Had a day-dream the middle of last year that I would arrive in Kathmandu on my 60th Birthday. I had been in Nepal about 5 years before, but only for a very short time, and had a hankering to return. During the course of last year the dream turned into a goal and eventually on my 60th Birthday I flew into Kathmandu. I just love it when a plan comes together! To add to my joy, a friend had joined me for three weeks, of my one month stay in Nepal.
Kathmandu is many things, dirty, polluted, noisy and chaotic spring to mind, but also very interesting and unique. I just love the place, because it is so very, very different than anything that I have seen before. It is a very ancient city, and many of it's buildings reflect this. It is also has a very modern, sophisticated side to it, although many of it's around 700,000 citizens seem to live in poverty. It is a holy city with many interesting,, holy sights such as Pashupatinath which is the Holiest site for Hindu pilgrims in Nepal. We were fortunate to be there during the festival of Shiva Raatri, when up to 500,000 prilgrims come to Kathmandu to participate in the religious activities.
We were also fortunate enough to be in Kathmandu for the Tibetian New Year and went to the Boudhanath which is one of the world's largest Stupa's and was possibly built around the 5th Century AD but nobody is sure of the exact date that it was built. I do have some photos in the gallery of people circling the Stupa.
We went out of Kathmandu one day, and went to a site, Dakshinkali, which is one of the sites where animals, mainly goats,pigs and roosters are sacrificed to Kali, the mother goddess, who demands blood sacrifice in return for her favours. We also went to the Durbar Square in Kathmandu and the buildings in there are certainly very old, the architect of the buildings is quite stunning and they must have been magnificent when they were built. One of them houses a "Living Goddess", the current one is only 3 years of age. Poor little thing, they are 'deposed' when they reach puberty and send back home to lead a "normal" life. It must be pretty difficult for them to adjust after being a Goddess for all of their childhoods.
