Some Proper Sight Seeing

01/03

This morning I had a meeting and it looks like I wont be able to start volunteering as soon as I expected due to the main member of teaching staff going on holiday.  This means I have several days to kill in Nepal.  Not too hard a decision, trekking it is!

Before I went to B  to get this all booked I decided I would go and check out Swayambhu Nath Stupa.  Otherwise known as 'The Monkey Temple'.  On the way there I saw a boy passed out on the street covered in dust, these are the sort of sights you will see in this city even if you don't want to.

The temple is up a lot of steps, seriously A LOT OF STEPS.  Rocky Balboa would have got about halfway before stopping for a breather and having a man coming up to him asking where he is from and giving him a brief history lesson before trying to sell him a singing bowl or intricately carved Mandala.

There are monkeys everywhere!  This is of course brilliant.  There are also lots and lots of prayer flags hanging from tree's and rooftops flapping in the breeze. The main reason for climbing all this way however is the panoramic views.  They are amazing, the whole of Kathmandu sprawling across the valley all the way up to the mountains.

I was also very fortunate in that I got to see some Buddhist Monks chanting in a prayer room.   To enter you had to take your shoes off.   This room is covered top to bottom in colourfully decorated cloths and paintings with hangings from the ceiling as well as on the walls.  Down the middle of the room a row of monks chant mantra's whilst banging drums above their heads on sticks with long curved drum sticks.  Visitors sit or stand to the left being careful not to block the windows.  To the right of the entrance two monks were sat with long horns and down the right hand side of the room there was another row of monks chanting.  I stayed there quietly watching and listening to these monks pray for a good ten minutes at which point the chanting ended.  It was quite the experience.

That all happened at the front of the temple but this place is huge and stretches a long way back.  There are many small shrines, temples and stupas along the way as well as stalls selling everything from water to prayer flags.  I spent a good few hours taking a look around before making my descent.

I have sorted out my trekking I will be spending 7 days trekking in Lang tang.  An eight hour drive awaits me the day after tomorrow and I will be going with the same Sherpa who picked me up from the airport.  Due to not thinking I would have time to trek I didn't pack any decent footwear so I had to go and buy some new shoes.  After traipsing around the bazaars I realised that the chances of finding any shoes big enough was slim and decided to head to The North Face shop.  I was worried that this was a very costly option but I managed to get a pair half price, and cheaper than the poorer quality shoes I saw in the bazaar.  Tomorrow I will sort out all the paper work for the trip and get briefed.  I'm pretty excited about seeing some of Nepal's beautiful countryside.