Freak Street

I am endlessly blown away by the loads people carry.

I think I'm going to Katmandu,
That's really, really where I'm going to.
If i ever get out of here,
That's what I'm gonna do.
K-k-k-k-k-Katmandu,
I think that's where I'm going to.
If i ever get out of here,
I'm going to Katmandu. -Bob Seger

In the early 1970s Kathmandu was the destination for hippies, celebrated in songs by Cat Stevens and Bob Seger and probably several others.  Back then it was an almost traffic-free city with seemingly unlimited supplies of hashish or marijuana. Cannabis is said to be Shiva's favorite herb and it grows wild all over Nepal.  It is used by sadhus as part of their normal religious practice.  Kathmandu was a veritable Shangri-la for the hippies.  Drug-seeking foreigners created a thriving trade here. Even today one can hear the whispered offers of all types of drugs when they walk down the streets.  When I took my dad, who was in his late 60's, he kept asking me, "What did they say?"  It was a little embarrassing to have to constantly tell my dad, "Just keep walking, you don't want any."

Freak Streat near Kathmandu Durbar Square used to be the center of the hippie drug culture.  Today, I see more Hindu and Buddhist religious paraphernalia for sale here than anything else, but the cheap hotels are still plentiful in this area.  On my first visit to Kathmandu I found a nice clean hotel for $15 a night in Thamel.  One of my traveling companions was not satisfied with this rate and found a cheaper $3 a night bed in a room on Freak Street.  He woke up covered in bed bug bites.  I guess you get what you pay for.

Friends

Kathmandu, Nepal

Look at the open window.  Click to enlarge.

Friends on a bench in Kathmandu, Nepal

Some people go to priests; others to poetry; I to my friends.
Virginia Woolf

Wearing Masks

Kathmandu, Nepal
 
To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting. e.e. cummings 1955

Love

Kathmandu, Nepal

“There is no remedy for love but to love more.”- Henry David Thoreau

Kathmandu, Nepal

Being Busy!

Kathmandu

Doing nothing is better than being busy doing nothing. - Lao Tsu

Examine Your Beliefs

Thangka Shop, Kathmandu

After examination, believe what you yourself have tested and found to be reasonable, and conform your conduct thereto. ~Buddha

Thangka Shop, Kathmandu

Thangka Shop, Kathmandu

 

 Click on these and examine them deeply.

Practice

Thangka Shop, Kathmandu

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion.
If you want to be happy, practice compassion.
- The Dalai Lama

Thangka Shop, Kathmandu

Beauty

Kathmandu

Everything has its beauty, but not everyone sees it.--Confucius

Patience

Waiting, Kathmandu

Patience is power; with time and patience the mulberry leaf becomes a silk gown.- Chinese Proverb

Meet Your Neighbor

 

  

Mark 12:28-31 (King James Version)

The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord:

 ³⁰And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.
 ³¹And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these. -Jesus

Holy Baba

Holy Baba in Kathmandu.  Always click to see the details!

What person can give me the wisdom I am seeking?

True knowledge is never covered by super impositions. One's practical life will necessarily mirror such pure knowledge. -Param Pujya Ma

What knowledge do you reflect?


I will be in Oregon for a week but I am leaving you with daily quotes and original photos.  I'll check in if I can. Peace!

The Remover of Obstacles

There are some things that I haven't told you, things that I shouldn't tell you, but at least I have to try to help you understand why there are omissions.  Eighteen years ago when I was traveling in China, I met an interesting artist who had very nasty things to tell me about the Chinese government and the Cultural Revolution.  When I asked him why he had a picture of Mao on his wall he said, "Mao was so scary that I kept his picture to frighten away the evil spirits."  When he saw that I carried a journal with me everywhere I went, he cautioned me not to write anything that he said in a public place because it could be very harmful to his health.

I love Nepal dearly, but it is going through some growing pains.  It would not be good for me, my business, or anyone that I do business with, or anyone that I am trying to help, for me to discuss my uneducated political views about Nepal.  I will only say, and I think that all parties concerned would agree, that corruption is a bad thing especially when it is paired with violence.

When I offered to help the Shree Nava Vijayee Mahendra Secondary School to build a library,  I didn't consider how that could affect local politics.  My immediate thoughts were: How much would it cost? and Who do I give the money to?  But it took very little time for me to understand that there was no one person or group that I could give money to.  It simply wouldn't be healthy for them.  What was needed was an NGO (non-governmental organization) with established practices.  So, of course, I said, "Just tell me who and I will work it out with them."  But there was no reply.

