Kathmandu

Tuesday, 27 October

The day began in Pokhara. Before we left the hotel, our guide Muku came to see us off. A kind and heartfelt gesture. I hope we meet again. If not, the memories stay and there is plenty to talk about.

“Relax, take it simple.”

In the morning I went down to Phewa Lake once more. Full moon, boats, hot air balloons and the rising sun. Pokhara thanked me for coming and gave me this view in return.

The full moon had been the day before at 09:57. That morning the Moon was 98.8% lit and at sunrise, 06:17, still 12 degrees above the western horizon. The balloons are flown by Balloon Nepal, the only such company in Nepal. A flight lasts about half an hour and the basket takes up to eight people. In winter 2024/25 a foreigner paid $150 (≈ 22,785 rupees, ≈ €134).

In Kathmandu we stayed in the Tibetan quarter of Boudha this time. Very intense, but I liked it more than Thamel, the backpacker district where we stayed at the start of the trip. Hotel Dolmaling was about 400 metres from the great stupa. A double room for two nights cost 17,285 rupees in total (≈ €102, ≈ $114).

Boudha Stupa is up to 36 metres tall, the largest spherical stupa in Nepal. The present structure is probably 14th-century, but Newar chronicles mention a stupa here as early as the 5th century. It was inscribed as World Heritage in 1979. The 2015 earthquake cracked the tower. The stupa reopened on 22 November 2016; the repair cost $2.1 million and used more than 30 kilos of gold.

On the four sides of the tower are the all-seeing eyes of the Buddha. The question-mark “nose” is the Nepali numeral 1, a sign of unity. Thirteen steps stand for thirteen stages to enlightenment. After the 1959 Tibetan uprising refugees settled around the stupa, and today there are more than 50 monasteries here.

People walk around the stupa clockwise, past an endless row of shops. A friendly man invited us in and took us to the second floor, a room full of antiques. The air was thick with incense. The combination worked on me so well that I left with a brass figurine.

The lion rests a paw on a ball. In the Chinese guardian lion tradition this marks the male and stands for power over the world. In Tibet the lion is the snow lion, Tibet’s emblem, which appeared on coins, stamps and the flag from 1909 to 1959. It stands for fearlessness and joy and carries the Buddha’s throne. In Nepal temple lions are called singha.

There were crowds, many praying, and plenty of self-appointed gurus. A bearded “guru” explained the Wheel of Life to women enchanted by Buddhism. Both sides enjoyed it. That is probably how it should be.

In the same building mantras were chanted to big drums and horns. A very powerful experience.

In the Wheel of Life the wheel is held by Yama, lord of death. At the hub are a pig, a snake and a bird: ignorance, anger and desire. Around them are the six realms of existence, from gods to hell, and on the rim the twelve links of dependent origination. Outside, the Buddha points to the moon: there is a way out. It is painted on the wall of nearly every Tibetan temple.

For dinner on the main street I had coriander chicken and lemon-ginger tea, 735 rupees in all (≈ €4.32, ≈ $4.84). Then I went for a longer walk. I kept to the lit main street, because the side streets were dark and on the first evening I had no wish to dive into them. First impression: a cool place, different, a great many motorbikes.

Towards 20:30 everyone hurried away. It felt as if the street would belong to someone else after dark. But that was probably only a feeling.

We went to bed early. At five in the morning we had to be ready to go and see Everest.

Wednesday, 28 October

The sky was clear. The whole outing, hotel to hotel, took three hours.

Those sitting on the left saw the mountains first. The flight attendants handed out a leaflet so we could put names to the peaks. Once the left side had had its turn, the plane turned around. It turned so that we on the right saw the mountains a little closer. The camera had to be ready straight away.

Then the view opened up. What a massif, and what power. Everest stood proudly, higher than the rest. At first it seemed that mountains are just mountains. Only later, looking at the photos, did I understand that this is a special place. I would like to meet him again.

The flight was Buddha Air U4-100, departing at 06:15. The ticket cost 42,470 rupees per person (≈ €250, ≈ $280); eight of our group went. The plane was an ATR 72, registration 9N-ANZ. From where I photographed Everest, the summit was 42 kilometres away. Everest is 8,849 metres, Lhotse 8,516, Makalu 8,485 and Cho Oyu 8,188.

Everest seen, a completely new experience awaited us.

Pashupatinath is Nepal’s holiest Shiva temple. Below it flows the Bagmati, brown and slow, as if in no hurry to get anywhere. Stone steps, the ghats, lead down into the river. On these steps, the earthly life of the people here comes to an end.

We stopped and watched one person’s last journey.

