Ka-ka-ka-Kathmandu!

Hello, fair readers. I am now in Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal, and it is awesome!

I got in on Monday, after a fairly standard airport experience. Getting a visa was a bit of a pain since it's all done by hand and it took a long time. Soon enough, though, I had it and ventured into the city. I got massively lost trying to find my hostel and sat down on a ledge to re-group when this wonderful Polish man found me and brought me to my guest house.

My guesthouse is called the Kathmandu Garden House and it lives up to its name completely. It's about a 5 minute walk from Thamel, the main tourist area, and that makes all the difference. All the traffic sounds are hushed as soon as you walk onto the guesthouse's street and you can smell the flowers and plants right away. It's such a lovely bit of quietness in the midst of a bustling and loud city, I love it.

I spent my first night recovering from the travel and didn't leave my guesthouse but I did meet two Americans and chatted for a bit with them. The next day, I took a rickshaw to Durbar Square, the famous historical part of Kathmandu with the temples that look like this:

I found a tour guide and he took me around (for a nominal fee, of course) and learned a ton about the 49 temples.

The best part, though, was going to the Kumari house. The Kumari is a living goddess, a manifestation of Durga/Cali. She is picked from a special Newar buddhist caste and she has to fulfill 32 physical requirements, can have no blemishes, must have the right horoscope, and finally has to endure tests like watching 104 animals sacraficed in front of her. If she doesn't freak out, she goes to the Cali temple and has to be locked in a room with hallucinogenic incense and severed animal heads. Again, if she doesn't freak out, that's your girl. She remains the Kumari until she gets her first period then the process starts again.

She comes out to a window of her inner courtyard about once a month and I happened to catch it. I was only with about 6 other people when she was carried to the window. She's four years old and absolutely adorable. She looked out the window, we all bowed and said "Namaste" and then she wandered away. Very interesting experience.

I went back to the hostel after taking a gazillion photos and ran into one of the Americans, Jon. We decided to go back to Durbar Square that evening because we heard there was going to be a big festival. Sadly, we were a couple days off but we did get to see a procession of young men/boys led by an elephant puppet.

Yesterday, I woke up early-ish and Jon and I hauled ass to the monkey temple at the edge of town:

We had to climb a lot of stairs to get to the top but oh, man. Not only is the stupa beautiful and spiritual, but the view of the Kathmandu valley from the top of the hill was stunning. The clouds were just amazing and you could see for ages. The stupa itself, like I said, was pretty incredible too. We spent the evening at Durbar Square again, hoping to see some action but again failing. After, we got accidentally drunk and had to stagger home. Very fun.

I got up at 5:45 this morning to catch the 7:00 am bus to Pokhara, only to be told there were protests on the highway and all buses were canceled. Big time bummer but I'm using this extra day to catching up on journaling/blogging, writing postcards, and laundry.