Journal Entry 2

September 9, Sunday
The ceiling fan is still spinning in our concrete room and a lonely light bulb flickers in the bathroom while AB washes up. He see's me waking and scolds me for leaving our room key on the outside of the door all night. It's not a dream I am really here in Kathmandu. Luckily, nobody ventured into our room and took anything while we slept, but so far I'm not starting of on such a good foot.
Today we will live up to being true tourists and go see some of the famous temples that litter all the National Geographic’s and travel books about Nepal. We eat breakfast at a tiny coffee shop which neighbors our hotel with a humorous sign reading, “Tired of Nescafe, try Real Coffee.” We find out in the course of our trip especially in the mountains that real coffee is hard to come by. Two young men run the shop, looking no older than eighteen, but I’m not one to talk about age and physical appearance because I seem to look younger the older I get. I have jasmine tea which is served in a big pot with the leaves swimming in it. We are also served a banana pancake which is one big flatbread dribbled in molasses and topped with sliced bananas. It's delicious and we keep returning to this little cafe over and over again during the course of our stay in Kathmandu just to eat the pancake. Outside people our setting up shops, sweeping the streets, and rickshaws and taxi drivers wait patiently on the side of the street for customers. There is a white haze settling on the city and it's already uncomfortably humid for eight o'clock in the morning.
Our first stop is to visit Durbar Square which is a temple city for primarily Hindu worship although some Buddhist elements are mixed in. We try to guess the approximate location of the square and walk through the close knit streets which are busy with people and traffic. I feel like we are the only westerners in this city because I have not seen one since we have arrived. We wander with great effort through the streets but find no temples, and not even signs naming streets or pointing the squares direction. Our map shows street names, but they are absent in the actual city and not shown on store fronts which I thought might show an address. We stop in a Western Union to ask directions and are led at last the right way. We find Durbar Square and pay a small fee to get in. Young boys surround us eager to guide us for “bakeesh” which means tip. We turn down the would be guides and attempt to walk through the temple square as if we had been there before. Visiting this area as well as most any place in Kathmandu requires patience. Every few feet we walk someone approaches us, “Hallo, where you from?” They enquire, “You want guide?” It becomes difficult to enjoy the scenery with so many boys interrupting us. We walk into a temple courtyard and admire a statue of the Hindu god Vishnu and a boy comes in and walks in front of us up to the statue and starts telling us the full history of this statue, who it is, what its significance is, its age, etc. etc. After his history lesson he asks, “Would you like me to be guide for you?” I whisper to both Tony and AB, “What do you think, it seems like it is going to be difficult to get through this place without constant hassle. Maybe if we have a guide it will stop others from bothering us.” AB shrugs, “I don’t care it is up to you guys.” I look at Tony and he nods an uncertain yes to me and whispers, “But, how much does he want?” We tell the boy that he can be our guide and ask him how much he would charge us for an hour. He answers, “Oh, if you let me and my friend take you we cannot ask for fee, because we are students learning English and this is good practice for us.” “If you like the tour you can pay us whatever you want, because we do this to learn for school.” I’m a little uncomfortable not having a negotiated price and it is hard to discuss this with the boy listening right beside us. The “I don’t know” look covers all of our faces and perhaps the boy could read this and quickly whisks us away, “Come, this way to temples.” We meet the boy’s other accomplice waiting outside the courtyard and they begin walking us through the square. I admit they are very informative and explained everything just like if it were written in a text book, but when the hour was up and it came time to pay they insisted on us paying in American dollars and were unhappy by the twenty dollars they each received, insisting that it was not enough and that we also should tip them. I wonder what happen to “being students” and “we are just happy to practice English”. We were the fooled ones. Twenty dollars is a lot of money by Nepal standards and it would be enough for these boys to live on for a couple of months. We were just another set of tourists preyed upon for money, NOT English lessons. Even though I am frustrated I cannot really be angry with them, because many people in Nepal struggle to make a living in a country plagued with poverty. It is what happens when people give up living in the countryside and move to cities in hopes of finding a better way to make a living. Unfortunately when you are taught to have many children to help you take care of farming it does not fair well in the city. Now too many people are coming to Kathmandu which does not have enough jobs to support all of them. People suffer and live by begging. These two boys like any of the other children in Durbar Square are just trying to survive.
Durbar Square is snuggled tightly between the busy streets of Kathmandu. Ringing bells sound out from various temples as one by one the locals make an offering and ring a small bell fixed on a stand near the entrance. Candles incense, and leaves which are woven into small bowls filled with marigolds are offered to the Hindu deities. Each temple has a statue of the deity it represents which is covered in pink, red and yellow paint from people rubbing the statue in devotion. Different deities protect against various ailments or promise to bring good fortune or movement into a higher caste in the next life. Sickness can be cured or money may be awarded by praying daily to these deities. One bronze statue of Lord Shiva had a rather large erect penis which you could see had been rubbed many times by its polished shine and this is believed to help women who are having trouble getting pregnant. Cows, monkeys and pigeons roam freely in the square and are fed leftovers and garbage. They are sacred and believed to be reincarnations of past human lives so no harm ever comes to them. The most striking thing for me is the beautifully wood carved archways over windows and doors which depict scenes in a various deities life. They are carved to the tiniest detail such as the motion of the fingers or the shape of the lips. I wonder how they stay so preserved in such a humid climate because they do not look like they are treated with any type of varnish or stain.

