Living La Vida Loca

I awoke at 5am to a chorus of bells and barking dogs, with some bird songs chiming in. Being on the grounds of a monastery that sits in the midst of a huge and bustling city, I shouldn’t have been surprised at any of this. I’d had a restful night’s sleep in any case.

The Guest House has a nice little café that served simple but tasty local foods all day and into the evening, so it was our morning gathering spot. Julia, Laura’s lovely daughter, and Shellie – my dear buddy from our Seattle days – arrived with warm greetings.  Then I met Tara, from rural Ohio, who is a sweet soul with very little travel experience. This was a big adventure for her coming so far and “solo” and she was clearly moved at the outset, not only by the openness of the people here, but the feeling of victorious conquest that she has doing things she never thought she could or would do. Tara became our “travel warrior” – willing to try anything and soaking in experiences.

 

I met Claudia last, El Salvadorian by birth who lives in the San Gabriel Valley in California. She works for a nonprofit that provides services for victims of domestic violence, and the very poor who need support. Claudia is well traveled and clearly had her own rhythm and style of dealing with a group dynamic. It was really wonderful by the end of our time together that this small but diverse group bonded beautifully…really a gift to us all!

Breakfast for me was wheat toast and a couple of over easy eggs with the most yummy ginger lemon honey tea. The latter soon became a great favorite – very soothing and very tasty. Laura and introduced me to the Nepalese version of yogurt served in clay pots. It’s super creamy and supposedly naturally sweet – quite a delicacy.

There are 400 Monks living at the monastery, from ages five and up. From what I could see the sleeping rooms had a set of bunkbeds in each room – quite simple and clean. The monks went about their day in their robes and shaved heads, really paying no mind to us. We did stop into a local small temple inside the monastery itself where some Canadian visitors were chanting together. Laura was quite surprised and had never seen anyone but the monks using that space before.

We headed out in our minivan into the cacophonous market area of the city called the Asan District. It reminded me very much of the most densely crowded business areas in the Gothic District in Barcelona, or the market area we went through in Istanbul – pretty much anything you wanted to buy you could find somewhere in the Asan.

Adding to the experience today was all the ongoing festivities related to the festival of light. The streets were filled with marching bands and representative people from different tribes dressed in festival regalia. Add to that a constant stream of trucks and vans filled with merry-making mostly young people either dancing on the tops of the vans or hopping off and spontaneously beating drums and cymbals in the middle of the street. A real case of sensory overload.

Along the way we picked up a Himalayan artist, a friend of Laura’s, who joined us for the rest of the day. Chering’s life story is quite incredible. Now in his mid 20s, he lives in Kathmandu and does his artwork. He grew up on a yak farm deep in the Himalayas. His family farms yaks for their fur, milk, etc., and his parents and brother still live in the mountains. When he goes to visit them, it’s a two-week trek, pulling luggage and supplies, camping out.  His art, displayed at the Aloft hotel in town, reflects images of life in the town of his birth, and tells stories of their culture, religious beliefs, and community. I purchased one of his small paintings done on tree bark of a beautiful young woman dressed in traditional garb.

We then went on to visit the UNESCO Heritage site that includes the royal palace complex once inhabited by the Royal family. Some of the buildings were badly destroyed in the big earthquakes a few decades ago, and some have been reconstructed. There are remnants of ornate wood carved beams and windows and doors that are no longer allowed to be produced because of how expensive they are, but it appears that the remnants are cherished.

Our next and last stop for the day was at what is called the “monkey temple” because there are hundreds of wild monkeys that occupy the surrounding forests and temple grounds.

The pinnacle of this area includes side-by-side a Buddhist stupa and a Hindu temple. The view of the surrounding city of Kathmandu was incredible as we were fortunate to be up high on a very clear day.

Residents of the monkey temple area also include a number of street dogs who did their best to steer clear of the monkeys. These dogs appeared well fed, and very content most of the time to simply bask in the sun or shade or watch the world go by. Apparently, the monkeys and dogs are taken good care of by the community.

At this point, I was quite tired, but when we got back to the monastery, we did a yoga class on the roof of the actual monastery boarding house with a Nepalese teacher. Laura had special yoga mat covers made for each of us, which are just beautiful. I was glad that the class was mainly basic breathing and stretching techniques and it put me in a lovely meditative state. I managed to have a vegetable and tofu stir fry with a bit of rice and some ginger tea before heading to bed – I really slept well!