I woke up at 6. MJ had made it back to the room but neither of us could remember how she got in.
It's still raining in Pokhara. We each had the option to drive through the mountains for a 7 hour bus ride or take a 20 minute flight to Kathmandu for $100. I get driving anxiety and it had been pouring rain all night. Mudslides are an issue when driving through the mountains so I choose to take the flight.
Breakfast was at the hotel. I had pancakes, pasta and potatoes, a chocolate muffin, and some bread thing.
I also had them make me scrambled eggs that were amazing. I filled up on food.
We got on the bus at 7:45 to go to the airport. 7 of the 11 of us were taking the flight. We were flying with Yeti Airlines.
We had to wait around a while before they let us through security. Security is a strong word to use. They let my full bottle of water through and the guard by the metal detector was on his phone and didn't care that each and every one of us was setting off the alarm. Then we had to go behind closed curtains to get a pat down. Ladies always get lady officers, dudes get dudes.
We boarded the tiniest airplane at nearly 9.
I sat right next to the propeller. The bumps on my hands have gotten worse, they're spreading further up my pointer fingers. Someone last night said they might be a heat rash.
We took off shortly after. Each of us had a window seat. The plane only holds 3 seats per row, 1 on one side and 2 on the other. I sat in the 1 so I didn't have anyone next to me.
We flew over some of the himalayas but the clouds were too thick to see much.
Then we landed at 9:30. It was less than a 30 minute flight. We had to take a van to another section of the airport where we met our tour guide for the day, Rajan. He took us to another van and we drove around Kathmandu.
Kathmandu is much bigger than I thought. The roads are crap with billions of potholes and too many people. A lot of the people are wearing those surgical masks but the pollution isn't bad here. I see blue skies. It's a very nice day, probably the nicest we've had this whole trip. I could wear my hair in a braid instead of off my neck.
While driving we passed by a group of people carrying a dead body. It was wrapped in an orange cloth so we couldn't see anything but they were carrying it to the river to wash.
Our first stop was at the Great Buddha Stupa!
It was a hub of activity. Surrounding the temple are tons and tons of shops and cafes. It was fun to walk around.
We went inside a buddhist monastery next door. There's this giant wheel thing you have to walk clockwise around 3 times. I think it's a prayer wheel.
Then we went into an area where monks were reading scriptures. No pictures allowed. I didn't like this. The monks, over a dozen of them, were sitting across from each other and sounded like they were at an auction. And I saw their iphones charging off to the side.
We left to walk around the buddhist temple thing. You can't go inside, but it's layered and you can walk around the first layer which is several feet above street level. It was pretty. I love the flags and all the color.
Rajan took us over to a place where thangka paintings are done. It sounded like quite the craftsmanship. First, nothing is freestyle. They have to follow certain designs from a book.
They take months to make. The experts have to use certain tools and we saw one of them working with a writing utensil that was sharper then a pencil.
They showed us some of the paintings that were for sale. The ones done by students are around $20, while that same design (because they only have so many designs to pick from) can be over $300 when done by a pro. And you can tell the difference. It's really quite impressive.
We left the Great Buddha Stupa around 11:15 and went back to the van. We were suppose to go to the monkey temple but our group was a little on the lethargic side. They said they were hangry but I think they were hungover from hookah partying last night. So we drove on to get lunch.
We passed by the funniest sign I've ever seen. It was for playing pool-
It reads "Hold the cue in your hand like a bird don't crush it to death, but also don't. Let is go. Game is 90% mental. The other half is physical." It had me dying! I don't know if it was the weird grammar or wrong fractions but I loved it.
Before we went to lunch we stopped by a G Adventures building to pay for our flight. It cost $100 and my card wouldn't work so MJ had to pay for mine. I feel like such a moocher.
We drove on. There were monkeys climbing the electric wires above the streets. We stopped by the Patan Museum to eat. It cost $10 dollars to get in which annoyed me (but that's because I didn't realize we were going to the museum after we ate, silly me).
The restaurant was in a quaint garden and very peaceful and lovely. Their menu had a lot of good food. Under salads it said you can pick your own greens with their gardeners assistance. I ordered fish and chips.
It was very good. I was so hungry and thought the portions too small. It cost 650 rupees, or $6.50.
We finished eating at 1:45 and went to the museum. They had a shit ton of information on gods. We were a little pressed for time so Rajan told us to take pictures so we could read about it later on the bus. That's something I already do so I can remember what to say on this blog.
It was a great museum, although it was set up weird. You had to walk through tiny doorwars into modest rooms, then more small doorways to the next room. But it was very informative for Westerners who don't have a good grasp on these crazy gods.
