Patan & Bakhtapur

 In Kathmandu valley, the Newari people settled three important cities : Patan, Bakhtapur and, obviously, Kathmandu. Nowadays Patan has been entirely swallowed by the violent growth of Kathmandu, but the old city stays still. Bakhtapur is the most preserved. Despite the tourists, the city is really stucked in the past. More even than the rest of Nepal.

Sur le lac

Pokhara. Après l'effort, le réconfort. Une semaine de repos après la rando. Au programme : méditation, bière belge et promenade en barque. Quelques photos de notre journée sur le lac...

9 days of daal bhat

Day 1

10 hours ride by local bus. Our bags on its roof. A Nepali woman sitting in front of us opens a window and spits. Sometimes she puts her baby out through the window to pick louse out of its hair. The old and crowded bus is going up the mountains and the view around us is magnificent. It feels like we are in a documentary while the radio plays traditionnal dohori. As we drive close to the edge I think to myself - maybe one has to be buddhist to take this road with a peaceful mind. If we fall...

 

Day 2

We have arrived in Langtang National Park and can start our trek. A rocky path leads us through the autumn coloured forest, through green bushes of hemp, along cold and fast mountain river. Donkeys carrying heavy bags full of mineral water, beer and snickers for tourist lodges slow us down as we have to walk behind them for some time.

 

Day 3

As a child I used to imagine that a cloud could come inside the house. It would then fill up all the rooms and something maybe terrible, but definately mysterious would happen. It might be a weird fantasy for a Latvian flat land's child, but here in Langtang base camp it actually seems possible. A small cloud floats through the yard, passing by our window.

Day 4

The higher we get the more familiar plants I see. Smiltsērkšķi, mežrozītes, dadži and pelašķi as well as few others I can't name enclose our path leading to Kanjin Gompa. From there we will climb up to the peak, 4'300 metres high, covered only by rare snow and praying flags.

 

Day 5

Climbing down.  At the evening we meet a group of eighteen French. They are travelling with their rosé wine, huge piece of tomme de montagne and they believe that all the world should speak French. As usual, Nicolas pretends to be Latvian.

Day 6

Last and the most exhausting day of trekking. Our guide knows what to do and we stop at some hemp plants growing on our way. Rolling his palms on the plants he gathers the black, sticky oil and we have a 100% fresh and ecological smoke that cheers us up for the rest of the trek.

Day 7

A day spent mostly in a jeep. This time 90s hits are played out loud. Make some noise for Vengaboys! Did I say already that Nepal feels like stuck in time? At the evening we arrive at a small market place near the road where we spend a night in the most miserable and dirty room we have ever had here or anywhere else. Nicolas tries to cheer me up calling it "experiencing the real rural Nepal".

 

Day 8

A day of rafting. We share our raft with four old Indian men. After peace there are always troubles coming, one of them says, as we are slowly floating in silent river towards rapids.

Day 9

Chitwan National Park. We have changed the dirty shed of yesterday's night for a fancy jungle lodge. Today we explore the Terai in different ways - on dugout canoe, on feet and on elephants back.

 

 

Kathmandu

I.N.D.I.A. - I'll Never Do It Again. This is how Nepalese people speak about India. And we kind of understand why. Nepal is less dirty, less noisy, less agressive than India. People are usually very friendly and helpful. We arrived few days ago but we already like this small country better. We feel great to be here! No doubt we will be back in India sooner or later, this country is amazing and we still have much to see there. And about Nepal, well our visa is for one month but we can also make it longer.

While in India your religion, your sex, your caste, your ethnicity determine all your identity and place in society, it seems that here (but perhaps we're totally mistaking...) it matters less and that all those things "melt" somehow all together. In religion, for instance, it really does melt. Nepalese people are religious too, but they balance hinduism with a good dose of buddhism and some elements of folk traditions. If you ask a Nepalese person : "Are you hindu or buddhist?", he will probably answers "yes".

