Patty Cake: Temples, Stupas, and Hinduism 101

Hey gang, Seth here. I'll be recounting our exploits for day two so Patrice and nurse those typing blisters (she doesn't really have blisters...I'm...I just wanted to be funny. Please like me...)

So, after one heck of a start, we took a much more zen-like approach to Nepal and put the high-octane, let's-get-destroied-by-a-mob level adventuring on the backburnner. We transformed and rolled out of the hostel around 9am with a burning purpose: find the fabled Swayambhu Temple (a.k,a. the "monkey temple.") We asked our intrepid hosts of Trekkers' Home hostel, "what's the direction we should head in?" and, ever stalwart, they told us to head south...ish.

We were determined to hoof it, because the map said it was close enough, and we did just that. We do have a reputation to uphold now. Our trek was, like it's predecessors, "memorable." We found a path less traveled by non-locals, over a river, ponds of mud and a construction site that wasn't totally unlike a war zone. Patrice broke in her new sandels reeeeaaaal quick; however, after about half-hour of finding routes through peoples' yards and driveways, we made it to the steps of Swayambut.

Like any place a tourist might visit, the steps were crawling with beggars and touters. We are no strangers to these sorts of things, so we, unphased, marched on. We mad a pit stop after the first 50 steps or so for some fresh watermelon and bottled water. Nepal's climate isn't exactly what I had envisioned it to be. Instead of cool and perpetually breezy, it's hot and muggy AND I DON'T LIKE IT!! Anyhoo, the gentleman selling the fruit and water kindly warned us about the monkeys that would, understandably, attempt to rip the tastey fruit from our unsuspecting hands. No sooner had he said that, we heard a rustle in the tree above. At least 6 hairy little imps were staring holes through our watermelon. I told Patrice, "eat quick," but just then, the fruit-man whipped out his trusty slingshot and fended off our evolutionary cousins, lickity split. Hilarious!

So, after properly hydrating and Patrice having had her fruit fix, we climbed the rest of the stairs. We didn't count, but we could make a conservative estimate of 200+ (rather steep) stairs in total, but that's what it takes to see the entire Kathmandu valley. The view, for a lack of a truely better word, was stunning: mountains that put my beloved Appalachians to shame form a momumental bowl to cup the lush, green, and very urban valley. Clouds rolled across the sky like waves on the ocean and a moderate breeze kept the uncoutable prayer flags aloft and the humidity to tolerable levels. Swayambut is a "stupa," a style of shrine that Patrice will explain in Day 3, which stood an additional 40-45 feet tall and was adorned with the ever-vigiliant eyes of Buddha. We shopped for nick-nacks around the stupa and had a lunch equally as pleasing as the view on one of the local cafe's rooftops. Picture provided.

We finished lunch and headed back down the stairs (in hindsight, I guess we forgot to count them twice...) bought a small "singing bowl", which is a meditation bowl made of 7 silvers. You rub the edge of the bowl with a wooden pestle and makes a pretty tone. Then we caught a cab back to our hostel in Thamel, the touristy area. There, we regrouped, dropped off our treasures, and decided on Pashputi (another local temple) as our next destination. Unfortunately, nothing we looked at about Pashputi said, "NO FER-NERS ALLOWED" so, our very non-Hidu selfs were denied access and ushered over to the kid's table equivalent of the compound. We could check that part out, no pro-blamo, ...for $10 a head. Yeah, I don't think so. Only slightly perturbed, we walked to the other side of the road as Pashputi, to see what, if anything, was worth looking at. We found another, small temple with immaculate woodwork and got a small bag of samosas and fried dough for 50 cents. We walked, and munched, and realized, "there's nothing here for us to tour...", so, we turned around and walked back to the street. One last beggar met our eye, so I gave him what was left of our snack. I told Patrice that I felt a little bad for giving the guy our half-eaten bag of food, to which she replied, "yeah, well 'beggars can't be choosers!'" OOOOOHHHHHH, SNAP!!
Well, I thought it was funny...

We quickly found a cab back to the hostel and decided to explore the immediate area (i.e.- J.P. Road). The road is basically a backpackers candyland. I kinda felt like Charlie when he found the golden ticket. We got some shopping done and got to sit for a quick drink in a beautiful courtyard down a little alley to finish off the day. We both were in agreement that we had a much more enjoyable experience since we set our own culturally-driven pace as opposed to the afore-mentioned "high octane" one. I think we found our status quo.

I'm Patrice and I'm back! Isn't my fiance entertaining? Well anyway. The next day we headed off in a cab to Patan, a little city a half hour south of Kathmandu with some pretty great stuff. As soon as we got to the Golden Temple (one of those cool things), a short, friendly Nepali gentleman greeted us, who said he worked at the temple. We paid 50 cents to get in, so we figured he was just a tour guide. In the end we were wrong (again) but he accepted $10 graciously from us, instead of cheating us out of $60 worth of groceries, phew! He was really, really Hindu: a vegan who never smokes or drinks, and is just one of the at peace people I've ever met. He explained many things, but most notably the circle of life in the Hindu faith (I included a picture from google because apparently I forgot to take one): Divided into six parts, heaven is the pinnacle of existance; very good people go here, and become gods. At the bottom is the Hindu hell, which is pretty similar to the Christian idea of Hell: fire, brimstone, eternal suffering, etc. On either side are two additional sections: one one side right below god is the level of "demi-god," where humans go if they are exceptional in the previous life, but not so great that they are godly. The demi-gods and the gods argue over a fruit-bearing tree that connects their sections of the wheel. The gods claim that the fruit is reserved for them, but the tree grows out of the section of the demi-gods so they feel they have a right to the fruit. Anyway, the section below the demigods is the section of animal life: if you aren't kind to animals (like if you're a butcher), you go here. There are about 80 different levels of animal, monkey being the first and dog being the last because dogs are so compatible with humans and loving. After you finish the life as a dog, you go back to being human and are eligible for the demi-god or god level, depending on your accumulated karma as a human. If you're a bad human again (you get two chances), you will go to the level below the humans on the wheel: hungry ghost. This level sucks. It's kind of like purgatory. You have to spend a lifetime in perpetual thirst and hunger as punishment for the bad karma you accumulated in your previous life. If you eat or drink anything, you die immediately, which means you probably didn't have enough time to make up for the bad karma, so you go to the bottom of the wheel of life (i.e. Hindu Hell). In the middle is a depiction of hen, a snake and a pig, symbolizing lust, ignorance and laziness respectively. The goal is to eliminate these vices. Buddha has none of them, which makes him the head hancho (Hinduism treats Buddha as one of the Gods).

