Nepal - Relaxation, Monkeys, and Temples
Nathanael Mokry
In our final days in Nepal, we decided to take things a little slower. We ended our trekking in Pokhara. It's a beautiful, lake-side city that is known for paragliding. We were more than ready for some post-trekking drinks and diverse food options... After Pokhara, we had one more day in Kathmandu before we flew out. While we were there, we made sure to see the Hindu holy city of Pashupatinath. This is the city where Hindu self-cremate their dead relatives.
Heading up to the Bhuddist Peace Pagoda outside of Pokhara. From the city, you can spy a very large pagoda at the top of a hill across the lake. We saw it and hiked up to it. Before entering any monestery or temple in Nepal, it was required to take off our shoes.
So we had two options: 1.) Trek around the lake to get to the peace pagoda, or 2.) row across the lake.... Easy decsion. I would do that again in a heartbeat.
Walking along the lakeside in Pokhara. We thought it was pretty crazy that it became pretty normal to constatly have cows, buffalo, yak, or goats constantly sharing the same roads as everyone else. We had to avoid a few "landmines" but we eventually became quite comfortable with it.
On our bus ride back to Kathmandu, we found these lovely little treats being sold at a produce stand... While I consider myself pretty adventurous with my food decisions, I left this one alone :-)
The hindu holy city of Pashupatinath. Do you see the platform on the stairs? That is where families will burn their dead relatives over a large pile of wood.
While it seemed much different to me, everyone else seemed quite comfortable with the dead. I actually walked right past this body, not even noticing that he was there until rachel pointed it out.
Someone from the family is tasked with keeping the body burning until it is gone.
Walking through this city was very cool. It felt like exploring ancient ruins.
However, there were monkeys everywhere.
This is the top-down view of the city. As a visitor, we were allowed everywhere except in the golden temple. That was reserved for hindus only.
This was a sassy mommy monkey. When someone got close to her, she would hiss at them aggressively and then run away. I like that everything in this picture is out of focus with the exception of her face.
Families preparing for ceremonies
We also had a little time to visit the bhuddist Monkey Temple.
Happy to be exploring, sad to leave Nepal, but excited to meet Rachel's parents, aunt & uncle in India for a tiger safari
Here's a link to a map of our completed Journey:
https://share.delorme.com/NathanaelMokry