Pashupatinath Temple

Second to McGee and Me, I watched Indiana Jones movies more than anything else up til the age of 10. I was always jealous of the situations he was in and fascinated by the exotic nature of the places he visited. In one cultural observation, I found myself at a place near Kathmandu called Pahupatinath Temple. It is easily over 1500 years old and could be as much 3000 years old. The stairs are massive and made of huge stones that have now taken a uniquely smooth surface from the erosion over time. Many miniature stone temples line the stairs and river that runs through, and the increasing density of trees as you ascend the stairs and ubiquity of monkeys make this a very exotic place for a western boy to find himself. And so much so, that I was imagining myself to be in an Indian Jones setting, minus the action.

Otherwise, visiting here makes you feel like you are going way back in time. They have done very well to preserve the appearance and traditions of this place, and knowing that what they do here has been going on for centuries makes this a very exciting place to visit. You see, this temple is a popular site for cremations and funerals in Hinduism. At sunrise and sunset of every day, a funeral ceremony is performed. On one side of the river, three priests (probably priests in training) perform a dance in unison. They are dressed in red cloth with a white sashe around the waist with either red or blue trim. The dance is very simple so it may just be considered a routine. They repeat the same motions in the four cardinal directions with an ornament in their right hand, and then switch to another ornament at the end of each cycle. The different ornaments included incense sticks, incense bowls, a firy Christmas tree shaped display of candles, another heavy candle holder, marigold, peacock feathers, and a long white tail thing. This was done the whole time with a heavy bell in the left hand. It lasted for about an hour, and wax from the candles would often drip into their hair. Their were not but five tourists there, and the rest for their for the funeral of a loved one. There were times for everybody to clap their hands and sing, and some people would even dance. I don't have any pictures of this, out of respect for their customs.

Meanwhile, the body has already been prepared and wrapped in a yellow cloth with red prayers on it and is being burned on a funeral pyre across the river. The cremations go on all day, and the ashes are brushed into the river. Some boys liked to swim against the current during the days of the monsoon season. I don't know why they didn't think it was too dirty to do.

The temple belongs to Lord Shiva, one of the three main deities in Hinduism. He is known as the destroyer and transformer, so I think you wouold want to appease him in hopes of being given a good life in your next reincarnation. He resides on the top of the belly button of the world, otherwise known as beautiful Mount Kailash in Tibet. It was his birthday when I visited, so I got to see a procession into the part of his temple where his bull resides.

There was also this picture of a guy with the title Milk Baba below it. My first thought was, "Sweet, I wanna make this my facebook picture." I looked it up when I got home, and it turns out the Milk Baba is a Hindu guy who has being living off of nothing but milk for the past 25 years with most of the milk coming from one of the nearby cows. He lives in one of the mini stone temples here and has received enough donations to travel the world. Apparently, for some people, milk has all the essential stuff (carbs and proteins) for living.

Stairs, looking through cremation smoke over Pashupathinath, and river shot with cremations

River through Pashupatinath with cremation fires, Monkeys, and the Milk Baba

One of Shiva's temples, Shiva bull (obviously not female), and procession for Shiva's birthday

Nepali Shave

There are many little haircut/clean shave shops in Nepal. Haircuts were either done with or without electric trimmers depending on whether the haircutting manchee (man) had electricity or not. The latter was usually the case, for which the cost would only be 20 cents. But, when dealing with tourists, they just say pay as you please knowing that they would always get more. Getting a clean shave was pretty much the same deal, but it was always done without electricity. The shaving cream always came from a tube, and the razor was always just a razorblade on the end of a metal flipstick.

I was in the mood for a shave, and walking through Pokhara one night, I saw this boy in the clean shave shop, and I thought it would be adventurous to get a shave from a Nepali boy who isn't even old enough to need a shave, so I walked on in. The electricity was out in this part of the city at the time, so we had to light up some candles. I sat down. He threw towel with cartoon characters around my neck, splashed some water on my face, and vigorously rubbed my cheeks to get all those get-ready-for-your-shave skin molecules ready for a clean shave. He got out his magic brush and basted my face with that shaving cream in a tube. He pulled out a pack of fresh razorblades and slapped one on his flipstick.

He began. I asked his name, which I forget now, and then asked him how old he was. He said, "Fourteen," with a huge grin across his face. I said, "Sweet." We talked and joked. The shave came out very nice with him even taking great care to get those little white hairs close to the lips. He wiped a little alcohol bar on my face, and then he offered a massage. He started with my eyelids, worked his way down my shoulders to my hands, and then he did my back. I paid him about $1.50, and the next day I saw him bragging to his friends about how much he got from that foreigner over there. I didn't do the best job in the world of discouraging child labour, but I sure got a nice shave out of it.

Back in Black

I've returned home to the motherland so to speak. Every time someone asks me how my trip was, I can never think of any better way to state it than, "wonderful." It really was wonderful. I've created friendships that will probably last a lifetime. I've had experiences that I never even dreamed of. My eyes have been opened again to a whole new way of looking at the world, and though this new perspective is hard to describe, it is and will be until it is added on to by another new experience.

Some of the best changes I've had are because of the simple-minded life I lived over there. Daily duties are dedicated towards survival, and it's not necessarily an issue related to worrying about if you will have enough food and water or a place to sleep. Rather, it's simply that you dedicate your daily efforts towards sustaining yourself, your family, and your livestock. You have to gather vegetables for each meal, get a fire going, cook your daal bhat (veggies and rice), walk your buffalo, cut grass for your buffalo, milk your buffalo, harvest rice and millet, and of course, make your tea. Anyways, I think you get the idea. It was a lot of physical strain, but not a lot of mental strain... just the opposite of most Americans.

Perhaps my new simple-minded approach to things will make for some fun blogposts later on, but in the meantime, I want to dedicate more entries to my experiences over there from adventure to cultural insight to various little stories. I may not be able to captivate you the way Alexandre Dumas did Parisians, but I'll give it a shot.