On our first day we went to visit two very holy places : Pashupati temple, one of the most important hindu place in Nepal, and Bouddha Stūpa, the biggest buddhist stūpa in Nepal. Pashupatinath was very impressive and really left a mark on us. We have seen many religious places since we started the trip, but here we felt really inside it. At first we arrived in front of a dark pagoda of burned wood and red paint where a goat had just been freshly decapitated for sacrifice. In this pagoda was the altar of the goddess Kali, personification of violence. The paintings and sculpture were quite morbid, including one dancing skeletton with penis. Statues of smiling cows surrounding it made the place even more surrealistic. Some other pagodas, here and there, and in between the monkeys and the Sadhus, with their colorful and cheerful faces. But the most interesting and shocking for us happened at the ghats. Pashupatinath is a place where Hindus come to incinerate their dead relatives. The cremation is public. The body is brought on a pile of wood from where it is set on fire. People are crying. The fire is lasting. This is how we saw the life of the people from the inside, when the intimate becomes public. Then we walked to the massive and beautiful stūpa, with Buddha's big blue eyes looking in every direction from each of its four sides.

The following day we spent in the heart of Kathmandu. After a long walk (we got lost), we crossed the touristic streets of Thamel before to reach Durbar square. Durbar square is an amazing place of pagodas, stūpas and other beautiful buildings in quite random dispostition. The pagodas are really wonderful. First you see their incredible silhouette, but more you get closer to the wooden details and more beautiful they are. In one of those bulding lives also the living goddess Kumari. She is, in fact, a little girl believed to be the reincarnation of the goddess Taleju. She is chosen at a young age and is raised as a goddess until her first menstruation when she goes outside for the very first time. That's actually a little creepy. She is a hindu goddess, but somehow chosen by a buddhist clan, in a very similar way they choose the Lama. Another very Nepalese mix of religions.

In Kathmandu we live with a Nepalese family. They are all very kind and friendly, and do everything to make us feel at home. Hem, the father, helped us to organize our two next weeks in Nepal. We will go trekking in Himalaya, rafting, riding elephant, before to reach Pokhara. Today we met our guide for the trekking, he seems very nice. A lot of adventure to come!

Of Monkeys and Men

After one night in the very religious Haridwar, we are in Rishikesh. Rishikesh is a city on the banks of Ganga, where the Himalaya begins. The district of Lakshman Jhula, around the suspended bridge over the river, is a very pleasant place despite the regular invasions of hippies and monkeys. We spent almost a week here, during which we had some very long walks, we visited temple, we rested.

We were in Rishikesh for Diwali, the celebration of lights. This is a hindu celebration, to enlight the path of Rama returning from exile. And in the facts it is mostly about launching fireworks all the time during 5 days. Every shop sells their selection of fireworks and other explosive stuffs and people make them explode a bit everywhere in the streets.

During first weeks here, we got to hear religious music from all the variety of religion India offers : sufi qawwalis at Hazrat Nizam ud-Din in Delhi, sikh music in the Golden temple of Amritsar, tibetan buddhist chants in McLeod Ganj, hindu mantras at Har-ki-pairi in Haridwar... It was a very nice change to listen to music as a concert. It has been a long time we didn't attend to any cultural events (since we left Latvia...). The musicians were talented. Indian music is really intriguing. At first you feel like you follow the rythm, until you realize you were totally wrong. They start on 15/16, then add or take off one quaver, they suddenly go faster, etc. The most impressive were the improvisations and how they could follow each others.

Also one morning in Rishikesh we woke up at the music of something that first sounded like a kind of bagpipe, but wasn't. We went out of our room and down from our balcony an old beardy skiny man was playing in front of a basket where a cobra was raising its head out.

In Rishikesh we got close to the "common fauna of India". Beside holy cows, stray dogs, boars in garbage, we also saw one peacock climbing up the bushes. And too many monkeys. Monkeys everywhere. On roads, on bridges, on roofs, in trees...  On the first day we arrived, we met one on the terrasse of a café. After some minutes of observing people and posing for their cameras, the monkey jumped on our neighbour's table to steal a hanfull of pasta!

But now we are leaving India. Destination : Kathmandu.

