Last Day in Nepal

Since today is our last day in Nepal we are trying to fit in as much as possible.

We wake up early, eat breakfast and hail a taxi for the Pashupatinath temple. Regular check out time is noon, however Kiran has manged to extend that to 2:00pm so we have a few more hours to wander about.

The cost of the taxi is 400 rupees (we were told that we could probably barter this down to about 300 but we are so damn tired of haggling over prices that we accept that rate without comment).

The temple that we are going to is a Hindu temple that is considered to be one of the holiest Hindu temples in Nepal. It is situated on the Bagmati river which is also considered sacred.

There is a tourist fee of 500 rupees per person to enter the area and when we get there, we can see that there are already a few bus loads of tourists who have already arrived. I'm stressing the fact that this is a tourist destination because this temple is also well known for the public cremation ceremonies which were well under way when we arrived.

The place is incredible. You just don't know where to look when you arrive. It has a mixture of religious ceremony and almost carnival attmosphere. There are rows of vendor stalls hawking the regular tourist stuff and multiple guide "want-to-be's" wondering around asking the tourists for 100 rupees in exchange for guide service. You also have some amazing, old temples and stupas complete with holy men, dressed for drama and willing to take your cash for photos. There are beggars—both very young and very old, young children jumping into the river along side monkeys who are also jumping into the river. The river itself is DISGUSTING...polluted with trash, clothing, flowers, plastic wrappings and prayer scarves from the dead bodies, burnt wood, and we're guessing, human remains. Some people are wading through this mess, scavenging something but we couldn't tell what. There were also people washing their faces and shampooing their hair in the filthy water. Cows were also scattered about, strolling through the water. Add to this scene, groups of mourning (wailing) families, about 10 burning bodies on piers overlooking the river and you have a vague picture of what the scene was like. The smell was pretty bad as well.

We spend about 2 hours wandering around, trying to make sense of what we were experiencing. It seems very strange to us to be able to photograph the cremations and funeral groups in very personal moments when, as Westerners, this is something that is not typically done. These funerals are very public.

We decide to head back to the hotel for some last minute shopping and to rearrange our luggage contents to make sure we have distributred the weight evenly. We always seem to need one more suitcase whenever we are heading home from these long trips.

Now the wait starts for the trip home.