Budhanilkantha

Posted on April 3, 2013 by Alan Stock

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Streets of Kathmandu

Posted on February 17, 2013 by Alan Stock

Day 63 – Location: Chitwan > Kathmandu; Nepal

02/11/13

Me and Reznas had a leisurely breakfast and were given a lift to the bus park, where we got on a tourist bus. It was the poshest one I’d seen in Nepal with padded seats and full size windows you could actually get a view from. The journey took about 8 hours with a lunch stop. It’s supposed to take about 5. Once we got on the road to Kathmandu I saw what I’d missed on the previous journeys along here, some impressive views of the big, rocky, turquoise river alongside the road, surrounded by steep forested hills. Occasionally you’d see big rubber rafts with tourists paddling along, or stopped at the side for a break. I’ll have to try it someday. On one rocky beach trucks had pulled into the water and men were loading stones into them, presumably for building.

Another interesting sight I’d missed before was the occasional set of steel cables passing over the ravines – usually with a metal basket attached. They are used to transport goods and people above the river as there are few bridges. In one place I saw a woman and kid getting winched along in a tiny basket. It didn’t look very safe, but I guess they make a similar trip daily.

A few hours from Kathmandu we hit a mighty traffic jam. With only a 2-lane road packed with trucks and buses, whenever something goes wrong it becomes a nightmare. A truck was broken down and a policeman was ushering traffic past. You could see the traffic jam backed up all the way up the hill winding up the zig zags. Eventually we reached Kathmandu and I said goodbye to Reznas, who was leaving for India the next day.

Traffic nightmare

We got into Thamel around 5pm and I went to a hotel called Silver Home which was ranked number 8 on trip advisor, and I’d booked online the night before. In typical Nepali fashion though, when I arrived they didn’t have any rooms as no one had checked out. What’s the point in having a booking system if it doesn’t work? Even if you are already staying in the hotel and you ask if you can stay the next day, they tell you that you need to check after 12pm in case they have any bookings – so the two systems are at complete odds with each other! After a while in Asia you get used to this kind of unpredictability and you just shrug and find anywhere with a bed. Anyway, they still had beds in their dormitory (one of only three in Kathmandu), so I thought why not give it a try, it’s cheap after all.

The dorm was at the very top of the building and had a wee terrace outside. It was the first dorm I’ve stayed in since my travels. The attached bathroom was a bit grotty but the bedroom was clean and I took a bed in an adjacent room with a door so I could get some quiet at night. I’m a light sleeper so dorms aren’t a good idea for me with all the noise. There were only a few beds taken and out on the terrace I met a nice French girl who was also travelling alone. She was off trekking tomorrow. We went out for dinner at a local restaurant and had quite an early night, meeting the other dorm residents when we came in. Only one guy wasn’t leaving the next day, who was a weird middle aged French chap.

Day 62 – Location: Kathmandu; Nepal

03/11/12

I didn’t sleep too badly in my little side room and I got up early. I wanted to have a photo day and get more pictures of life around Kathmandu. The view from the balcony was nice, but up on the rooftop I found what must have been a dog or goat skin drying on a solar panel. That’s Nepal for you.

Local artist doing t-shirt designs

I grabbed breakfast at a local joint and then started a walking tour North of the Durbar Square which was in the Lonely Planet. It led me to a few places I hadn’t been and I explored other side streets. It was nice to get some info from the book about the little temples and places I’d seen before. It was. nice to have as much time as I wanted to take photos. In one of the nice temple squares a boy was racing around on a bike scaring all the pidgeons which was great for pictures.

I tried to take more pictures of shops and people this time and asked plenty of shopkeepers and locals for permission to photograph them. Nearly everyone agrees, Nepal is a friendly place for photographers.

Tailors shops in Kathmandu are very colourful

Traditional Nepali hats

The one guy I was disappointed in not getting a photo of was a sergeant at the Durbar square who looked impressive with his uniform, hat and gun holster. I even took a photo of a “holy man” for a tip, which I normally avoid – they’re basically beggars, the real holy men don’t go around asking people for photos and money.

