Kathmandu

Walking the streets of Kathmandu after our adventurous arrival felt like heaven: fresh bakery products, real coffee, ATMs on all corners, hemp, not to mention the zillion beautiful small shops offering local products and tibi csoki!!!! You can immense yourself endlessly in the crowd, just scrolling the streets, discovering the overwhelming beauties of the city, shopping, enjoying the various culinary delights from basically all around the World. Though we are experimenting all kinds of local goodies wherever we travel, we always forget to mention them, so here the must try is the daal bhaat tarkari (lentil soup, rice, with curried vegetables and spinach) and the Tibetan kitchen with its' momo, noodle soup and tea (with butter and salt).

We nested in a hotel in Thamel, THE tourist quarter, which is loud of live rock and blues in the evenings (I guess it is the cultural heritage of the hippies hitting on the city in the 60's), from where we started our discoveries. One of the first and most amusing one is that in Kathmandu Valley there are three parallel times existing; if you open The Himalayan Times, the daily paper, you will find out that it is 2064 according to the Nelapi calendar, at the same time 1127 for the local Newars, and the rest of the World is living in its' illusionary year 2008.

Here comes the next surprise: this is the first country or contemporary culture I personally came across with, where they worship a living God, to be precise a Goddess. Kumari Devi lives in a wonderful palace (see the picture on the left) on Durbar Square, which is the architectural wonder of the Newar people's culture, who used to reign the Valley till the 17th century, now they represent 6% of the population with about 1 million representatives. Kumari Devi is a girl between 4 and a 10 plus, who is considered to be the reincarnation of Vishnu and her selection is a similar ritual to the selection of the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama. She goes every now and then on strike like in 2005, but she is still to be seen on religious festivals a couple of times per year. Unfortunately we did not have the luck to see her, only on postcards.

I do not know what is wrong with most of the religions over here, but women are treated very awkwardly; just to mention one aspect, you are not allowed to enter the temple when you have your period (just like in the Russian Orthodox Church and in Hinduism), and poor Kumari Devi is also considered "unclean" after her first menstruation, when she falls from the throne of gods and shall continue her life as a mortal, ordinary human being. To make it worse it is considered unlucky to marry a former Goddess!

We took long walks to discover the UNESCO Wold Heritage site Durbar square and lose our way among the architectural treasures of the 17th century Newar culture, also to the non-touristic quarters south from Durbar square, where we could see the contrast between the real life of locals and the staged tourist district of Thamel. The photo on the right illustrates well the water supply situation and the dependence on springs, which also serves as major laundry spots for local women. There are several Buddhist an Hindu sites in the close nearby of the city, one of them is Swayambhunath stupa, or Monkey Temple for easier pronunciation for tourists, which is one of the most ancient Buddhist shrines in Kathmandu. The view is splendid from this hill-top, and the sweaty climb is made entertaining if you have something to offer to the louring monkeys, just be careful, they can get quite aggressive.

I shot hundreds of photos and I feel I could still not capture the city, which is to a great extent because of the various faces of the local people. However well equipped the city is (for tourists) you cannot forget the conditions we saw on the way to the capital; tanks scroll the streets, there are armed police and soldiers everywhere, long ques for petrol due to the country-wide shortage and pre-announced hours long black-outs in the mornings and evenings. Amazingly locals take it cheerfully; you hear no complaints nor accusation.