Ganesh, the remover of obstacles.  He is prayed to before other deities because he helps to clear the path for communication with the other deities.

As I wandered the streets of Kathmandu, I was puzzling how to make good on my promises to the school children.  I talked with my suppliers, and the other Nepalese people that I knew, and some other foriegners that I didn't know, asking them all about how one establishes an NGO in Nepal.

Kathmandu

In the end, it was the man that I have known the longest in my travels to Nepal and who has helped me the most with my business who had the solution that I needed.

Kathmandu

Raju, is a remarkable self-made man.  I knew him when he had a small shipping business that operated out of a second floor office on a side street in Thamel.  It had a dirt floor and I had to climb a wooden ladder to get to the office.  He now has his own building, several vehicles with chauffers, and a multitude of business ventures including a network of ayurvedic medicine shops attached to free yoga centers.  It is my personal opinion that he has acquired all of this wealth via his rakish good looks and superior smile.  It also helps that he is considered extremely trustworthy and well connected.  I have known him to be quite generous both with his customers and with his staff in providing regular parties, good advice, and loans in dire situations.  Once, when I was in Nepal he got a phone call from another importer like myself who was going to jail because his taxi cab driver accidentally hit a cow.  Raju sorted things out and got the foriegner back home safely.  But his success has not come without drawbacks.  Because he is well known and has money, his family has been threatened and his brother beaten.  In fact, while Tania and I were in Nepal, he received a phone call demanding a million rupees.  It was an insane demand with no specifics, and no follow-up.  He has lived a remarkable life, and some day someone will write a book about this country boy who grew up to receive awards from the King of Nepal.

Kathmandu, click to enlarge

When I mentioned to Raju my intention to build a library, he knew exactly where to begin.  He and several businessmen in Thamel had set up the Joy Foundation, years ago, for just this kind of charitable donation.  They had all of the accountability and the follow-up worked out and they had years of practice building schools and training teachers.  He even offered to make a donation.  Without hesitation, he made phone calls and arranged for Tania and me to be invited to a dinner where we could meet with the founders of the Joy Foundation.  I will tell you more about the dinner soon.

I haven't told you anything that isn't well known in Nepal, and Raju, unlike many poorer people in Nepal, does have the resources to protect himself and his family.

Bead District in Kathmandu

Beads are an important part of a woman's attire in Nepal.  Hindu women in Kathmandu go to a small alley in Indrachowk called the pote bazaar. Pote, pronounced potay, are worn by married women.  A wedding pote might be very long, worn like a sash that hangs to one's hip.

The different ethnic groups of the Kathmandu valley have different beliefs about how one should wear their pote.  Some women believe that they must wear it 24 hours a day lest their husband should unexpectedly pass away.  Ethnic groups outside of Kathmandu have very different traditions, but wearing loads of jewelry seems to be the norm throughout the Himalayas.

A golden tilauri bead in the middle of a pote necklace is a symbol very much like the gold wedding ring in the west.  It is always a spiky bead, but it does vary a little in length and design. Below is a sterling silver tilauri bead that we sell on our web site aworldofgood.com

Surprisingly, although Muslims don't wear pote, most of the shopkeepers selling them in the pote bazaar are Kashmiri Muslims.  When necklaces are almost finished, the bead stringer will have several threads between his toes and something that looks like a little drop spindle in his hand.  So quickly that my eye can not comprehend, he winds a thread around the several threads between his toes and finishes the necklace making a button hole loop on one end and attaching a brass button carved with a lotus on the other end.

I brought Tania here because they make beautiful woven bracelets for a fraction of what they would cost to produce in the USA and because it was on the way to Kathmandu Durbar Square.  I will show you that square next time.

The pote bazaar at Indrachowk

The Artisans of Patan

After the long hike down the mountain, we had a still longer drive out of the mountains.  At about 11 pm after 9 hours of rattling along in the land cruiser on unpaved roads, stopping briefly to return Atit and JR to the village, we arrived back at the Kathmandu Guest House.  The next couple of days were a whirlwind of meeting with my suppliers and trying to show Tania around Kathmandu.  During this time, still ecstatic about my trip to the mountains, I talked to everyone that I knew about how to help create a library for a rural school in the mountains of Nepal.

