

I walked to the bus station through the chaos of the streets, it was a national holiday for Tihar and the place was heaving (even compared to usual!). Along one of the main shopping streets were endless vendors selling coloured paints for tikkas, marigold garlands, pictures of the gods, nut parcels, cakes and so on. At the bus park I asked around in vain for a bus to Budhanilkantha, eventually bring directed out the station to the bus stops on the main road. I walked up and down asking people and mini-bus conductors where to go. Finally someone got me to the right bus stop and I had to interrogate each bus that stopped to see if they were going there. As bus signs are in Nepali and there are no bus numbers it’s the only way to check. I was about to give up when finally someone said yes, and I got in for a 40 minute ride through Kathmandu traffic to the outskirts town of Budhanilkantha, passing the garish and well-guarded presidential palace on the way.

Tikka dye sellers lined the streets.

Tikka dye sellers lined the streets.

 

One of the main roads for catching buses

One of the main roads for catching buses

Around the small temple the streets were lined with shops selling snacks and holy offerings,  and stalls for the festival. Inside the temple complex the main attraction was a fenced low pool in which lay the big black stone statue of Narayan (the creator of the universe in Hindu legend), who was lying on his back and wreathed in marigold garlands. Covering the statue was a red cloth roof. Only Hindus could descend the steps to make offerings to the statue and I watched people doing their prayers there.

The reclining Narayan statue

The reclining Narayan statue

 

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In the courtyard alongside a lot of burning was going on. Stone plinths were covered in incense sticks and flowers and people were walking around sticking big clumps of incense sticks into them. Next to the plinths were four raised pots arranged in a square, which were filled with burning ash. People were going around each pot stoking them with a dowel in some kind of ritual.

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In a corner I found a man reading prayers from a book, with a group of women putting petals and plant parts into a pile as he incanted a long prayer and added his own petals to the pile.

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A kid here insisted I take a photo of him, and a girl practiced her English, asking me where I was from.

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On the other side of the pool were some small temple buildings. At one of them a family were getting a bollocking from an old Baba (holy man), because they’d taken their shoes off one step too far up towards the temple. He was shouting at them and kicked their shoes off the step in a rage! It was quite funny and the girls of the family ran off laughing as their mum got an earful.

Another ritual

Another ritual

 

Holy offering stalls outside the temple

Holy offering stalls outside the temple

I noticed a boy monk with a shaved head and “rat’s tail” as we call it doing some ritual with pouring bowls of water into the pool. With my little exploration finished I caught a mini bus back, inside a guy in his twenties chatted to me. He works in a call center servicing IT companies in the UK and the States, and was happy to meet a British person in the flesh instead of on the other end of the phone. They get paid well as the foreign companies stump up a standard rate for services, which converted to Nepali Rupees means big bucks. He said after the festival I should get in touch and he’d come with me to anywhere I wanted in the valley, and also invited me to an upcoming fashion show his company was attending in Kathmandu. Another example of fine Nepali hospitality!

Back in Kathmandu I walked back to Freak Street where my hotel was and popped out to Kurami’s for lunch. After lunch it started to rain heavily, with thunder and lightning. It was the first rain I’d seen since trekking in Nepal! I was trapped inside. I got chatting to a Nepali man who owns a trekking company in Thamel and had some useful advice about the Tihar festival and ideas for treks, I repaid him with advice about websites and expanded his knowledge of our culture.

After an hour the rain subsided a bit so I jogged back to the hotel and napped for a few hours. I woke up at 7pm and spent the evening actually managing to update the photo blog in the bar nearby. Back at the hotel I got chatting to my neighbour, an aging German guy who has been coming for years. I’d seen him in shops around Freak Street chatting to the locals and drinking tea. He says some days it takes him all morning to work his way along the street as his friends keep inviting him in! Try as I might, that night I couldn’t get to sleep, and I gave up and watched some TV episodes on my computer.

Dhulikhel

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Day 70 – Location: Kathmandu; Nepal.

11/11/12

First order of the day was to head to the travel clinic for a rabies booster injection. I walked through the Durbar Square and north amongst the little streets. Today they were looking even better than usual, with coloured metallic ribbons strung between the buildings, and the place was buzzing with people. It seemed today was a big market day and the squares and streets were packed with fruit and vegetable sellers, colourful produce stacked everywhere. There were lots of flowers and tikka powder sellers too, presumably there to sell wares for the upcoming Tihar festival. The area was a riot of colour and noise, it was pretty fantastic to walk through.

After half an hour I reached the clinic and received a quick and painless injection. I then contacted Ashman, the waiter from my hotel restaurant, as he had the day off and had suggested taking me to see Dhulikhel, a nice town south of Kathmandu. We met back at the hotel and walked to the bus station where we took a big, comfy local bus. I learned a bit more about Ashman on the hour-long journey. He was 22, had been working at the hotel for 6 months and was from a village a few hours from Kathmandu. He lived with his uncle in the city, who also worked at a hotel. He was from a Buddhist family and returned to see them about 4 times a year, giving money to his parents who can’t get work in their village.

