February - March 1999 

From the Maldives, we flew back to Singapore for a layover day, then onto Nepal.  Our first few days in Nepal were spent sightseeing in Kathmandu city and Bhaktapur, two of the three cities in the Kathmandu valley. We had a guide and a driver (hey, it was our honeymoon) to schlep us around.  It was nice to leave control to somebody else, especially since Kathmandu is the wackiest place we have ever been--cows run rampant through the streets, cars drive on the left (or so we thought, it was difficult to tell because the driving is *insane*), monkeys jump out of the trees and try to bite you, every guy tries to sell you the same damn Gurkha knife, and pedestrians are everywhere, including small children who walk right in the street because there are hardly any sidewalks.  People who have been to Kathmandu know that the sound of the city is the sound of horns--everybody leans on the horn everytime they see a pedestrian, cow, another driver or anything else in their way (i.e., every other second). Fortunately, you get used to it after a while.  The Kathmandu valley is extremely polluted, and by the second day of our stay, we took to wearing bandannas over our faces to keep the exhaust fumes at bay. Nepal's proximity to India brings with it many fabulous imports, including curries and masalas, basamati rice and darjeeling tea.  However, there's a dark side to everything. The Indian imports you quickly learn to hate while in Nepal are the Bajaj vehicles. These suckers belch out exhaust fumes that would make the EPA think about extraterritorial regulation.  They come in all forms too -- motorized rickshaws, moped-like beasts, trucks, cars and, our favorite, the minivans which pack in about 30 people and cruise around on little polluting two-stroke engines.

Note:  clicking on any photograph will present a larger version.
	Swayambhunath Temple.  On our first day in Kathmandu, we visited the famous Temple of Swayambhunath (aka the Monkey Temple). They say it is the oldest shine in the world, and boy does it look like it. Nobody has swept up around this place in probably 2500 years.  After the temple, we descended into Kathmandu itself , where we visited a bunch of old temples whose names I forget.  Most of them looked like they were about to fall down. Nepal needs a grant from the Historical Preservation Society. They have beautiful temples and palaces, but they are very poorly maintained, primarily due to lack of funds.  While walking around in Kathmandu city, we encountered the colorful fellow you see at left.
	Bodhnath Stupa.  Day two of our Nepal trip found us visiting the Bodhnath buddhist stupa, which allegedly is the largest such buddhist stupa in the world. For those of you who don't know what a stupa is, it's one of those funky white dome things with a tower above it that has crazy eyes painted on it. These are the "all seeing eyes" of Lord Buddha. The tower has thirteen levels, signifying the thirteen steps to nirvana, or something like that. This is a picture of the Bodnath stupa. The stupa is surrounded by prayer wheels and is adorned with thousands of prayer flags.
	Top of the Dome.  I snapped this photo of Dana on top of the stupa's dome. From the top, you can literally see about 100 buddhist monasteries that surround the Bodhnath area. The area is full of tibetans who have fled the Chinese crackdown on religious freedom in that region. Our guide explained all of this to us. He also tried to explain the difference between Hinduism and Buddhism.  It was very tough to keep it all straight. We just enjoyed spinning the prayer wheels.
	Pashupatinath.  We next visited the Pashupatinath Temple, which straddles the very holy and also very dirty Bagmati River. As we are non-Hindu, we were not allowed inside the main temple, and instead were shepherded across the river to a viewing area on the other side of the river. We saw a large group of people on the top square of the temple, looking down at the river. Then we noticed what they were looking at. A cremation ritual was in progress, and a group was building a funeral pyre out of huge logs on a platform over the river.
	Hindu Funeral.  We watched the scene for about twenty minutes. After a small service was performed, the flowers on the body were thrown into the river and the body was placed atop the funeral pyre. We were told by our guide that traditionally the oldest son lights the flame by placing it in the deceased's mouth. He was right; that's how they did it.

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