Tania and I visited an area of Kathmandu called Patan where most of the craftspeople's families have lived for centuries.  When I walk up and down the narrow streets, I literally trip over masterpieces.  Even the gutters have carvings of open mouthed celestial beings that spout water.  All day long in this area you can hear the hammering and chiseling of statues, prayer wheels, door handles, window frames and all manner of handicraft items.  The craftspeople live in districts where many of the neighbors are related and everyone seems to have the same vocation.  There are entire blocks of silversmiths, stone cutters, metal workers, or painters. This is not a tourist show, this is art as work and worship intertwined-- life as it always has been in Patan.

Here are the ordinary dwellings of Patan! 

This is an inner courtyard.  There was a little cafe back here where we had lunch behind the apartment homes.

Below is Patan Durbar Square, or Patan King's Square.  What I love about this place is how alive it is.  I have been to beautiful town centers in the USA that are virtually empty.  This square is 500 years old and much more than that in spots. It is composed of temples, museums, homes and shops. It is also the playground of children, the market place for merchants, the holy place for believers, where women separate the wheat from the chaff, and the meeting place for old men who smoke and swap stories.  It is a place to think, to work, or to beg.  Life happens here!

Please double click on these so that you can see the detail and the exquisite beauty that I saw.

Even in the city, many people get their water from, and bathe in, the public taps.

Pashupatinath Temple; a sacred place to die

Pashupatinath, or Pashupati, is a Hindu temple dedicated to a manifestation of Shiva called Pashupati (Lord of Animals). It attracts thousands of pilgrims each year. The temple itself is not open to non-Hindus, but anyone can wander around the area. Tania and I went there late in the evening with my 'adopted nephew,' Belief, and that was the only time that I have ever been there when there wasn't a crushing crowd.

I remember my first trip to Pashupati 18 years ago was very disturbing. There were maimed beggars and people who looked like they were dying lying on the ground. A vendor called me over and tried to sell me a highly decorated real human skull that was hidden behind a curtain. Then there was a strange green-eyed woman with a shaved head who stared at me and followed me around.

The place looked very different this time. I saw one holy baba asking for money, but that was probably because of the time of day. The vendors had been moved away from the temple, and the maimed people were gone. (If you will look closely at the top of the first photo, you will see a glowing mystery orb. These orbs were in all of the night photos I took in Nepal. My best guess is the camera flash reflected off of some dust.)

The fire on the steps is a cremation

My Nepali nephew had been there only a few weeks earlier with his family to preform the funeral ceremony for his grandfather. He explained what we witnessed. First the feet of the deceased are dipped into the Bagmati river at the bottom of the temple stairs and washed. Then the body is carried around and laid with flowers on the ghat, which is the pyre platform. Finally, the fire is lit. After the cremation, we saw some people wading in and sifting through the water collecting items that didn't burn.

This is all very public. Although non-Hindus can not be where the grieving families are. They can watch and take pictures from the bridge and the other side of the river. I asked my nephew if he found it disturbing or scary to be at Pashupatinath, because that was what I was feeling. But no, he felt that it was a safe place. For him it was a place of protection where you could understand that we would all be welcomed back to Shiva in the end. In fact, it is considered an auspicious place to die.



The temple complex included one tall building with a golden roof. For the first time, I saw inside the doors leading to the tall building when we walked around to the back side of the temple. Through wide open doors I could hear the powerful throbbing drum music coming from within. Inside was a massive golden bull, the steed of Shiva. It looked to me to be at least 15 feet tall surrounded by devotees. The sounds and sights were very exciting though a little spooky.


The last place that we stopped on Saturday, was Boudanath Stupa. I thought that it would be all lit up and beautiful. But the power was out, as usual. We ate vegetable momos at a restaurant that overlooked the stupa. Sitting by the window, we watched the pilgrims circumambulate and rotate their prayer wheels by the light of the offering candles.

...

The next day, we had to get up very early. We were leaving the valley, by jeep, for the mountain school.

The Monkey Temple, Swayambhunath, sight seeing part three

There is a meditation in every moment.

Here are some focal points for today's meditation.

Buddhist Monks at Swayambhu.

The deer above the door are symbols of Buddha's first teaching

Stupa or Chorten at Swayambhu

Dipankar Buddha 7th Century, carved from a single stone

Protection and Charity

Ringing the Bell at Swayambhu.

Dragons are Symbols of Sacred Wisdom.

Stupa or Chorten, a holy reliquary.

Grooming

Offerings for Prayers