Dhapasi to Pashupati

A sunset with the mist rolling in over the mountains from the west, taken from my roof

The past few days in Nepal have been busy. On Thursday I was able to visit Bouda (pronounced BOH-duh) and Pashupati. Bouda is one of the most important temples in the Buddhist religion, very important for Tibetans. There’s a HUGE stupa (the biggest one I’ve seen) and a very lovely temple within the area. Pashupati is a Hindu temple and park and is along the Pashupati river. This place has a really weird myth around it that I just have to share… Shiva (the god who it’s dedicated to and the “main” Hindu god) was chillin’ in Pashupatinath as a deer with a shiny silver horn for a while, but the other gods got worried when he didn’t come back for so long, so they went to look for him and broke off his horn. They buried it, and then many years later, a farmer lived on the land. He noticed that one of his cows dropped a little milk on the same spot every day, and that ticked him off because he wanted the milk, so he dug up the spot where she dropped the milk, and lo and behold, the horn that the gods had buried so long ago had become a fiery phallus. (???!?!) So that’s where the temple is built, and along the Pashupati river there is a deer park, of course, and it’s also where Hindus cremate their dead.

The giant stupa at Bouda

The temple at BoudaThe bank of the Pashupati River where families cremate their deadThe main Pashupati temple to Shiva, where the mark of the fiery phallus is housed
The small temples, all to Shiva, at Pashupati. There's always a docile bull (Shiva was the Master of the animals)sitting in front of them, facing the west I think.

The next day I got to go to the Durbar Patan area--the big Nepali market, not the touristy Thamel area, although I did get to go there (not including it on here… just imagine Bloomington with less drunks and more Nepalis). It was really neat because it’s all these old temples and buildings--they honestly look like they’re from the 19th century at least--they’re falling apart and melting into the ground really, but there’s shops in all of them and windy roads and tiny alleys. It’s pretty neat.

The really old temples in a courtyard surrounded by markets.

Some of the old dilapidated buildings and the markets

Saturday was spent with Papa’s kids, who are awesome. It’s so neat to see kids who have so little, and yet education for them is an opportunity and something exciting instead of a chore. After everything they’ve been through, it melts your heart when you see where they’re at now; one of the volunteers here interviewed a couple of them--she’s a writer--and when she asked what they liked most about being at Papa’s house one of the little boys said “Papa’s love.” Seriously, I’m not making this shit up. If you eat that kind of thing up, there’s plenty more where it came from, and if you want to donate (or volunteer!), please please please visit The Nepal Orphans Home Website.

Me with two of Papa's girls

Two of the cutest kids you'll ever meet, Gita and Rajan