Everest Base Camp Trek day 2 - Thamel and Temples

"What are they burning over on that side of the river?" I asked our guide Niraj, as we entered the Pushipatinath Hindu temple complex and the clouds of sweet-smelling smoke drifted across to us.

"Dead bodies," he replied, matter-of-factly.

Niraj went on to explain in great detail all the rituals and complex caste hierarchies encapsulated in the scene before us. How the ten stone plinths were reserved in caste-order from highest-caste right in front of the temple to lowest way off to the left, and the obligations encumbent on the son of the family once his parent dies. As we watched, two funeral pyres finished and the ashes were pushed into the river, where women were washing their clothes and men were picking through discarded rags.

"It's a holy river to us," Niraj explained, "it flows down to the Ganges in India."

One pyre was just getting started on the second-highest-caste plinth, reserved for diplomats and senior public officials, with the highest-caste plinth reserved for royalty.

I in turn told Niraj how funerals in England tend to be very private affairs, with all the mechanics taking place behind closed doors and a family's grief locked down behind a stiff upper lip. Lise, by way of contrast, told of how the richer Chinese families will hire women to cry in public for them.

My lasting impression of that visit was a sense that, despite the rigid caste demarcations, there was something very egalitarian about the whole business being literally and metaphorically out in the open, with diplomats burning just a few metres up the river bank from the lower castes, following the same rituals and very visibly ending up in the same river. Death, of course, being the greatest leveller of all.

Our next stop was Boudnath, a Buddhist stupa dating back to the 7th century, festooned with prayer flags and containing hundreds of prayer wheels, from the small to the size of a room. Every wall was covered with stunningly detailed Buddhist art, ten foot tall wheels of life and mandalas of all descriptions. Upstairs we visited the school of Buddhist painting where the works are produced, and saw the master lama at work, filling in the tiniest of details with a single-cat-hair brush.

The guide explained the painstaking process of preparing the canvas, crushing the stone to make the paint, freehand sketching by the master and then up to 57 days of painting that goes into a mandala, and the richly-layered symbolism embodied in the design. He also talked us through a series of photos of the Dalai Lama spending nearly 2 months producing a mandala from sand, and then, once finished, tipping it into the river. There was something about that which definitely struck a chord with us - the end product being almost irrelevant compared with the process itself. Very reminiscent of our feelings on finally reaching the top of Jbel Toubkal - "right, quick photo then let's head straight down!"

We returned to our hotel in Thamel, the main tourist district in Kathmandu. It's a bustling district of endless small shops with street signs piled high, street salesmen offering you taxis, rickshaws and  trinkets while you dodge a miasma of cars and motorbikes and people offering you a "schmoke sir?" every few seconds.

However, unlike Marrakesh,  they all accepted a "no thankyou" with good grace (at least the second or third, if not always the first) and the atmosphere has yet to feel in any way threatening.

Tomorrow we fly early to Lukla, and trek on from there. My next post will probably be from Namche on New Years Eve.
Namaste!