The deceased was brought from the morgue on a metal frame. Here the dead are meant to reach the pyre within a day, so the body had probably waited in the morgue only until the family could gather. Gently it was lifted onto the bank, onto the lowest steps, where the river nearly touches your feet. Behind sheets, the relatives removed the clothes. No one hurried. The feet were dipped into the Bagmati, the body washed with the holy river’s water. Then came the colour: face and head covered in red, the same red used here to bless gods and the living. No goodbye was said. A blessing was given.

Orange shroud. Marigolds. Family all around, so close we could have reached out a hand.

Then the body was lifted onto a bamboo frame that looked like a simple ladder and carried to a stone platform. The pyre was already waiting. Everything happened quietly and surely. It has been done here for centuries.

And then came the moment no one can be ready for. The body was laid on the pyre. The fire was lit.

We left. As we climbed the steps, an ambulance stopped by the ghat. The next one was lifted out. One journey was ending, another had already begun. The circle did not pause even for a moment.

It felt heavy. At home we hide death behind hospital walls and coffin lids. Here it burns in daylight, on the riverbank, among people. The ashes go into water that flows to the Ganges and on to the ocean.

The mind understands. Here life and death are not opposites but two halves of the same circle. The heart needs a little more time.

Pashupatinath is Nepal’s most important Shiva temple, on the banks of the Bagmati. Arya Ghat, below the temple, was once the cremation place of royalty and high-status Hindus; Bhasmeshwor Ghat, further south, is open to everyone. The body is washed with Bagmati water and wrapped in yellow or orange cloth. The red powder is most likely abir, offered to gods and worn by the living as a blessing, a sign of life and good fortune. A married woman may be given sindoor, the vermilion worn in the hair parting. The pyre is usually lit by the eldest son, starting at the head. Hindu custom is to cremate within a day; the ashes go into the Bagmati, which reaches the Ganges via the Kamala and the Kosi. The deceased must be registered before reaching the ghat; the fee is 200 rupees (≈ €1.18, ≈ $1.32).

A day ticket to Pashupatinath costs a foreigner 1,000 rupees (≈ €5.88, ≈ $6.58). Nepali and Indian citizens enter free. The ticket does not open the main temple, which only Hindus may enter; everyone else sees it from across the river, on the eastern bank. The money goes to the Pashupati Area Development Trust (PADT), a body set up under a 1987 act. It looks after the temples of the UNESCO heritage area, runs the daily worship and the cremations, and keeps an old people’s home. As of 2020 the trust was spending about 130 million rupees a year on reconstruction, gardens, waiting places for pilgrims and preparing a Bagmati embankment. According to the Kathmandu Post, its income in 2023 was 750 million rupees, yet many temples damaged in the 2015 earthquake were still unrepaired. In 2009 the ticket was 500 rupees, and 250 before that.

From Pashupatinath we walked straight onto the noisiest street yet. Horns, motorbikes, vendors calling out. Life at full volume.

In front of the houses, an arm’s length from the door, brass lotuses were set into the paving stones, covered in red powder and grains of rice. In Newar, the language of the Kathmandu Valley’s indigenous people, this is a pikhaalakhu, the stone of the house’s guardian deity. It is worshipped as Kumar, as Ganga or as Kshetrapal Bhairav, the guardian of the house. In the mornings the women of the house leave their offering there before going to the temple. When a new house is built, copper coins are laid under the stone.

By the river a person was burning. A couple of hundred metres away, a threshold was being blessed. Here the gods are underfoot too.

It was lunchtime, so we stepped into a small street eatery serving momos: Nepali dumplings with spicy achar on the side. They were delicious. Seven momos and a Pepsi came to 190 rupees (≈ €1.12, ≈ $1.25). Another experience.

On the way we passed a stall pressing fresh pineapple juice. 100 rupees (≈ €0.59, ≈ $0.66). A next-to-nothing price for a superb taste.

Thursday, 29 October

And so it was time to say goodbye to Nepal. An early-morning walk through the streets of Boudha convinced me even more that I would not want to stay here any longer than this. Been there, seen it.

Two buses we had ordered took us to the international airport, 450 rupees per person (≈ €2.65, ≈ $2.96), 6,300 rupees for the 14 of us. From there we flew on to Delhi.

First came a whole series of checks. One at the entrance, then a ticket check. Checked bags had to be X-rayed before check-in; until then nobody was let through. At check-in they inspected my Indian visa, running a finger along every line to make sure nothing differed. The ticket and passport check at the border was the quickest of all, but that still wasn’t the end. One stamp was missing from my boarding pass, and a separate person dealt with just that. Before the aircraft door, one more bag inspection and search, to be sure no one had picked up anything metal in the airport.

The IndiGo plane, though, deserves praise: clean, with young and very attentive cabin crew. A good standard.