A holy man/beggar

The tooth shrine – when you lose a tooth a coin is nailed to this shrine

Here the kids sometimes ask you to take photos of them. They love to see the results on the screen!

One of the many little courtyards I explored

From the Durbar square I took the south walking tour from the book taking in lots of little temples and nice old streets. I deviated to check out a local sight, Bimsen Tower, a tall, lighthouse-like building which you could pay to go up. It had over 200 steps to go up a narrow spiral staircase, and at the top was a very narrow ring walkway with a wire fence offering views over Kathmandu. It was packed up there, with barely room to squeeze past the people at the fence, but the view was pretty nice. At the very top was a little shrine. The tower had been rebuilt at a lower height following the big earthquake in the 1930’s.

Don’t look down!

View from the top of the tower – you can see the Monkey Temple on the hill

I sauntered back to the hotel and spent some time in the communal garden which a few of the hotels share, using the wi-fi. I got a phone call from a British guy called Oli. I’d sent him my contact details on a trekking forum as he’d said he was in Kathmandu with free time, looking to hang out, which I was too. I went to meet him at a cool bar called Sams. The place had plants and the walls were covered in writing. Oli is in his late 30s or early 40s, lives in Wales and is a Nepal veteran, having visited for extended trips 8 times already. He works online and saves all his holidays to come to Nepal. He was a top chap and a wealth of knowledge and stories on Nepal. He’d been there during the revolution, he’d seen how the place has changed over the past 8 years, and he’s done most of the treks, some of them two or three times! Every time he comes back he has somewhere new to visit or activity to do. Also joining us was a Croatian guy who Oli had met trekking. He had done one of the lake treks up by Everest solo and had a great time. Him and Oli said it’s better than the Everest Base Camp trek as it’s quieter for tourists and you still get a great view of Everest from there, plus the beauty of the lakes. I’ll have to look into it.

Oli drinking Tungba (warm millet beer)

We hung out for a few hours at the bar and then the Croatian guy left. We went to a Tibetan restaurant I’d visited before, which was Oli’s favourite eatery in Thamel. We drank warm millet beer (Tungba), and I tried Tendtuk, which is flat noodle Tibetan soup. It was great. We chatted away till late and I thanked Oli for the company. He even paid for the meal, top bloke. By the time I got into the dorm everyone was asleep and the place was nearly full.

Kathmandu street gallery – click a photo to see the gallery

: Brass sellers street

: A rickshaw

: Jewellery stall

: Another close encounter with street dogs

: Dried fish – stinky

: The open air butchers are a doggies dream

: Durbar Square

: The cows in the Durbar square often get blessings from the locals

Manakamana and Gorkha

Posted on February 7, 2013 by Alan Stock

The view back towards Besisahar from the bus.

Day 57 – Location: Besisahar, Gorkha; Nepal.

26/10/12

Today me and Anja were off to do some travelling whilst she was still on holiday. We got up early for the bus but Rezham didn’t appear, he was going to flag down the correct bus for us. Anja woke him up and we got a later one. I bid goodbye to my generous hosts, and photographed some kids who were playing outside.

Rezham’s House

The local bus pulled up and we went on the roof, something Anja had wanted to do for a while. The roofs have a metal rack with a rail around them, and we shared it with some bags. I wedged myself beside some bags looking out to the side. A stop down and an old man joined us up there. At the next stop another man climbed up, but in typical Nepali fashion the bus barely stopped moving and the guy hilariously was left straddling over the old man, holding his arms out in superman fashion grabbing onto the railings to avoid falling off! The poor guys had to endure this for a while until we stopped. Me and Anja were laughing our heads off!

The views atop the bus were nice – we could see down the green, forested river valley. We passed lots of bursting full buses with people crammed on the roof. I started to need a pee, not the best time to need one.

Only about an hour to go though, it should be ok, I thought. We hit a traffic jam where a bus had broken down and got trapped for a while. I thought I could hop off to go and pee but the bus kept moving and I couldn’t risk being left behind.

Now that’s a narrow clearance!

We reached the main road and by now I was in real pain. We thought it was only around half an hour to our destination, it took over an hour and I could barely hold it in, shifting around in discomfort! Never again! The views down the valley were nice and we were alongside a big river, the Seti. We passed a power station which like most important installations was protected by armed guards (obviously still edgy from the civil war).

