I went into Kathmandu to visit with a long time family friend Mingma Nuru Sherpa. He runs Ang Rita Treks & Expeditions. He was my father's local contact and guide when he first came to Nepal to go trekking. He's been a friend ever since. Mingma is helping me get things organized for my trek to the Everest region, which I'm set to start in a little over a week.
I walked around Kathmandu for a while, stopping in at a stupa I randomly saw on a side street. Turns out it was quite impressive.
It was surrounded by many small Buddha shrines.
And of course prayer wheels
It was quite the little community. I sat down and had some tea with a young boy on vacation from university who was working in his father's thanka shop. Everyone was avoiding the heat, some shopkeepers grabbed some ice cream to cool off.
Some kids playing chess (I think white was winning that one)
I wandered up to Thamel (the "tourist ghetto"). Lo and behold, more chess. It was a pretty hot, lazy day - tourists stayed inside, shopkeepers set up tarps and sheets to provide some shade.
I was having dinner with Mingma the next day so I decided to wander to the far side of Thamel to find a place to crash for the night. I found the Tibet Peace Guesthouse. It seemed low key and it was reasonably cheap. After relaxing for a few minutes, I decided to wander to Swayambhunath (the monkey temple from earlier). I got there right around dark and wandered around the outer grounds. I finally wandered up to the top to take some photos and see Kathmandu from above at night.
I was pleasantly surprised to find out that it was a Buddhist celebration. So I made rounds around the stupa, spinning the prayer wheels all to the rhythmic chants of crowds of Buddhists. I seemed to be the only tourist there, but I didn't seem unwelcome. It was dark, but the stupa was lit up by small butter lamps, certainly a peaceful way to spend the evening.
After a relaxing hour or so I made my way down the 365 steps to the bottom of the east entrance and as I look up I see the lights turn up, illuminating the stupa like I had never seen. Great time to walk back up, no time like the present to train for my trek.
Oh man was it worth it. The stupa was so gorgeous. It was surreal to watch scores of traditionally dressed Buddhist meander around the stupa, offering prayers in one corner, chanting mantras in another.
As I got ready to make my way back to the hotel and have a bite to eat it started raining. Raining hard. So I took refuge under an awning on the side of the stupa to wait it out. I was joined by a young man in a saffron colored t-shirt and a shaven head. He introduced himself a Tenzing, a monk at the monastery adjoining the stupa. He wanted to practice English and I wanted someone to talk to - a match made in... heaven. We chatted for a while and in a break in the rain we went to his room in the monastery to have some coffee. He still had to do his nightly mantras while walking around the stupa and didn't really want to get wet doing it. It was a great experience to see the life of a monk. Not so much different as you might think - he added me on facebook that night from his cell phone. After the rain stopped, we went back out and he started on his rounds of the stupa. I saw a few Buddhist police officers making their rounds as well.
The next morning I went to breakfast at pretty much the first good looking joint I saw on the street. As I waited for my eggs and toast, a dreadlocked man from Belgium joined me at my table. We talked for a while and a friend of his from the UK (they met yesterday) joined us for breakfast as well. After a quick snack, we all decided to walk to the "Garden of Dreams". I didn't know much about it, but it sounded nice and relaxing. We wandered through the tiger balm salesman and rickshaw drivers of Thamel and stepped into what was probably the most relaxing place in the least relaxing part of the city.
There were little ponds, gardens, inexplicable statues of Greek gods and goddesses, and little elephant statues.
If I were Nepali and wanted to take a girl on a date, this would surely be the place.
For my evening, Mingma's son picked me up in Thamel and I spent the evening at his house, drinking beer, eating spicy food, and reading my new (to me) book (Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything). Mingma's house was quite impressive with Buddhist decorations everywhere inside and prayer flags flapping outside.
The next morning we learned there was a bandh (a transit strike), so much for my bus back to Dhulikhel. Luckily it wasn't a full bandh and there were a few busses running. Since there were so few busses running (none in Kathmandu itself, only ones going out to villages were allowed to run), seats were rare. Luckily I was able to score a rare seat since I got on the bus at the first stop.
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