Our new friend also showed us his physical-chakra therapy practice using the singing bowls, and demonstrated to us how they (allegedly) help with ailments. Basically, the shape and craftmanship of the bowl give it particular vibrating properties, which massage the body. He demonstrated this by filling one of the large meditation bowls with water and ran a mallet around the rim to make it "sing." The sound waves bounced through the bowl and made the water jump like little fireworks. He explained that since the human body is predominantly water, the bowl's vibrations create a similar effect with your body tissue when you hold the bowl up to the body and vibrate it, enabling the body to relax, thus opening your chakra. We're not sure how much of it we buy into, but when our friend demonstrated this on us, we did feel good and relaxed, and also really in-the-moment, similar to how you would feel if someone gave you a quality back rub. He then explained the seven chakras: you have a crown-of-the-head chakra, for your brain and thoughts; your third eye chakra for healthy eyes, ears, nose and mouth; your throat chakra, for a healthy voice; your heart chakra, for a healthy heart and lungs; a chakra below that for kidneys and spine; a chakra for your intestines; and a chakra for your lower extremities. He also explained that the right side of your body is the male energy, and the left side is the feminine energy. Thus according to legend, Buddha was born not of traditional delivery, but rather was born through the left armpit of his mother. Yes. I said armpit. Not kidding. But when you think about it, this is all not wholly dissimilar to Christ's virgin birth.

The last thing our friend taught us was about prayer wheels. They're everywhere here around temples and stupas, and basically you are supposed to walk clockwise around the structure in question and spin them as a form of meditation. They're pictured below in a few different places. We've circled several temples and stupas now, making a point to spin all the prayer wheels. And I can confidently say we at least partially get it. There's something extremely peaceful about just walking and spinning one prayer wheel after another, after another, after another. I'm sure we've just dipped our toes into the ocean that is Hinduism and Buddhism but Seth and I have both just really enjoyed zenning out with it. There's a meditation song that's always played (and sold on CDs) around these temples, and I found it on youtube! So here it is:
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gx1SrxDwxXo
The words are "Om Mani Padme Hum" (just like the title, duh) and bring it all back in a ... CIRCLE... (eh? Eh???) those are the names of the different stages of life on the circle of life.

Finally, after seeing some more temples in Patan and drinking some more masala tea (we are officially hooked on chai), we headed over to the Boudha stupa. A stupa is like a burial mound for the creamated remains of significant individuals, and you can usually find one in front of every Hindu temple. The more sacred you are, the bigger your stupa. The Boudha stupa supposedly contains some of the ashes of the Buddha himself, so you can imagine how enourmous it is. According to the pamphlet, whoever walks around it (which takes about 6 minutes, as long as you don't stop to buy anything, which is hard) enough times, or does enough nice things for the stupa, will get what they want in the next life or just get their wishes granted. Just a preview of a very big paragraph: "All of those who circumambulate it will acquire the seven qualities of the higher existences. Whoever makes entreaties to it will effortlessly accomplish the two purposes. All of those who make offerings to it will be born in a place that knows no drought. Whoever offers flowers will be sure to obtain an excellent human birth with al of the conditions required for the practice of Dharma." Etc. etc. etc. It goes on and on.

So that brings us to now, Wednesday morning. A few cultural observations before I... PEACE OUT. Oh man I have to stop.
- They turn off the electricity twice per day, city-wide here, for about 2-3 hours. These hours seem to rotate (every day each one starts about an hour earlier), but luckily they don't turn off the wifi in the hostel. Everybody seems to have a back-up gas-powered generator for the necessary stuff during those times.
- On a related note, our hostel has one functioning outlet, and Seth and both use our devices a lot for reading, taking pictures, writing the blog, etc. So we are constantly charging something, when there is electricity anyway.
- Our hostel room is old. The ceilings are high, the wallsare eggshell blue, we have a wooden wardrobe and an enormous window overlooking the street of Thamel, and the window isn't very sound-proof, so we always hear something like honking or pigeons or rain. There's a fan on the wall, and a non-functioning outlet below it, but the fan chord doesn't seem to be able to reach the non-functioning outlet. I don't get it. We also have a huge skeleton key for getting in and out. Honestly, I love it. Ants and all.
- Someone tried to sell Seth drugs! Actually three people. Within about thirty minutes That's pretty common in this area. There was a cop right there. Seth told them to get the hell away from him.
- Just like your favorite yoga teacher, everyone, EVERYONE here greets each other with "namaste" and then says it when you leave too, like a "peace be with you" kinda thing.