October 5, 2006: Kathmandu - Swayambhunath & Bodnath

After a mostly sleepless night, mainly because of jetlag, I woke up at 6:30 am. I had breakfast on the rooftop terrace of the Tibet Holiday Inn. At 9 am, Bharat and Lima, the driver, picked me up and brought me over to the L'Annapurna Hotel. We left my bags there and continued on to the Swayambhunath Temple, or Monkey Temple. This temple sits on a hill overlooking the Kathmandu Valley. At its center is a large stupa from which the eyes of Bhudda look in all four directions. Lima dropped us off at the bottom of the staircase. 365 stairs to the top. At the bottom of the stairs was the typical congregation of hawkers, gawkers, sadhus etc., just what you can expect at the entrance to a major tourist attraction. I escaped getting red-dotted by a sadhu.

We walked up the stairs to the stupa. From there we had a wonderful view of the Kathmandu Valley. Lots of little stupas, shops etc. are up there. There is also another small temple on the backside of Swayambhunath. Additionally a Tibetan Monastery. We spend quite some time there soaking up the sights and sounds. After a while, we went back down the stairs and met up again with Lima who then drove us to the Bodnath Stupa via the Ring Road. The traffic is pretty bad, way too many cars, people, animals, bikes, etc. on the roads. Everybody is driving like a maniac, but overall the speed is quite slow because of the congestion and the cars are pretty old and certainly not tuned for speed.

The Bodnath Stupa is the largest stupa in Nepal, built in the 14th century. It is a bastion of Tibetan culture in the heart of the Kathmandu Valley. Thousands of Tibetans came here after the 1950's Chinese Invasion of Tibet. Bodnath has become one of the most important centers of Tibetan Buddhism. There are lots of Tibetan shops as well as several Tibetan monasteries around the stupa. Bharat and I went to the upper part of the stupa and circled it clockwise. After completing the circle, we checked out some of the shops around the stupa. We went into one of the Thangka shops. The shopowner showed us how they made the Thangkas. I bought a Thangka of the Guru Rinpoche which now hangs in our bedroom (that was the only place in our house where there was space...).

After visiting the Bodnath Stupa we went back to the L'Annapurna Hotel where I checked in. During the afternoon, I packed my backback and got ready for my hiking trip to Everest Base Camp. I had a delightful dinner at the Chinese Restaurant at the hotel where I had a long discussion with my waiters about Nepali customs, language, ethnics, castes, etc. etc. I was the only guest for a while, so the guys had time to chat. I went to bed around 9 pm, but woke up at my "normal" time of 1 am celebrating another night of jet lag.

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