So I learned gods that have multiple heads and hands to express their complex personalities and multiple functions. I learned there's a reason gods have different standing positions and hand positions.
I use the word gods in place of deities a lot. That's probably not correct. I'm not sure what the difference is or if I learned it I wasn't paying attention.
The gods have modes of transportation that are animals. Ganesh the elephant uses a mouse/rat. Isn't that cute?! They had a statue of his rat ride. It wears a collar with bells and holds Ganesh's favorite candy.
I also learned why some pictures of Ganesh show him with a broken tusk. Apparently it was a self inflicted wound when he hurled part of his tusk at the moon for making fun of him for being fat.
Ganesh uses a mouse to get places, Vishnu uses the sunbird Garuda. Typically, Garuda is humanized except for his wings, feathers, and talons. He wears serpents for decoration.
They had rare ivory objects from the 15th to 16th century.
And a pair of ceremonial staffs. They had inscriptions on them that literally just said how much the staff cost. One tola and 96 tola. A tola is approx. 12 grams, 96 tola are over 1 kilogram. So I think it was one tola of silver and 96 tola of gold if that makes sense.
I learned about Hanu-Bhairava, which is two gods in one. Hanuman is a monkey lieutenant of Rama and Bhairava is a Tantric aspect of Shiva. The monkey one is more dominate so it has a monkey face and body, but it also has 4 more heads just for the hell of it so it's got a boar, tiger, Garuda, and a jackal. But the topmost is always a horse. It has 10 arms, keeping with the number of heads, and the hands are in wrathful positions. It's a rare image. There are very few depictions of this 2 god in 1. I think it's because it's such a clusterfuck no one really wants to touch it.
They had a display on the process it took to make a lot of the sculptures and figurines back in the day. More gods to look at. A silver sheathing of the Bagalamukhi shrine. The goddess Bagalamukhi is one of the Dasa Mahavidya, the ten great forms of knowledge and magic power. Bagalamukhi is the most powerful of the ten.
The Bagalamukhi is a temple in Nepal that is apparently a bottomless pit for blood sacrifices of male animals. I wonder why Abhi didn't take us there....
Then there was more stuff to look at-
It was a lot of info on gods to take in. I skimmed over a lot of it.
After we finished the museum, Rajan had us meet up and walk around the Patan Dubar Square. The architecture is very intricate and there were not many people inside the buildings.
We walked across the street and climbed to the roof of a building to get a better view of the Patar Dubar Square as a whole.
We left around 3.
We drove to the monkey temple after that. It's not actually called the monkey temple, that's just what tourists have named it because the place is home to over 1,000 monkeys. It's real name is Swayambhunath and I don't know how to pronounce that. It's another buddhist temple.
They had a large pond in the middle where people throw coins and try to get them in a bucket. Rajan gave us each 2 coins and I missed both times.
There are 365 steps to the top. It was easy to climb. There weren't that many monkeys and they kept their distance.
At the top of the temple we wandered around. There are many little giftshops and lots of stray dogs who looked like they had mange.
We met up with the rest of our group, the bus riders, then! They said their drive was fine but of course they would say that. We went to the hotel after that. On the drive, we had to pool our money together to tip people. We have to tip Abhi $40-$60 (which is something you do for tour guides with travel programs), our guide for the day Rajan 250 nepalese rupees, and then we decided to donate money to the school we visited (about $10 a piece) so they could buy chairs and desks. When all was said and done I hadn't a note to my name. My wallet is empty.
The hotel is very nice and the wifi is great. Tonight is our last night together as a group.
The last supper was at 7:30. I ordered an apple cider and a chicken burger with fries. While we wait for our food, people got up to say some words of goodbye. It was really sweet. Diane invited us all to Hawaii and was very genuine. We presented Abhi with his tip and the money for the school. He was really pleased with the school donation. Vanessa and Kelly shared what everyone has been calling "Abhi euphemisms" (they're not actually euphemisms, they're proverbs. I don't think most of our group knows what those words mean) which some of us have been collecting this whole trip. They were common proverbs that had his own twist or wording. Stuff like "It takes drops of water to make an ocean". Abhi said a few words too, about how he's grown to appreciate us all and how grateful he is.
Overall it was a sweet moment for everyone. Not bittersweet, just sweet. I am not sad. I'm really glad I got to meet all these people. Everyone of us is very brave and adventurous in my opinion for coming to India and Nepal.
Our food arrived and it was good-
We had an early night after that. I went to sleep around 10:30.
It's still raining in Pokhara. We each had the option to drive through the mountains for a 7 hour bus ride or take a 20 minute flight to Kathmandu for $100. I get driving anxiety and it had been pouring rain all night. Mudslides are an issue when driving through the mountains so I choose to take the flight.
