Thanks a lot Nepal

Kelly at Bodnath.

Howdy Howdy Howdy. We are now again living the American life of luxury after returning home via 40 hours in transit. Blech.

Some things we will not miss.

Many things we will.

View from a coffee plantation we volunteered at after the trek.

The plantation.

To finish off our time in Nepal we had a couple of very important landmarks to visit. The city of Kathmandu can be very very overwhelming and though we had paid two previous visits we still had yet to see some sights. I will attribute this to the need for sanity in an otherwise insane city. Bodnath and Pashupatinath were the main sights left.

Bodnath

Bodnath and some local ladies.

There are these little prayer lawns at the corners of Bodnath and these monks were chanting up a storm.

Kelly lights butter lamps.

The Bodnath, which can be spelled any number of ways is one of the largest stupas in Nepal. This impressive structure sits unsuspectingly in the center of a commercial district in town. It's in a courtyard that has been built up around the stupa essentially hiding it in plain sight. Once you enter the courtyard the massive structure will wow you. The area of the courtyard is about the size of a city block and is completely dominated by the stupa. Most everything you see in Kathmandu is tainted by the particulate matter in the air. A fine sheen of filth has covered most all edifices, though this gleaming white stupa is one exception. There are workmen scrubbing and keeping it all clean. This is a Buddhist stupa that came along with the influx of Tibetan refugees practicing Buddhism in an otherwise Hindu dominated area and it is also a UNESCO world heritage site

Upriver at Pashupatinath.

The smoke of a pyre at Pashupatinath in the distance over the top of several of the temples.

Pashupatinath is another UNESCO world heritage site. Its a Hindu holy site for the cremation of the dead. This temple complex is centered around the Bagmati river. On the shores of this slow moving river, pyres are set up to cremate the recently deceased. In the Hindu religion this is a very desirable end for the body (I am explaining this as best I understand, sorry for any mistakes but please let me know) and soul. The sons shave their heads and prepare the body on the pyre dousing it in oils and going through preparatory rituals. The pyre is lit and luckily, unlike the old days in India, the practice of Sati is no longer employed. Sati is when a wife will immolate herself on the husband's pyre, going with him into the afterlife. After some time, the skull will make an audible pop as it ruptures from pressure and this is the moment the soul is released. At some point after this the whole pyre is pushed into the flowing water to be washed away eventually into the Ganges. This is all well and good but what you may notice is very nearby downstream the hordes of street children in the water amongst the ashen remains sifting through for precious metals that remain unburned like gold teeth and anything else salvageable.

The area of the pyres at Pashupatinath.

This pretty much wrapped up our time in Nepal and our entire trip. Our next stop was home. It isn't possible to sum things up and tie a neat little bow on this whole experience. We have been home for a couple of weeks as I write this and from time to time as I am able to reflect I do note monumental differences in my understanding of the world and then am continually amazed by how similar all things still are. I can lose myself hopping from rock to rock fishing in my favorite stream and easily forget what the past 18 months have been about. For both of us it is clear how privileged we are, how just being born on this side of a line has given us the opportunity to do so much and have so much. So many of the people we have met cannot even get a passport let alone travel freely from one spot to another even within their own country. These are things we will take with us always now. We have had a grand adventure that was so much more than a vacation, so much more than just a trip, this was our life for a year and a half and will always help shape our decisions from here on out. Thank you to everyone we met along the way who helped to make this all as great as it was. Thank you to friends and family who supported us from afar and who made sure we knew how great our home still was and would be to return to.