Swayambhunath temple
Today I went up early. Was out on the streets at around seven in the morning. It almost felt weird as the streets where so empty and the stores hadn’t opened yet. Calmness on the streets and just some few motorcycles were driving around. I had planned to visit the Swayambhunath temple, or “Monkey temple” as it is also called, so I walked to it. I walked up to the top along the eastern stairway, and it’s a really steep stairway in the end. Not a problem walking up, but walking down was a bit different. I didn’t want to trip and fall, because it was a long way down.
The temple area, which is located on the top of a steep hill, is filled with smaller temples to different gods everywhere, and many prayer wheels, that people spinn while walking around the temples in a clockwise direction. The prayer wheels around the central stupa have the writing of “om mani padme hum”, which translated to English means “hail to the jewel of the lotus”. And if you wonder about the monkeys? Yes, there are monkeys up there, but I haven’t downloaded those photos to the computer, so I won’t post any of those here.
Up there at the top I looked out over the city and could see how bad the air is. I couldn’t see the mountains on the other side of the city because of all the pollution. And then it still was early in the morning. Probably the bad air condition is also connected with the city’s location in a valley, so the air isn’t circulating the best.
After the visit to the temple I walked back to the city centre and ate breakfast at a nice place. Scrambled eggs and toast with bacon. So far I haven’t been bad at all of the food. I almost thought I was going to get “yalla” (as we called it while in the army), but no. I eat like a horse and my stomach feels just as back in Sweden. So no problem with that yet.
A small nap around lunch hours, and then I walked over to the NTB. NTB stands for Nepal Tourism Board, and is the governments office which works with tourism questions. I hadn’t really prepared the interviews, but I just wanted to ask them about how they are working with the “Nepal Tourism Year 2011”-campaign they just launched, and on how they work with questions like sustainability and tourism. Got some good facts and statistics, and some contacts, so I will contact them later for more questions. Feels good that I do something for the thesis while here in Kathmandu.
Tomorrow I’ll leave early in the morning for Pokhara. The bus departs at 7.30, and I have to be there at seven. And then I have a seven hour long bus trip a head of me with some great views over the Himalayas I’ve been told. Don’t know when I have internet next time, but you will notice when I update here next time.
CH, Nice to see that you are alright in Nepal. I am stranded in Beijing because a vast cloud of ashes covers northern Europe so my flight to Copenhagen this afternoon is cancelled, because the aircraft cannot land (maybe the aircraft is stranded in COP?). Anyway, walking around in a Beijing Hutong (old city with one-storey houses) is quite nice. There is a sharp difference between public and private space because properties are encircled by brick walls plastered grey with only one gate. My street was laid out in 12xx and is now in a process of being gentrified. A lot of smart shops and cafés around here. The food is normally delicious. People are very friendly and some even understand English. But Chinese is the no 1 language that makes up this nation, and the strong characters painted on gates are magic to watch.
Dear Gunnar. I can see the same thing here about the private and public spaces. I’ll try to upload some photos of that here later on.
Regarding the food here in Pokhara I only eat traditional Nepali food, which is all vegeterian. It tastes really good, but I feel like a bit of a fool when I eat with a spoon and all others around me eat with there right hand. Perhaps I’ll adapt to that local habit as well.