Travelogue: Kathmandu
Meeting a friend of a friend, Shraada, today. She’s invited me to dinner and to stay in her home. Her voice sounds strangely familiar though we've never met.
Things to do before she arrives:
-postcards for cousins
-sell back useless travel guide
-bangles ($500!)
-bus ticket to Varanasi(RS1300)
* * *
My ass got handed to me. I've been given 300RS for two brand new books! And I've paid 600RS for a BATTERED lonely planet guide. It's as though I'm paying THEM for the extra room I'm getting in my own backpack. Bastards…. (I’m losing all common financial sense).
* * *
We climbed to the top of Swayambu Temple to the largest pair of Buddha eyes I may ever see. These Nepalis climb like friggin yaks as I’m stopping every five minutes to catch my breath. In all fairness, I was carrying that blasted bookbag. Its there that I begin the charade of being Indian. Shraada lets me in on the secret of lowered entrance prices for locals and I gladly accept my role as a mute and smiling Indian-American. My reward is a gleaming bottle of Fanta soda served by bored monks in a small snack shop. I suspect they'd rather be riding their motorcycles...
The last stop is Pashupatinath. At this point, my brain had about all the cultural appreciation it could handle. Luckily, Shraada was hell-bent on showing me more than tourist areas I’d been confined to and so she brought me to Shiva. The god who cut off his own son’s head and replaced it with one from an elephant. There isn’t a hell of a lot of common sense in Hindu mythology, but plenty of mystery.
She tells me not to speak, not to make eye contact, and to remove my shoes. I hand my tattered flip flops to the attendant and step, barefoot, into the corridor of Shiva’s temple. Red. Everywhere I look there is red. The red stone that makes up the yoni and phallus that we stroke as we pass through each shrine, the red from the saris of married women, and red from the sindoor powder that ultimately makes its way to my own forehead. There is fire and the smell of live flesh, dirty flesh, burning flesh. And the marigold petals stick to everything. It is difficult not to find peace here despite the chaos of color and emotion. Its hard not to feel like the current of the river that this temple overlooks and pause briefly only to keep moving on our way, touching everything and then leaving it be.
Things to do before she arrives:
-postcards for cousins
-sell back useless travel guide
-bangles ($500!)
-bus ticket to Varanasi(RS1300)
* * *
My ass got handed to me. I've been given 300RS for two brand new books! And I've paid 600RS for a BATTERED lonely planet guide. It's as though I'm paying THEM for the extra room I'm getting in my own backpack. Bastards…. (I’m losing all common financial sense).
* * *
We climbed to the top of Swayambu Temple to the largest pair of Buddha eyes I may ever see. These Nepalis climb like friggin yaks as I’m stopping every five minutes to catch my breath. In all fairness, I was carrying that blasted bookbag. Its there that I begin the charade of being Indian. Shraada lets me in on the secret of lowered entrance prices for locals and I gladly accept my role as a mute and smiling Indian-American. My reward is a gleaming bottle of Fanta soda served by bored monks in a small snack shop. I suspect they'd rather be riding their motorcycles...
The last stop is Pashupatinath. At this point, my brain had about all the cultural appreciation it could handle. Luckily, Shraada was hell-bent on showing me more than tourist areas I’d been confined to and so she brought me to Shiva. The god who cut off his own son’s head and replaced it with one from an elephant. There isn’t a hell of a lot of common sense in Hindu mythology, but plenty of mystery.
She tells me not to speak, not to make eye contact, and to remove my shoes. I hand my tattered flip flops to the attendant and step, barefoot, into the corridor of Shiva’s temple. Red. Everywhere I look there is red. The red stone that makes up the yoni and phallus that we stroke as we pass through each shrine, the red from the saris of married women, and red from the sindoor powder that ultimately makes its way to my own forehead. There is fire and the smell of live flesh, dirty flesh, burning flesh. And the marigold petals stick to everything. It is difficult not to find peace here despite the chaos of color and emotion. Its hard not to feel like the current of the river that this temple overlooks and pause briefly only to keep moving on our way, touching everything and then leaving it be.
Comments