Out of India

Or almost. McLeod Ganj is clean, quiet, small, bouddhist, tibetan, sells alcohol... and still in India! Here the Dalai-Lama is living, as well as tibetan government in exile. We also found a place to live, with tibetan monks! 

 

Three sentences, three times the word tibetan : it seems here everything is about Tibet. Well, yes it is. Tibetan food, tibetan music, tibetan schools, pro-Tibet NGO... Since China invaded Tibet, India offered tibetan government to exist in McLeod Ganj. Many Tibetans followed and settled in this city as well as in different others in India. But McLeod Ganj stands as a center of tibetan culture in India, with many events involving tibetan issues. During our stay here I went to give english conversation classes to tibetan refugees. It was like discussions around very open questions. I only had to speak a little bit and they were sharing so much about themselves.

And the mountain is the right place for resting after the cities. The road was harsh but the view was worth it. Much less crazy cars up there too. At night, only dogs were barking. And also a kind of cat, but bigger and creepier...

We didn't do much here. Mostly resting (and recovering from indian stomachache...). And we had walk in the nature. We reached a couple of other villages that way :

- Dharamkot, a village of israeli hippies. We had a great breakfast, with hummus and vegetables here, in a psychedelic café. Near the synagogue someone asked us "Are you jewish?" But walked away when he got the answer... Is "no" a rude word in hebrew?

- Nadi, very small countryside indian place. Not much to see beside the amazing view from up there, but very typical.

And in-between : the mountain, the buddhist flags, the monks, the monkeys, the cows, a school... Here are some pictures of our walk!

 

Seeking for the Sikhs

Laikam kāda piektā diena Indijā. Jūk dienas, datumi, tie vairs nav svarīgi. Svarīgi ir, kurā pilsētā atrodamies šodien un uz kuru dosimies rīt. Esam Punjab štata svētajā pilsētā Amritsar, nakšņojam sikhu templī. Pēc Deli kņadas un netīrības tās ir patīkamas pārmaiņas - cilvēki šeit ir viesmīlīgi, draudzīgi un runā ar mums aiz tīras intereses, ne lai izkrāptu naudu. Traucē vienīgi vīriešu nekaunīgie skatieni un izsaucieni uz ielām. Zelta templī beidzot sajūtos kā tajā "īstajā"  Indijā, par kuru sapņo un uz kuru sirdsmieru meklēt brauc nogurusī Eiropas jaunatne. Sikhi ir mierīgi, skaisti, templis ir bagāts un tīrs, skan mūzika, cilvēki lūdzas un dala prasādu. Pozitīvas emocijas virmo gaisā.

Cette fois nous nous sommes perdus pour de bon ! Nous nous étions levés de bonne heure, sans raison, et étions partis déambuler dans les bazars d'Amritsar. Mais après plusieurs heures de marche étourdissante dans les ruelles étroites : impossible de retrouver le chemin du temple ! Les commerçants qui vendent de tout, les touk-touks qui nous font signe, les écoliers en uniformes, les odeurs d'épices et de sueur, le bruit des mobilettes nous font perdre notre orientation. Une seule solution : cherchez les Sikhs ! Plus nous sommes proche du temple, plus la communauté Sikh est présente. Sur leurs motos les hommes sikhs ont des allures de ZZ Top en turban.

Au milieu du bazar des bazars se trouve le Temple d'Or, centre spirituel des Sikhs. C'est là que nous logeons. Les pèlerins sont accueillis dans le temple. On y dort gratuitement, mais il est possible de faire une donation. L'hospitalité est l'une des valeurs les plus chères aux Sikhs. Après Delhi, Amritsar est vraiment reposant. Les passants qui entamment la conversation avec nous ne sont plus des rabatteurs en quête de touristes à escroquer, mais des gens curieux et polis qui veulent bavarder un peu avec des étrangers. Un peu trop polis parfois. Et le Temple d'Or est simplement magnifique et appaisant. Au milieu d'un large bassin il semble flotter comme un bateau doré. Toute la journée les hypnotisants chants Sikhs résonnent dans les allées marbrées où se pressent les fidèles.

 

In the bazaar

 

 

Hippie garbage truck

 

 

Sikh man taking holy bath