Everest

Still tired from a fairly restless night, we head down to the lobby for our Everest attempt (I love saying that). Shockingly, we are the first ones downstairs. That is a first for us on this trip. We don't have to wait long for the others and we pile into our van. At this time of the day it only takes us about thirty minutes to get to the airport.

The air tour guide gets us the boarding passes and points us in the direction of security. On the boarding pass, the destination is MTN. I hope our destination is actually back to this airport, not crashed into the side of the mountain. These people take security very seriously. I get a pretty thorough pat down as well as my stuff going through the X-ray machine and then hand checked. After that, I get another pat down. Then I run my stuff through another x-ray machine. Before boarding the bus that will take me to the plane, I get a pat down a third time. Where the hell was I supposed to find any contraband between these stages? The women complain that they did not get a pat down as much as a breast examination each time.

There are only 18 passengers on the plane. Each gets their own window seat. This would be so much more awesome if the windows were not all scratched to hell. Sitting on the tarmac, I'm having a hard time getting the camera to focus on anything. The scratches are messing with the auto-zoom function. I'm going to have to go full manual for any pictures.

There were 8 people all dressed in white robe type clothing that boarded the same flight. They seem to be on some sort of holy pilgrimage or something. Those bastards take our seats and feign that they don't know English. We all just pile into the back of the plane and realize that we actually have better views because we are not over the wing.

The flight is 50 minutes long and we get to see a lot of clouds. On a clear day, you can see the Himalayas laid out next to the flight path. This, unfortunately, was not a clear day. However, as we approach our target, Everest is visible. One by one, each person gets to get into the cockpit to take pictures of the mountain. The people up front go first. Those stupid shits knew all about how this works. They took an inordinate amount of time and some of them took multiple turns. By the time I got up there, we had already begun our turn and could barely get a shot. But, on the way back to my seat, the clouds cleared up a bit and I took some great shots out of one of the side windows. The flight back to the airport is done with a huge grin on my face.

We return to the hotel for a quick shower and breakfast. Today we are exploring Bhadgaon. It is a Newar city from the 9th century. It is actually marked as a World Heritage living history site. People still live and work here. The buildings are only 70'ish years old, however. Back in 1934 an earthquake devastated the city of Kathmandu. Most of the buildings were leveled at that time. However, the people rebuilt using the same materials that were lying in ruins. So, the buildings are fairly new but the materials are very old.

We are taken into an art school to learn about a type of Nepalese painting style. The painting is done on cloth, not canvas or paper. The cloth is stretched and then prepared with a material. I didn't actually get what that material is. It takes someone 12 years of practice to be able to prepare the cloth correctly. It has to be perfectly smooth. From there, that cloth is painted over by an artist (or several artists) using brush and paint. Normal, right? The longer you practice this type of painting the fewer hairs you get in your brush. The painting doubles as a meditation for the artist. They spend 8-10 hours per day working on a piece. Some pieces takes months. We saw one painting that took the artist 37 months to create. It had such detail on it...we were all blown away by it. The gold color in the paintings were not paint. It's actually gold that they use. It was all very impressive.

We head over to a section of town that holds a Buddhist stupa that is over 2500 years old and is one of the largest of its kind. I thought it was the tallest, but, was quickly corrected by the guide. He tells us that it is one of the tallest in the world and that it is the tallest in Kathmandu. For lunch we are seated in a second story cafe and dine on momos. They are Nepalese dumplings (and a favorite of our guide). We find them to be awesome. With lunch I drink down an Everest beer.

After lunch we walk around the stupa and visit a couple of the Buddhist temples. In the second one, I was one of the only people in there; With the exception of two monks. One of the monks ask where I am from. The US, I say. Would you take a blessing? Yes...please. The other monk sits down and invites me to sit in front of him. He chants over a container of oil and pours some in my hand. He mimes to me what to do. I place some of it on my head, then to my mouth and then to my chest. He continues to chant. Hell yeah! Blessed by a monk in Nepal. I am now living a charmed life.

We head off to something that I was sure I misheard; The cremation place. I think it would be a bit odd to take visitors of your country to the local crematorium. Yeah, I was wrong. That's exactly where we are being taken. Raj explains to us the customs of the Newari people of the valley. When someone dies, they are taken immediately to this place. They are carried there by four people. No matter the distance in the valley. Always carried. Never driven. The feet of the corpse are laid in the river to cleanse the body. Then the body is brought up to one of 10 kats (pyre locations) that jut out. The the eldest son (if it's the father) or the youngest son (if it's the mother) light the corpse. The other three carriers light the body in different spots. Once the corpse is fully burned (hours later), the ashes are swept into the river to complete the cycle and return the body to the last of the elements, water.

Death is not something that is feared in Nepal. It is natural and is part of the cycle. To be reborn, you must die. Raj laughed as he told us that he was not afraid of dying, but, he is not volunteering. This place was a place of mourning, a place of celebration of life, and is (get this) also a park. I have no pictures of this place, however. Raj said that taking pictures was forbidden at one point, but, with newer cameras and zoom lenses, it does not interrupt the ceremonies any longer. I still couldn't bring myself to take pictures of it. I found it to be a little disrespectful...whether I interrupted or not. There were 9 of the 10 kats being used this evening. I could see two more bodies with their feet soaking in the river.

Seems a little morose to end a day like that. But, it wasn't. Barbara had said that after watching the ritual she felt more alive. I realized that I did too. We walked back to the bus talking and joking with the group.

Tomorrow, more Kathmandu!