Breakfast was at the hotel. I had pancakes, pasta and potatoes, a chocolate muffin, and some bread thing.
CARB CITY
I also had them make me scrambled eggs that were amazing. I filled up on food.
We got on the bus at 7:45 to go to the airport. 7 of the 11 of us were taking the flight. We were flying with Yeti Airlines.
We had to wait around a while before they let us through security. Security is a strong word to use. They let my full bottle of water through and the guard by the metal detector was on his phone and didn't care that each and every one of us was setting off the alarm. Then we had to go behind closed curtains to get a pat down. Ladies always get lady officers, dudes get dudes.
We boarded the tiniest airplane at nearly 9.
I sat right next to the propeller. The bumps on my hands have gotten worse, they're spreading further up my pointer fingers. Someone last night said they might be a heat rash.
PICTURED: Malaria
We took off shortly after. Each of us had a window seat. The plane only holds 3 seats per row, 1 on one side and 2 on the other. I sat in the 1 so I didn't have anyone next to me.
Goodbye Pokhara!
We flew over some of the himalayas but the clouds were too thick to see much.
Then we landed at 9:30. It was less than a 30 minute flight. We had to take a van to another section of the airport where we met our tour guide for the day, Rajan. He took us to another van and we drove around Kathmandu.
Kathmandu is much bigger than I thought. The roads are crap with billions of potholes and too many people. A lot of the people are wearing those surgical masks but the pollution isn't bad here. I see blue skies. It's a very nice day, probably the nicest we've had this whole trip. I could wear my hair in a braid instead of off my neck.
While driving we passed by a group of people carrying a dead body. It was wrapped in an orange cloth so we couldn't see anything but they were carrying it to the river to wash.
Our first stop was at the Great Buddha Stupa!
It was a hub of activity. Surrounding the temple are tons and tons of shops and cafes. It was fun to walk around.
Shopping
We went inside a buddhist monastery next door. There's this giant wheel thing you have to walk clockwise around 3 times. I think it's a prayer wheel.
Then we went into an area where monks were reading scriptures. No pictures allowed. I didn't like this. The monks, over a dozen of them, were sitting across from each other and sounded like they were at an auction. And I saw their iphones charging off to the side.
We left to walk around the buddhist temple thing. You can't go inside, but it's layered and you can walk around the first layer which is several feet above street level. It was pretty. I love the flags and all the color.
Rajan took us over to a place where thangka paintings are done. It sounded like quite the craftsmanship. First, nothing is freestyle. They have to follow certain designs from a book.
The outline
Finished!
This one is called Life of Buddha
They take months to make. The experts have to use certain tools and we saw one of them working with a writing utensil that was sharper then a pencil.
They showed us some of the paintings that were for sale. The ones done by students are around $20, while that same design (because they only have so many designs to pick from) can be over $300 when done by a pro. And you can tell the difference. It's really quite impressive.
We left the Great Buddha Stupa around 11:15 and went back to the van. We were suppose to go to the monkey temple but our group was a little on the lethargic side. They said they were hangry but I think they were hungover from hookah partying last night. So we drove on to get lunch.
We passed by the funniest sign I've ever seen. It was for playing pool-
It reads "Hold the cue in your hand like a bird don't crush it to death, but also don't. Let is go. Game is 90% mental. The other half is physical." It had me dying! I don't know if it was the weird grammar or wrong fractions but I loved it.
Before we went to lunch we stopped by a G Adventures building to pay for our flight. It cost $100 and my card wouldn't work so MJ had to pay for mine. I feel like such a moocher.
We drove on. There were monkeys climbing the electric wires above the streets. We stopped by the Patan Museum to eat. It cost $10 dollars to get in which annoyed me (but that's because I didn't realize we were going to the museum after we ate, silly me).
The restaurant was in a quaint garden and very peaceful and lovely. Their menu had a lot of good food. Under salads it said you can pick your own greens with their gardeners assistance. I ordered fish and chips.
It was very good. I was so hungry and thought the portions too small. It cost 650 rupees, or $6.50.
We finished eating at 1:45 and went to the museum. They had a shit ton of information on gods. We were a little pressed for time so Rajan told us to take pictures so we could read about it later on the bus. That's something I already do so I can remember what to say on this blog.
It was a great museum, although it was set up weird. You had to walk through tiny doorwars into modest rooms, then more small doorways to the next room. But it was very informative for Westerners who don't have a good grasp on these crazy gods.
So I learned gods that have multiple heads and hands to express their complex personalities and multiple functions. I learned there's a reason gods have different standing positions and hand positions.