After Durbar Square we walk to Swayambhna Temple or better known as Monkey Temple because of all the monkey’s that infest the area. As we approach the hill on which the temple sits I can see the golden spire with the mystical Buddha eyes staring back down at me. This is the famous image that I always see when I read or watch television shows about Nepal. We climb a steep hill of three hundred and thirty-three steps passing colorful Buddha statues, and crumbling gray chortens while on the sides crafts people make necklaces and carve in small stones to later be sold. At the top everything becomes golden and millions of prayer flags flap in the wind from the massive white stupa which over looks the entire city of Kathmandu. School children walk clockwise around the stupa spinning prayer wheels and ringing bells. A small boy approaches me and begs for candy with a bright smile and hands cupped beneath his chin, but I have nothing to give. I notice an old monk walking silently around the stupa with mani beads in hand, he is praying, chanting the mantra “Om Mani Padme Hum.” We follow the monk spinning the prayer wheels behind him which also send off the mantra into the wind. Om Mani Padme Hum is translated as, “Om! The Jewel in the Heart of the Lotus!” and by chanting this over and over again one is protected from impurities and spreads compassion to all beings which surround them. It is much more peaceful up here than at Durbar Square and I feel comfortable sitting silently on a bench watching the flags blow in the wind. I wonder what it was like here when Buddha made his pilgrimage here to teach so many individuals. I find it hard to believe I am standing where he once was and I am overcome with a warm feeling of joy as I stare up at his Buddha eyes that are painted on all sides of the stupa. This feeling is unreal like any minute I will awaken from this dream and be back in Kentucky. We watch an oncoming storm from the mountains and decide we should head back to our hotel so to not get rained on. Tomorrow we will leave this city and take a sixteen day trek through the Himalayan chain called the Annapurna Circuit.

Chorten: is a Tibetan Buddhist stupa
Stupa: a hemispherical Buddhist religious structure which may contain sacred objects.
Mani beads: a Buddhist rosary for reciting mantras. Mani means prayer.
Prayer flags: cheese clothe flags colored in the earth elements of red, yellow, green, blue, and white with Om Mani Padme Hum printed on them. The flags are usually hung on high passes, over temples, or on roof tops.
Prayer wheels: a bronze coffee can- like shaped cylinder which has Om Mani Padme Hum inscribed on it and when turned with the hand the mantra is carried off into the wind.