Diesel, Doodie & Dust

Sitting in a local café outside of Thamel in Kathmandu awaiting some vegetable momo’s, to which we often resort when we are unsure. Had a pretty relaxing day washing hair, clothes & doing internet, etc.

Yesterday was pretty enlightening as we went to watch the funeral ceremonies which occur each day at the Arya Ghats at the Pashupatinath Temple on the Bagmati River. We managed to catch a whole ceremony that lasted a few hours. It was for a youngish woman from a wealthy family. During the initial proceedings another body was carried out in a haphazard fashion from a dark hut with beds near by. This was an old guy wrapped in a dirty duvet and they had to move the woman to another spot to make room for him. They slumped him on to a stone slab and let him slide down to the bottom so that his bare legs dangled in the rancid water. He was left here to fester in the baking heat for several hours before he was moved to another part of the ghat reserved for poorer individuals. Meanwhile the ladies ceremonies had progressed from the families farewells and splattering of ghat “holy” water and coins to a point where she was now wrapped in a leaf mat which was adorned with garlands and flowers. Whenever she was moved hords of Fagin like “ghat urchins” would charge in a frenzy to where the coins fell from the cloth & flowers on her body. Crazed monkeys screeched and jumped from temple tops to electric cables in the searing heat of the day. The funeral pyre was being built all the while in a near by spot by the ghat. Burnt logs and ceremonial regalia from previous funerals littered the place. The urchins would play with what morbid artifacts they found while dropping magnets on strings into the river to attract coins & metal that most likely lay beneath. Finally, the now completely wrapped woman, apart from a flailing arm which would not go in despite a lot of pushing from one of the barriers, was carried on a bamboo stretcher to the logs and straw of the funeral pyre. The brother/husband applied the first huge flame to the straw and then collapsed in grief as the others took over. It was a very sad spectacle in all and I felt that although a bit gruesome, it seemed like a good way to say farewell to your loved one. I didn’t like the idea though of ending up in the filthy toxic Bagmati River! Laughing kids were bathing in this same water down stream while women pounded clothes on rocks in the sewagy mess. The river here DID look a little fresher then upstream by the bodies as I guess the large “pieces” were filtered out by boulders along the way.

Sitting eating breakfast on a sneezy morning for Dave we are contemplating our next move. Yesterday we were all set to extend our visas in Nepal and went and got the forms from the immigration office. In the evening we heard the bus strikes were still going strong and people are advised to take air if possible, as other wise one can literally be stuck on a road somewhere with no immediate means of transport to the next point. The Maoists are the ones calling the strikes as it seems that if this General of the Army isn’t ousted from power soon there could be another real calamity for this country. We haven’t seen any violence in Kathmandu but hear every now and then groups of roused Maoists maraud through the streets smashing windows and threatening shop owners. So anyway, our plans to bus it to Pokhara are thwarted a bit due to these political disturbances so we’ll probably just have to get a plane ticket from here to Varanasi.

We hear this morning that the strikes are off again and if we get an early enough bus we should be able to get to Pokhara without any problems. So we go and purchase fifteen day visa extensions, which will give us enough time to have a look around Pokhara. We are looking forward to leaving lovely Kathmandu actually as the pollution in Kathmandu is getting a bit much, an’Dave has started to sneeze like crazy like in Kolkata.
This morning the President of the country stepped down, rather than the General of the Armed Forces being ousted. It is hard to understand the details of what is going on and there are riot police in groups around the city from what we have seen today. Queues of vehicles are trying to get fuel as little diesel has managed to find its way into the city because of the constant road blocks. I guess no one knows what will happen but as least we now have more days in Nepal so the difficulty of getting out won’t be so pressurized.
We manage to catch another goat beheading at the “blood soaked temple” of Dakshinkali before we leave for Pokhara. This was even more gruesome than the last
Sacrifice we saw in Kolkalta as the goat’s head was literally sawed off by a knife wielding blood splattered executioner. The gurgling sound which emanated from the arteries & inside of the goat was a disgusting “soundtrack” to this already morbid scene. Our feet (bare) skidded on the bloody ground as we stood rather aghast in the small area where people held headless chickens and little pots of cocoanuts & flowers to offer their god Kali. The sun beat down on the baking corpses before they were taken to another area where they were skinned & butchered for family feasting. It was only us who experienced any “horror reaction” it seemed, & everyone else seemed to be in more of a jubilant mood and were utterly accepting of these methods of sacrifice. All very thought provoking!