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the K-YAVs see? The Kathmandu.
AKA Traveling! #5: Lumbini, Tansen, and Pokhara, Nepal
Day 6: Going to India, Temple, Buddha's Birthplace, Temple, Pagoda, Temple, Temple, Monastery, Temple, Peace Pagoda
Where's Lumbini, you
ask, and what's it's significance? Well,
it's about 100 miles directly west of Kathmandu, and northwest of Chitwan; it's
also the birthplace of Buddha! I think
this refers to the Buddha that was Siddhartha.
To read more about its history, click here. I could try to write what I remember of the
story, but it would be fraught with errors, and possibly accidentally offensive
to Buddhists, and I don't want that.
On the way there, we
made a quick stop in India to wave to our India YAV friends, hi!! Okay, so we did technically cross the border,
but our guide could only talk us through to customs before we had to turn
around.
When we arrived in
Lumbini, the first place we headed was the Mayadevi temple -- a building that's
been built over the actual birthsite.
Queen Mayadevi was the mother of Buddha, hence the name. To even enter the area around this temple, we
had to take off our shoes (which always makes me happy). The Mayadevi temple building itself encases
the ruins of some baths, including the one where Buddha was born. There's a marker on the exact spot, as well
as a nativity sculpture. Normally taking
pictures inside is strictly forbidden, but thanks to the presence of an
archaeological crew that day, we were allowed to snap a few.
Outside the building
we saw the ruins of stupas, a huge fichus tree that Buddha meditated under, and
the pillar proclaiming that the site is the birthplace of Buddha. The tree was especially awesome; it's huge
with strings of bright prayer flags woven through the branches and heading off
in every direction. When we walked
around it, there were also several monks sitting underneath, chanting. It gave the whole scene an extremely peaceful
feeling. The pillar was placed there a
long, long time ago, and its inscription says that Lumbini is the birthplace of
Buddha. I should read up on this more,
but I gather that this pillar is the proof of the site's authenticity.
In the expansive
gardens (woods) around the Mayadevi temple, many nations have built temples and
monasteries. We visited the ones from
Tibet, Burma, China, Korea, Thailand, Germany, and Japan. We walked by the Tibet one on the way to the
Mayadevi temple, and before we saw any of the others, so I didn't really have a
standard of comparison yet. The Burmese
pagoda is entirely covered in gold, so much gold… China's had a huge Buddha -- the fat, jolly,
laughing kind -- and we stood in the temple for awhile listening to monks
chanting and playing instruments.
Korea's is still under construction, but I liked how it looks on the
outside the best (maybe I've become biased).
Thailand's is exceptionally beautiful; it has intricate roof structure
and is entirely white on the outside. It
also had swarms of school kids who mobbed Anna S. for a picture. Germany's is the biggest, and many (not me)
think it's the most beautiful. We got it
right as it was closing, so we only got to peek around, but it was very direct
and impressive. It had very clear
statues depicting the life of Buddha as well as huge prayer wheels. Finally, Japan's is actually the World Peace
Pagoda. There's no inside, you walk
around the outside (clockwise, be respectful!) and look at the Buddha statues
on each of the four sides.
Day 7: Mountains, United Mission Hospital, Cloth weaving, and a Lake that isn't a Lake
The next day, we
took the long, crazy drive north to Tansen, gaining some serious altitude in
the process. The ride was five hours of
twisty roads up into the mountains along cliff sides. I couldn't help but watch the view for the
whole ride, ignoring Uncle Simon's warnings that this can cause severe motion
sickness. I didn't get motion sick, but
once we arrived at the hotel, I was beginning to feel funny. In Tansen, we visited the mission hospital
and met a few people that had worked with Uncle Simon. We got a tour of the facility (including an
awkward exchange about whether it was okay to walk through the maternity ward…)
and went on our way. Tansen is also one
of the places they still weave the traditional Nepali coth manually, so we got
to see that in action, too. Very cool,
and the looms were really intriguing to my engineer side. The next morning, we got a view of one of the
coolest things about Tansen, the White Lake.
This isn't really a lake at all, but a pool of morning fog that forms in
the valleys below Tansen, giving the appearance of a huge white lake from
above.
Day 8: To the Himalayas and Learning about Haggling in Pokhara
Finally, we headed
out for Pokhara! This is what I had been
looking forward to the whole trip!
Pokhara sits below the Annapurna range of the Himalayas, and you can
really see them very well there! Not Mt.
Everest, but still a peak over 8,000 meters high (Annapurna I at 8,091m =
26,545 feet!), with many more over 7,000m.
So we'll get to that, but first, the evening we arrived, we just
wandered and shopped and found a place for dinner. Sidebar: this is where we really learned/got
enthusiastic about haggling, because the shopkeepers made it so obvious that
you should. They'd ask a price higher
than what I'd expect, and then when I say no, they ask "what will you give
me?" Later, we also learned the
power of being willing to walk away, getting things at a half or third of the
original price. I had the idea of
haggling in my head as sort of a confrontational, uncomfortable exchange, but
it turns out it's pretty fun (at least in Nepal).
Day 9: The Moment We've All Been Waiting for: Viewing the Annapurna Range of the Himalayas
In the morning, we
got up well before the sun and headed up the hill to have a great vantage point
to watch the sunrise lighting up the mountains.
Unfortunately, none of us were feeling up to the whole hike at that point,
so we settled on the edge of a drop-off on the hill, with a large group of
Korean tourists on a rooftop next to us.
It was like the reverse of the Albuquerque sunset (the Annapurna range
was west of us), with the rising sun coloring the snowy peaks in pinks and
oranges. I just watched in wonder and
tried to capture it as well as I could with my camera.
Later that morning
we took a canoe ride on the Pokhara lake to an island in the middle with a
Hindu temple. Raz, Uncle Simon, and
Haejung Imo's canoe pilot was a nice man, pretty much what you'd expect, while
ours was his 11-year-old son. The temple
was interesting, though by this point in the trip I was pretty templed out, so
I preferred to look at the mountains reflecting in the lake.
To finish up the
trip, we took a flight back to Kathmandu where we put our new haggling skills
to good use for a few hours before getting one last dinner with the Park family
and flying home to Korea! On the flight from
Pokhara to Kathmandu, you really could see the mountain peaks poking up above
the clouds, so I took a lot of pictures.
Lots of pictures:
Sorry for the wait
on this last bit of the Nepal trip, I got very busy with travels to Indonesia,
Singapore, Japan, and a family visit in Korea!
Those blogs will be coming up shortly, and for those of you who are starting
to wonder if I just travel all the time... no I don't, and so I'll be getting
to my life here in Korea soon too! Thank
you all for reading, enjoy this video for getting all the way through Nepal with me!
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