It was a combination of tuk-tuk and microbus that took my host Laxmi and I to my first tourist sites in Kathmandu. Based on recommendations from her and others at SASANE, we started early in the morning for Pashupatinath temple, a huge Hindu temple complex. While the Buddhist stupas of Kathmandu tend to be the most well known sites to foreigners, Hinduism is actually the primary religion of Nepal with about 80% of its population, followed by Buddhism with about 9%.  Upon arrival we climbed up a series of steep steps to look down over the temple complex and the river it sits upon. There was a large crowd of people down below, and Laxmi informed me that it was a funeral with a cremation about to take place. It’s a very different attitude towards death than our own, one that seems much more comfortable with the dead. The body was wrapped in colorful cloth and lying on a stretcher, no coffin to separate it from the mourners. This stretcher was then carried across the temple grounds to a pyre that was set up on the riverbank. On this platform of logs, the body was set, and then lit on fire. Thus you breath in the smoke of the cremation since it’s happening in front of you, an act that would be considered far too uncomfortable to ever occur back in the U.S.

Pashupatinath temple

Right before a cremation occurred on those pyres. Don’t drink the water!

After watching this occur from afar, I noticed two buffalo traveling up the temple steps and I was far too intrigued to not follow it (can’t cows go up stairs but not down them? How would they ever get down again!) As I traveled up, I was surrounded by monkeys and their babies, hooting and cackling and occasionally leaping towards me so that I had to tense myself in anticipation for a fight. But luckily these Rhesus Macaques stuck to their troops, and generally busied themselves with group grooming or intimidation displays between males. As cute as the giant-eyed babies were, watching a stocky male bark and charge another across the path was enough to make me keep my guard.

I followed an ox up some temple stairs and it led me here

Making friends

The monkeys all over the temple were cute and intimidating.

From there we traveled to a Buddhist site; the famous Boudhanath stupa, maintained by the influx of Tibetan refugees into Nepal. Upon entering, Laxmi told me to keep the prayer wheels spinning for so that we could accumulate good karma, and we kept them spinning as we walked around the stupa in a clockwise fashion (you’re never supposed to go counter-clockwise or else it’s bad luck).  It was beautiful and bright as the light reflected off of the white stupa, and I couldn’t help but be entranced by the fluttering prayer flags rising to the stupa’s peak. However my belly started grumbling for dinner so I happily went home (home? I’m not sure what you call places you stay at so briefly) and enjoyed some Dhal Baat- the rice and lentil soup dish served for most meals here.

Prayer wheels at Boudhanath stupa

Boudhanath stupa

Boudhanath stupa

At Boudhanath stupa