Drying rice at the temple in Dhulikel

Drying rice at the temple in Dhulikhel

We passed through the suburbs of Bhaktapur and went further out into the countryside passing through a big, dusty place called Banepa. We passed a huge standing, bronze-coloured statue on a hillside complete with trident, visible from miles away, and soon climbed up a hill into the town of Dhulikhel. It wasn’t anything remarkable to look at initially, but the views were already nice over the terraced hills below. It was a really hazy day and you couldn’t see far.

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We walked uphill into the maze of old backstreets which were reminiscent of Kirtipur where I’d been yesterday. It was really nice, and the streets only had the occasional motorbike puttering past. Everywhere the strong sun was falling, women had rice out on mats to dry, and were raking and filtering it. We came to some nice little temples in a square and went down some alleys, coming out at a school where they were having a sports tournament. It looked a bit like the handball I’d seen in Thailand, with a volleyball net, but with a ball the size of a tennis ball, which the boys were keeping off the ground using their feet.

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Ashman asked an old lady for directions and we climbed up some steps to a tiered temple on the hilltop. We had a good view in all directions and could see for miles. All around the temple, rice was laid out in swirling patterns where it had been raked. Ashman chatted to a woman up there as I took photos.

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We could see a really big golden Buddah statue rising out of the forest on a hillside some distance away, and he asked her about it. We decided we’d head there after lunch, walked back to the main road and ducked into a little local restaurant where we ate some tasty chow mein and tried some Choyla, a local snack – fried buffalo pieces covered in chili sauce – and Sandeko – fried meat with onions – which was much nicer. Ashman insisted on paying, saying I was his guest, despite my protests!

Choyla

Sandeko

I needed the loo and he warned me they weren’t good at this place. I didn’t really care, I’ve seen some nasty toilets on my travels. He led me around the back and there was a little shack. The squatter inside was standard but the stench was overwhelming, I’m not going to rose-coat this;  a massive stinking poo was just sitting right there in the flat bit, mocking me. There was no water in the bucket to wash it away and no tap. I held my breath, did my business and got out as fast as I could, choking a bit and laughed with Ashman when he saw my face. He *had* warned me!

We set off to find the big Buddah and climb to the viewpoint above it. We followed a road through the town, past a football field where the kids were playing with full team kits.

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The road led to an ornate gateway where a long flight of stone steps led up the hill into the woods. It was a steep climb and hard work. We walked for about half an hour passing little shrines along the way, and schoolkids running down, part of a school trip. We reached the Buddah sooner than I expected and walked around it. It offered good views of the valleys around us. It was really peaceful here too, we could only hear the birds and the breeze. Ashman chatted to an old man who maintained the site, who told him that it was 5 years old and built by the people of the Newari caste.

Ashman

Ashman

A few minutes further up the steps we reached the hill’s summit, where a small army camp surrounds the temple. Nepal still has camps like this as the political situation is volatile and the people in charge fear a return to civil war. Razor wire was pulled back to allow access up the steps to the temple, and guard posts with armed soldiers were dotted around the perimeter. They even had trenches dug here. I wondered if there’d been fighting here during the Maoist insurgency.

On lookout

On lookout

We soon saw why it was such a good spot for the army – the views up here were awesome, offering a 360 degree view of the hills and valleys stretching into the distance. The temple was only small and just a small hut-like building, with an ugly concrete viewing tower alongside. We climbed up and admired the views for a while. You could see Dhulikhel stretching out below and Banepa, the big town we’d driven through in the distance. It was quiet up here, a nice place – it’s known for its sunsets and sunrises, but unfortunately it was cloudy and hazy and we could only see a glimpse of the Himalayas through the clouds.

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We descended the long flight of steps quickly and walked in the lowering sun back to the bus park, where we caught a bus back to Kathmandu. The views on the way back were nice with the setting sun, passing harvested rice fields and towns. It was a great sunset with the sun a big glowing orange dipping behind the clouds, casting golden light on the surroundings. The bus conductors are often young and one of them on this bus must have only been about 8 years old – clearly his education was being sacrificed for work. He was just as loud and energetic as his colleagues though. Bus conductors in Nepal have a chaotic job, they yell out the destinations as the bus cruises past bus stops, they hop off and take money, load people onto the bus and usually have to run and grab the rails as the bus speeds off – slapping the side or whistling if it’s taking off without them. I wonder how often buses leave their conductors behind in the dust by accident?

From the bus back to Kathmandu

From the bus back to Kathmandu

We hit major traffic entering Kathmandu in rush hour and the trip took an hour longer in this direction. We hopped off at Ratna park and walked through the post-work crowds back to the hotel. Ashman asked if he could use my shower as he doesn’t have one at home (that sucks) and it was the least I could do. I chilled out down in the restaurant, and he emerged happy from a hot shower, a treat for him. I spent the rest of the evening chilling out in a bar across the street with low tables and a decent wi-fi connection, actually managing to almost do a full photo blog post, and bought a bunch of Kindle books online which were downloaded onto it in minutes. Very handy!