Back to India

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Odyssey is the proper word to describe a local bus ride within Nepal. What is supposed to last for 8 hours, will end up with at least another 4 hours delay. What is supposed to be a direct journey with no transfers, stops continuously and drops you off at your own luck to continue the trip in another bus. What is supposed to be the last stop, is at the end much further away than where your bus leaves you and you have to catch another vehicle to arrive to your desired destination. These all happened to us several times in Nepal, specially on our way from Kathmandu to the nepali border of Sunauli. The bus started late, arrived very late to a place where we had to get off and where we had to catch another bus, and tried to stop in a city some kilometres away from the border (we could luckily convince the driver to take us to the border without paying any extra charge by showing us outraged).

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Conclusion of Nepal

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We didn’t know much about Nepal when we realised that winter in the mountains is cold and we should start our visit to the world from the top before it got colder. We arrived to the country looking for mountains and first thing we found was plain tropical jungle landscapes. We had the idea of a smiling and friendly Nepali and our first contact is with a guy who tries to manipulate us at his convenience. The tranquillity that we had imagined was substituted by noisy traffic, pollution and dusty streets. The advantages of a small country disappear with the long hours spent in packed buses. In short, a two months visa, which seemed not to be enough when we first arrived, was in the end longer than we needed to visit the country.

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The living Goddess

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Another thing which may surprise backpackers while travelling in Nepal is to find out about the existence of a living Goddess, the Kumari Devi, a little girl living in the Kumari Bahal in Kathmandu’s Durbar Square.
One legend explains how a paedophile king of the Malla’s dynasty maintained sexual relationships with a girl. As a result she died and the king inaugurated as a penitence the practice to venerate a little girl as a living Goddess. This girl is chosen from a Newar silver or goldsmiths caste and has to fulfil several requirements such as age, eyes colour, voice sound, horoscope… Her reign finishes with her first period and the process to find the new Kumari starts again.

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Incarnations, Manifestations, Forms and Vehicles

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While travelling in Nepal, backpackers will realise how complex Hinduist and Buddhist religions are. Nepal has a complete mastery of gods, goddesses, bodhisattvas, buddhas, deities’ incarnations and manifestations, all them worshiped through statues, images, paintings and symbols. There is a slightly difference between incarnations, manifestations and forms. Vishnu has 10 incarnations in total, Narsingha (the lion man), Krishna (the cowman) and Buddha among others. Shiva is the God with a thousand names, although they are mere manifestations (the way he shows himself) and not incarnations. Each God also has a related animal or vehicle (vahana), in which he rides, as well as a consort with different skills and features. You can recognise the God by identifying his vehicle or the symbols he holds in his hands, but it will take you a while to understand this dense mythology.

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Mystic Nepal

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One of the most interesting things about Nepal is the mixture of different cultures in such a small country area. You can find Newars, Rais and Limbus all around Kathmandu Valley, Gurungs, Bahuns and Magars in Pokhara and its surroundings, Thakalis, Tamangs, Sherpas and Tibetans in the middle high mountains, and Tharus all along the Terai Valley. Apart from all those different ethnic groups, Hinduists, Buddists, Islamists and some kinds of Chamanism live all together in complete harmony.

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Patan

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God of the tooth pain

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In one of the streets of Kathmandu’s old town, north from Durbar Square, there is a piece of wood with thousands of coins nailed to it, which are offerings to the God of the tooth pain. This is the most bizarre God that we have found so far and we suggest all the backpackers to go and find it, it’s worthy! The name of the square is Bangemudha, which means “kinky wood”.

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Kathmandu surroundings

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Pashupatinath Temple, Bodhnath, Swayambhunath Stupa and Patan (all of them declared Wolrd Heritage sites by the Unesco) are other interesting things to visit in Kathmandu and are a good example to confirm the healthy cohabitation of the major religions in the country: Hinduism and Buddhism. There are also some bizarre things to see in Kathmandu, like the “God of the tooth pain”, a formless wooden block completely covered in nails and coins, which might help anybody by just nailing a coin to its image. Or the possibility of seeing a “living Goddess” coming out of her window to bless the crowd.

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Trash piles in the streets

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After many days of festival, Kathmandu streets become filthy and full of rubbish. The waste rots after long hours under the sun and is very smelly. There are no bins or garbage containers in Nepal and the waste collection system is almost non existent. The number of cows eating the rubbish is also not enough to get rid it. It was after 1 week when we started to see people cleaning some of the streets. As we discussed with some other backpackers, it is weird to see how Nepali people are used to live among the garbage and filth without even caring the smell and sanitary conditions, something that may discomfort some travellers.

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Nepal’s New Year

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Our arrival in Kathmandu coincided with one of the biggest festivals around the country: Deepawali. We were surprised about the amount of people gathering all around the city, the firecrackers noise and the light decorations in the streets. It was the second day of the Tihar, which happens always on the new moon of October-November and which means the end of the year for the Newar community in Kathmandu’s Valley. So, without having planned it, we found ourselves involved on the celebration of the beginning of year 1128. Nepal festivities and festivals are marked by the moon calendar and happen during new or full moon periods. The official new year in the country starts on the 14th of April and its calendar is 57 years ahead ours, so while we live in 2008, they do it in 2065. At the end of the day, we just didn’t know in which year we were living and decided not to worry about the number, we are just travelling around Asia and time is not something to worry about!!

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