Well, I have had a good night’s sleep and Raj has sent up two buckets of hot water so that at least we may bathe. I feel much better. Kathmandu is a magnificent city: ancient and beautiful, with narrow, winding streets lined with beautiful old houses that lean in toward each other. If we only had hot water, I would be in heaven.
Bhaktapur
Our hotel is very close to the Thamil area of the city. It has thousands of shops selling beautiful things: exquisitely embroidered shawls, jewelry, trekking gear, Tibetan refugee items like brass bells, thangkas
Shop
and the like, hippie clothing by the boatloads, wood carvings, you name
Temples
it. And speaking of hippies, everybody here kind of looks like one. Guys with dreads, chicks wearing long Indian skirts, lots of Japanese, trekkers. Nobody old like us. At night Thamil transforms itself. Music pours out of everywhere. Fantastic blues, live Nepali reggae (you wouldn’t believe it; it’s actually nice!). It is a very hip scene.
And Nepal is clean! By nightfall there is a lot of trash in the streets, but they sweep it away in the early morning and things look really spiffy again. A real contrast to India where trash is everywhere.
Today we went to Bahktapur, a village just outside of Kathmandu. It is 1900 years old and is still vibrantly inhabited. Walking those narrow streets made us feel that we had time-traveled. I don’t think much has changed in 500 years.
Spinning yarn
I felt like I was an extra in a movie. It was just unreal, and I felt so privileged to be there. Leaving it, though we stumbled upon an animal sacrifice. At first, when we were told about the sacrifices I didn’t really see anything too terribly wrong about that because they do eat the animals, but when I stumbled upon a sacrifice I was horrified. It wasn’t butchery. It was torture. I could never put it in to words it was so terrible. I have been thinking about Molly a lot on this trip. They need so much help here, in the schools and with the animals. There are scrofulous dogs everywhere with mange and tumors and worse. We would need 10,000 Mollys here to make a dent. Oh Molly, I wish there were more of you.
Doorway to the past
