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Climb for Kid’s Sake Day 4: What a day in Kathmandu!

The plan today was to recover from jet lag by enjoying a relaxing tour of Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal and its largest city with about 700,000 people. Hah! Relax!  The boycotts involving no transportation and closed business continued today and tension is building between local people and the government parties.  We made our way along the narrow winding roads, staying off of the main streets to avoid the roadblocks put up because of the vehicle ban.  After only about ten minutes, we hit a very large protest and a bunch of protesters came running toward our van, some of them shouting and waving large sticks. The driver was told to roll down his window and was told to turn our van around and shut it off.  When our driver didn’t comply right away, a youth reached in  reached inside and pulled the keys out of the ignition!  Tension was building:  both Leila (our trek guide) and our daily tour guide were quite distraught.  Finally and older protestor came over, yelled something at the group and told them to give us back our keys.  They did and we were able to drive away.  Whew!

Thanks to  my trusty Nikon, I got some incredible shots of the demonstration including pictures of one of the boys running towards us with his stick in the air, riot police, ambulances wailing past, UN vehicles and a Helicopter over head!  Leila thinks that I might have a new profession:  journalism!! I agree! What a rush!  This photo of the protesters is courtesy of CNN.com.  Check out their story Thousands of Maoists rally in Kathmandu.

The rest of the day we toured a number of temples and monasteries.  Needless to say, we made sure we avoided the main roads this time, so we ended up driving in the gutters and the alleys!  The stench and garbage were beyond words.  But once we were at the prayer temples we were delighted!  We enjoyed amazing shrines, hand-carved masks, paintings, and the people.  There’s a lot of history here and we got lost in the unbelievable carved wood doors, window sashes, and statues!! So many and so OLD! (Did you know Kathmandu’s history dates back over 2000 years?!)

We also made our way to another holy of holies where we saw saints:  actual Holy Men and Holy women! One man was 83 yrs old and has been a saint for 27 years. He has been growing his hair ever since; when he stood up his hair almost touched the ground!

Here, when people die, they are brought to the river.  After a small funeral service they are stripped of their clothes, wrapped in a sheet then laid on a marble slab 3 feet above the sidewalk, enabling people to walk around it and sprinkle the body with spices or perfumes.  Next, straw is piled on top of the body and firewood is stacked on top of the straw, all to the beat of drums.   Finally, their clothes and a sprinkling of flowers are thrown into the river then a fire is lit and the body cremated.  How do I remember all this detail?  We witnessed it in its entirety!  It was a bit disturbing but also a mind opener!  Check out this YouTube video of similar funeral pyre in Nepal.

I’m back at my lovely hotel now, ready for a shower and some dinner.  It’ll be an early night for me.  I’ll be up at 4:00 AM tomorrow to catch my exciting flight to Lukla.  Check out this video of The Tenzing-Hillary Airport (one of the busiest and most dangerous airports in the world!) :  The 500 m runway ends in a 700 m drop and three planes use it to land or take off in three minutes!  Assuming I make it, I’ll definitely blog about THAT tomorrow! Lol!!

Thanks to everyone following this blog.  And remember, the whole reason I’m in Nepal is to raise money and support for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Lethbridge!  If you’re able to support this worthy, local organization by donating money or volunteering, please click on the blue to become a sponsor button to the left or visit the Big Brothers Big Sisters of Lethbridge website.  Please pass it on…!