As we wound our way down the valley we finally saw the cable car of Manakamana (Or as I usually call it Manakamamamaananananana as it’s impossible to get right). It goes up to an important temple with good views. We got off the bus and I whipped off my money belt (a decision I’d live to regret!) and ran off to pee in the bushes. As we walked down to the cable car past a huge traffic jam we saw the queue was huge, mostly Indian and Nepali visitors. It would have taken about 2 hours of waiting in the midday sun and we decided it wasn’t worth it as it would be so busy up there anyway. We grabbed some lunch and hopped on a local bus to Abu Khareni, back the way we’d come, so we could get to Gorkha, our next destination.

Manakamana cable car on the right

This bus was totally rammed but they wouldn’t let us on the roof. I’ve never seen so many people on a bus! We were sandwiched with about 20 other people standing in the front section, as about 5 people hung out the doorway. You really couldn’t move an inch and whenever you thought no-one else could possibly fit in, they somehow managed to cram another few people on board, often leaving others on the side of the road because they couldn’t fit. A Nepali teacher chatted to us on the way and explained normally you can get a seat on these buses but because of the festival it was crazy. We changed bus to a jeep where it was so full that we had to stand on the platform over the edge of the road, we had to hold on tight but it was exciting!

Hanging on the back of the jeep

We transferred buses at Abu Khareni to reach Gorkha up in the hills, a parallel valley to Besisahar where I’d stayed with Anja. We were lucky and found a bus before anyone else got on so got a seat. Unfortunately the views were limited from the low windows. We passed rammed buses and loads of people waiting on the side of the road as we climbed the forested valley, catching glimpses of a good view of Gorkha sprawled out along a high ridge. Most of Gorkha was closed due to the festival. We wandered around the cobbled streets into the old town up the hill looking for a guest house, with charming old buildings, finding a hotel where the woman didn’t speak English and didn’t seem to understand basic sign language for sleeping either. She vanished and didn’t return! Very odd! We went down the hill and found another hotel where the staff actually did work…

It was already about 4pm so we climbed up to Gorkhas main attraction, the old palace on the top of the ridge. This involved over 1500 steep stone steps past little houses and locals, offering great views of the layered hills below.

The palace ticket office was already closed so we strolled in to admire the ancient tiled buildings. The ground was stained with blood and scattered with feathers from today’s sacrifices. On the other side of the ridge we could see out to the Himalayas which were very nice, and a helpful guard pointed out their names. We watched a lovely sunset as the valleys became layered in shades of darkness, and descended.

The Himalayas viewed from the temple.

A real baba (holy man)

The baba gives a tikka to a family

As I was unpacking, I suddenly realised my money belt was missing from my bag. The last time I’d seen it was before we started taking buses after Manakamana. Inside it was my passport, unused memory cards, some bank cards, medical documents and about 300 pounds in cash – which I’d only taken out a few days ago to last me for the rest of Nepal (as the withdrawal fees are very expensive). I was really annoyed, I’d forgotten to put it back on after rushing to pee, and someone must have stolen it on one of the packed buses where we were stuck like sardines unable to keep an eye on our stuff all the time! I was really annoyed, I’m usually so careful with my money bely, and knew it would be expensive and a hassle to sort out the passport – and the cash was enough to last a few weeks. The good news was that my credit card had fallen out when it had been lifted, so I still had my main source of money intact. In the next few days I sorted out the practicalities that I could, like cancelling the cards, and tried to put it out of my mind and not let it spoil my time with Anja.

When we went for dinner at the hotel, to Anja’s horror we discovered they were only serving Dahl Baht due to a lack of staff because of the festival. As it’s all she’s eaten for 3 weeks she was desperate for something else! We tried to find another restaurant but everything was closed, except one small hotel which again said only Dahl Baht! Anja pleaded with them for anything else and they said they could do French fries, which she happily tucked into. We headed home for bed.

Alan Stock Photography

My travelling (mis)adventures. It's ok to cry.

Tag Archives: Baba