I use the word gods in place of deities a lot. That's probably not correct. I'm not sure what the difference is or if I learned it I wasn't paying attention.
Gods or deities, who knows
The gods have modes of transportation that are animals. Ganesh the elephant uses a mouse/rat. Isn't that cute?! They had a statue of his rat ride. It wears a collar with bells and holds Ganesh's favorite candy.
Ratmobile
I also learned why some pictures of Ganesh show him with a broken tusk. Apparently it was a self inflicted wound when he hurled part of his tusk at the moon for making fun of him for being fat.
"I'm just big boned"-Ganesh, probably
Ganesh uses a mouse to get places, Vishnu uses the sunbird Garuda. Typically, Garuda is humanized except for his wings, feathers, and talons. He wears serpents for decoration.
They had rare ivory objects from the 15th to 16th century.
Cosmetic box, hand mirror, lion
And a pair of ceremonial staffs. They had inscriptions on them that literally just said how much the staff cost. One tola and 96 tola. A tola is approx. 12 grams, 96 tola are over 1 kilogram. So I think it was one tola of silver and 96 tola of gold if that makes sense.
It doesn't make sense
I learned about Hanu-Bhairava, which is two gods in one. Hanuman is a monkey lieutenant of Rama and Bhairava is a Tantric aspect of Shiva. The monkey one is more dominate so it has a monkey face and body, but it also has 4 more heads just for the hell of it so it's got a boar, tiger, Garuda, and a jackal. But the topmost is always a horse. It has 10 arms, keeping with the number of heads, and the hands are in wrathful positions. It's a rare image. There are very few depictions of this 2 god in 1. I think it's because it's such a clusterfuck no one really wants to touch it.
Hanu-Bhairava, my new favorite god
They had a display on the process it took to make a lot of the sculptures and figurines back in the day. More gods to look at. A silver sheathing of the Bagalamukhi shrine. The goddess Bagalamukhi is one of the Dasa Mahavidya, the ten great forms of knowledge and magic power. Bagalamukhi is the most powerful of the ten.
The Bagalamukhi is a temple in Nepal that is apparently a bottomless pit for blood sacrifices of male animals. I wonder why Abhi didn't take us there....
Then there was more stuff to look at-
Duck duck
It was a lot of info on gods to take in. I skimmed over a lot of it.
After we finished the museum, Rajan had us meet up and walk around the Patan Dubar Square. The architecture is very intricate and there were not many people inside the buildings.
Gods and their modes of transport
We walked across the street and climbed to the roof of a building to get a better view of the Patar Dubar Square as a whole.
We left around 3.
We drove to the monkey temple after that. It's not actually called the monkey temple, that's just what tourists have named it because the place is home to over 1,000 monkeys. It's real name is Swayambhunath and I don't know how to pronounce that. It's another buddhist temple.
They had a large pond in the middle where people throw coins and try to get them in a bucket. Rajan gave us each 2 coins and I missed both times.
Hello little guy!
There are 365 steps to the top. It was easy to climb. There weren't that many monkeys and they kept their distance.
At the top of the temple we wandered around. There are many little giftshops and lots of stray dogs who looked like they had mange.
Kathmandu!
We met up with the rest of our group, the bus riders, then! They said their drive was fine but of course they would say that. We went to the hotel after that. On the drive, we had to pool our money together to tip people. We have to tip Abhi $40-$60 (which is something you do for tour guides with travel programs), our guide for the day Rajan 250 nepalese rupees, and then we decided to donate money to the school we visited (about $10 a piece) so they could buy chairs and desks. When all was said and done I hadn't a note to my name. My wallet is empty.
The hotel is very nice and the wifi is great. Tonight is our last night together as a group.
The last supper was at 7:30. I ordered an apple cider and a chicken burger with fries. While we wait for our food, people got up to say some words of goodbye. It was really sweet. Diane invited us all to Hawaii and was very genuine. We presented Abhi with his tip and the money for the school. He was really pleased with the school donation. Vanessa and Kelly shared what everyone has been calling "Abhi euphemisms" (they're not actually euphemisms, they're proverbs. I don't think most of our group knows what those words mean) which some of us have been collecting this whole trip. They were common proverbs that had his own twist or wording. Stuff like "It takes drops of water to make an ocean". Abhi said a few words too, about how he's grown to appreciate us all and how grateful he is.
Overall it was a sweet moment for everyone. Not bittersweet, just sweet. I am not sad. I'm really glad I got to meet all these people. Everyone of us is very brave and adventurous in my opinion for coming to India and Nepal.
Our food arrived and it was good-
We had an early night after that. I went to sleep around 10:30.
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