a monk swats a monkey...with an umbrella

duff and lindsey just left for the airport, and now i have a few hours in kathmandu. the last few days have mostly been spent sorting out travel plans, but we have had some time for fun, too. yesterday morning, duff and i spent 3 hours at the airchina office trying to talk some sense into those people. yet, the chinese argued as the always do: around the issue. yesterday afternoon, and a scary amount of this morning while duff and lindsey were rushing to the airport, was spent trying to get me on a flight to nepal. after serious amounts of research, we decided that the bus and the roads were unsafe, and i would be much better off flying. sadly, the ticket went up in price three times, but the longer i am in this city, the more stories i hear of buses dropping off cliffs, and i am glad i have the ticket. yesterday, the headline in the newspaper was about a bus crash on the road from tibet that killed 23 people (this of the 60-some people on the bus). not encouraging. plus, it is monsoon, and that makes bad roads worse.

so, even though we have been super busy, duff and i found some time for a few neat little experiences. for lunch we found a great little tandoori place with two guys who cooked amazing food. it was the first truly local place we'd gotten to eat, away from all the tourist junk. the food was so amazing, we went back that night to get takeout vegetable briyani to have with the amazing bottle of white wine that duff was so kind to treat us too.

just before sunset, duff and i decided to go to the amazing swayambhunath stupa. the stupa is situated on a hill overlooking kathmandu. from the top, you can see the whole kathmandu valley and the mountains that enclose it. it was so beautiful. we had an awesome cab driver who took us to the top because we wanted to see the sunset from the top and didn't have much time. he was a really talkative guy and duff had a great time talking to him. he talked about nepal's past political trouble (yes, they say it is past, and i believe, largely, the violence is, but on sunday and monday we witnessed many demonstrations. these demonstrations blocked traffic. the one we got closest to was students, probably high school or college age. i am guessing high school, though, because they were wearing uniforms. the were yelling something we couldn't understand and then started to sit down in the street. there was a huge banner in nepali. oh, and about 15 minutes later we saw a parade of monks). according to our driver, there are very many reasons to be unhappy with the government but one that he talked about, since we were driving, was the condition of the roads. duff had read earlier in the day that only 2/3 of the roads in kathmandu are paved. i believe, of the unpaved, 1/6 are gravel, and 1/6 are mud. also, the highways are notoriously bad. the government wasn't doing anything an people we tired of it. in the papers and magazines, roads seem to be a major issue, and after our bus ride from kodari and taxis in kathmandu, i can see why. they are dangerous.

the taxi dropped us almost at the top of the hill, and we got to walk the rest of the way accompanied by monkeys. esp. a lot of moms and babies. the stupa is famous for the large number of monkeys living there, i believe some call it monkey mountain (we have one of those in wuhan, too!) there weren't many other visitors at that time of night, and so i feel like the monkeys were really close. at the top, the stupa was amazing. i will have duff put up pics when he gets home. the stupa has a tall golden spire and on the base, the eyes of buddha are painted. i believe they call them the 'benevolent' or the 'compassionate' eyes of buddha, and they watch over the kathmandu valley. we watched the sun set, lit up by the monsoon clouds, and the pilgrims do their circumambulations. after sun set, monks started around the stupa, in height order. little boys in saffron robes were jostling each other at the end of the line, tossing the ends of their robes at each other and jumping to spin the prayer wheels. eventually, the stray dogs living at the top of the hill started to circumambulate with the monks. it was amazing. the lead monk was carrying an umbrella, and he was gently swatting monkeys out of his path, and away from his head with it. the monkeys were crawling all over the stupa.

duff and i stood, gazing over the kathmandu valley, as the sun set and the city lit up. behind us were monks and dogs circling a stupa with monkeys falling all over the place and in a nearby temple, another group of monks were chanting. it was neat to hear their voices carry. it was one of the most peaceful moments i can remember.

when we decided to go home, we descended the long steps that lead up to the main temple. at the bottom, it was, again, chaos. just on a whim, duff and i stopped into the shop of a woman selling bangles. we asked how much, and she said 2 rupees. since we get 74 rupees to the dollar, we went for it. we picked some out, but i worried my hand was too big. the bracelets are plastic and you must make your hand really small to get them on. the woman broke three trying to get them on and then did some odd massage that felt good and popped my hand a few times and the bracelets slid on (i still popped about 8, throughout the experience). the woman, the little girl helping her, and duff and i were all so excited, we got a little carried away. i am now sporting 24 plastic bangles on my right arm, and 12 on my left. they are red, yellow, navy, peach, teal, purple, and clear, all with a little gold. i can't get them off, so we'll just have to see how long it takes them to break. i think this is how the nepali women do it. the girl in front of me on the bus from kodari broke 2 that i know of from the intense bouncing.

yay, nepal! i will certainly be visiting again when the roads improve.