Nepal. Kathmandu.

Nepal is a country that has interested me for many years and last month I spent a couple of weeks exploring just a small part of it. We travelled with a small company called https://himalayanadventuretreks.com/ and can thoroughly recommend them.

Here are some of my photos from its capital, Kathmandu.

Our first excursion was to Swayambunath, AKA Monkey Temple which is an Unesco World Heritage Site and home to many monkeys.

My first sighting of the famous prayer flags.

I always look for small details to photograph.

I was looking forward to seeing prayer wheels too. Each wheel is decorated with a mantra, written in a clockwise direction which is the movement of the sun across the sky. There are also rolls of prayers and scriptures inside the wheel.  They are spun in order to quickly accumulate wisdom and merit (good karma) and to purify negativities (bad karma). Worshipers believe that they also have the power to bless, and bring freedom from demons/obstacles, anti-Buddhists, vow-breakers, 80,000 ghosts, 360 evil spirits, and 18 untimely deaths.  I was so busy trying to get some good photographs I didn’t think to spin one, so I’ll have to deal with the ghosts and evil spirits when I encounter them!

In a temple complex this small group were engrossed in a ritual of some kind and they completely ignored cameras being pointed at them.

We noticed that many Nepalese women wear the colour red, and were were told that it’s because it’s considered an auspicious colour in Hindu culture, signifying celebration, good luck, and marriage.

I think the display below must be powder paint or possibly dyes.

We also visited one of the most sacred Hindu temples of Nepal – Pashupatinath Temple. Every year this temple attracts hundreds of elderly followers of Hinduism.  They arrive here to find shelter for the last several weeks of their lives, to die there, be cremated on the banks of the river and travel their last journey with the waters of the sacred river Bagmati, which later meets the holy river Ganges.  An open air cremation was taking place but we chose not to enter the complex, instead just seeing the mound of a body and smoke from outside.

There are Sadhu here (Holy Men), who will pose for photos provided they are paid, though our guide told me that they are fakes (frauds dressing up for the tourists to get money for the photos).  In the photos below they were unaware of my camera, and I prefer unposed images anyway.

The man below is dressed as the monkey god.

In the Kathmandu Valley there are three Durbar (Royal Palace) Squares that are UNESCO World Heritage Sites.  The buildings are ancient, fascinating and beautiful with incredible craftmanship in the wooden carvings.

In one of the heritage sights we had quite an incredible encounter with so many school pupils it seemed as if it must have been the whole school. They filed past us, girls on one side of us and boys the other, and were full of smiles and “Namaste” greetings.  We loved what they were advocating.

We walked through an area where there are a few pottery makers and stopped to watch the process.  The photos below show how a pot is started, right through to the finished product.

They are then laid out to dry in the sun.

Finally (in this Kathmandu post,) we visited a Stupa that was built sometime after AD 600. A Stupa is a Buddhist structure that is typically spherical and mound-like and is considered an important form of Buddhist architecture. 

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