Yesterday in the morning my ankle was swollen and really sore so after a brief visit to the majestic Durbar sq in Kathmandu we decided to have some lunch and some needed rest in order to be fresh for the big evening.
We were told by our hotel owner that we should go to Pashupatinath, the Hindu Holy city, by evening time instead of afternoon or morning. The reason is that in the evening there's less or no tourists and local priests perform the Harati ceremony.
Having been to Varanasi I was familiar with the Harati ceremony but nothing could have prepared me for what we saw!
We started with a bit of confusion on where we were allowed to go, since when I had been there with Intrepid Travel 3 years ago we were told we could only stay on the left bank of the river and we could watch the cremations but we could not access the city itself, it was for Hindu only.
Always respectful of local customs we stayed where we were told, but even then I saw a lot of tourists on the other side of the river and couldn't understand why they were allowed to go there.
We only had a bunch of minutes before heading off to the next destination so I had no idea there would have been a ceremony in the evening.
Steve and I payed for the entrance and were approached by a smart kid in his early twenties with a perfect english that wanted to be our guide. Ordinarily we would have sent him off politely saying that we have the LP and that's enough, but this time LP wasn't clear about restrictions and I was determined to see the ceremony so we accepted.
It took us only a couple of minutes to see that it had been a good idea.
That kid knew everything! Not only was he aware of every single detail about cremations, Hinduism, Pashupatinath and the local restrictions for tourists, he also knew what to point out amidst the gigantic differences between our religion and his. Sometimes he admitted the sheer volume of the information was too much, but we were eager to know as much as possible and he was delighted we knew so many things about his religion and asked him so many questions.
Moreover he was young and smart, therefore even my dodgy joke about having the elderly home so close to the cremation site didn't offend him (I can't believe I made that joke, I've been in Oz for too long!!).
Steve was fascinated, he had never been to India and the cremation is definitely not for the weak of heart, something difficult to forget.
After we had been taken anywhere we could we were sent off to the Harati ceremony with a recommendation to sit right behind the priests.
And that was also a good idea, since we had full view of what was going on (I"ll let Steve talk about it).
The only problem was that we thought it would also have been a good idea to sneak out a few minutes before the end to avoid the congestion (years of going to the stadium taught us well), but because of the very good seat... we were kind of stuck! We managed to pass through the crowd unscathed but Steve lost the lens hood of his camera.
Really happy about the day we went back to Thamel where we had a nice dinner.
We were told by our hotel owner that we should go to Pashupatinath, the Hindu Holy city, by evening time instead of afternoon or morning. The reason is that in the evening there's less or no tourists and local priests perform the Harati ceremony.
Having been to Varanasi I was familiar with the Harati ceremony but nothing could have prepared me for what we saw!
We started with a bit of confusion on where we were allowed to go, since when I had been there with Intrepid Travel 3 years ago we were told we could only stay on the left bank of the river and we could watch the cremations but we could not access the city itself, it was for Hindu only.
Always respectful of local customs we stayed where we were told, but even then I saw a lot of tourists on the other side of the river and couldn't understand why they were allowed to go there.
We only had a bunch of minutes before heading off to the next destination so I had no idea there would have been a ceremony in the evening.
Steve and I payed for the entrance and were approached by a smart kid in his early twenties with a perfect english that wanted to be our guide. Ordinarily we would have sent him off politely saying that we have the LP and that's enough, but this time LP wasn't clear about restrictions and I was determined to see the ceremony so we accepted.
It took us only a couple of minutes to see that it had been a good idea.
That kid knew everything! Not only was he aware of every single detail about cremations, Hinduism, Pashupatinath and the local restrictions for tourists, he also knew what to point out amidst the gigantic differences between our religion and his. Sometimes he admitted the sheer volume of the information was too much, but we were eager to know as much as possible and he was delighted we knew so many things about his religion and asked him so many questions.
Moreover he was young and smart, therefore even my dodgy joke about having the elderly home so close to the cremation site didn't offend him (I can't believe I made that joke, I've been in Oz for too long!!).
Steve was fascinated, he had never been to India and the cremation is definitely not for the weak of heart, something difficult to forget.
After we had been taken anywhere we could we were sent off to the Harati ceremony with a recommendation to sit right behind the priests.
And that was also a good idea, since we had full view of what was going on (I"ll let Steve talk about it).
The only problem was that we thought it would also have been a good idea to sneak out a few minutes before the end to avoid the congestion (years of going to the stadium taught us well), but because of the very good seat... we were kind of stuck! We managed to pass through the crowd unscathed but Steve lost the lens hood of his camera.
Really happy about the day we went back to Thamel where we had a nice dinner.
hey guys, sounds like u're having a fab time!! I saw on the writing at the bottom of the screen on Sunrise this morning that Tibet's borders are closed until end of July (not joking!!). They didnt explain it and Heath can't find any mention of it on SMH - have u heard anything at ur end?
ReplyDeleteHope all continues to be fun :-)
Hi Sue,
ReplyDeleteit's true, we can confirm. We're in Kathmandu at the moment and it's literally full of people upset with the chinese government because they closed Tibet at the last moment, the ones who were inside had to be rushed out and lost all the money they spent on the tour. Luckily we heard about it when we were still in Sydney and had a few days to organise al alternative, we're going to Rajasthan instead. Keep in touch!
Love
Steve and Silvia