Editor’s note: Nepal is a place few have been able to visit, and we are so lucky that TRT writer Sam was one of those so fortunate, and that he’s sharing his experience here with us. Today we have part one, focusing on his time in Kathmandu, the capital and largest city. For more of Sam’s writing, click here to visit his index page.

While for many people, planning trips is stressful, for me, it alleviates stress. It is fun to piece a trip together like a puzzle and, on the contrary, turning the reigns over entirely to someone else to do so requires a lot of trust, loss of control, and gives me anxiety. However, for the first time, I did just that for a solo trip and let Swotah Travel in Nepal plan my entire trip to the Himalayan nation; they did a fantastic job! As a rabbi in Utah, I decided to go to Nepal as part of my sabbatical to learn about how mountains can impact spirituality and the techniques of monks to reduce stress. My seven days in Nepal were entirely in the Kathmandu Valley, with Kathmandu being the capital and largest city of Nepal with a city population of 900,000 and metropolitan area of over 3 million.

In Kathmandu, a good place to base yourself is the Thamel neighborhood. This area is full of restaurants, nightlife, and souvenir shops and felt very safe. While Nepal is not a large country (it has around 30 million people in a country the size of Alabama), it has 142 distinct caste and ethnic groups, leading the people to look many ways. One of the indigenous groups to the Kathmandu Valley is the Newari people, and in Thamel they have several restaurants, which tourists should try. The Kathmandu Valley is home to seven UNESCO World Heritage Sites, and on my first full day in Nepal I visited four of them: two Buddhist stupas, a Hindu temple complex, and a Durbar Royal Square. While 81% of Nepal’s population is Hindu, the 9% Buddhist population of the nation is significant, especially as many Hindus incorporate Buddhist teachings into their practices and that the Buddha himself was born in what is today the Nepali province of Lumbini.

The first stop that I made on my tour of Kathmandu was to the Swayambhunath Stupa, better known to tourists as the Monkey Temple, due to the large population of macaque monkeys that call it home. At Swayambhunath, there are numerous temples and little stupas with a large stupa in the middle. The complex and stupas are located on top of a hill and are a center of pilgrimage for many Buddhists and considered to be one of the holiest Buddhist sites for the Newari, as numerous Buddhas are said to have visited the site over thousands of years, including the Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama) having delivered a sermon there. According to Buddhist mythology, this site was once a lake filled with serpents, but one of the Buddhas drained the lake and carved new lakes in the area for snakes to reside so that people could journey here to pay homage. The large stupa is surrounded by five Buddha statues and dates back thousands of years. In 2010 it was regilded with 20 kg of gold for the top, while the bottom is painted white. There are prayer flags connected to the top of the stupa and each side of the stupa has the Eyes of Buddha painted on it.  The hilltop stupa is a great first one to visit as it gives beautiful views of Kathmandu.

The second Buddhist stupa to be a UNESCO Site is the Boudhanath Stupa. At 118 feet tall and 328 feet wide, this is one of the largest stupas in the world and is in a mandala shape. The Boudhanath Stupa site dates to the 5th century CE, while the current stupa is likely from the 14th century. Supposedly, this stupa is where Tibetan Buddhism originates and it contains the bones of two different Buddhas. The massive stupa is surrounded by buildings and restaurants, where you can enjoy a Nepali lunch while taking in the incredible view of the stupa and watch pilgrims pray and prostrate themselves 108 times as they move in a counterclockwise circle around the stupa. Here and at other Buddhist temples, there are prayer wheels that you can spin three times for good luck. The Boudhanath Stupa is considered so holy that airplanes do not even fly over it as to not interfere with the place where heaven meets earth, as the stupa represents.

In the city of Kathmandu itself, the third UNESCO site is Kathmandu Durbar Square. There are three of these royal squares in the Kathmandu Valley, all of which are among the seven UNESCO sites. Between the 4th and 8th centuries, this square developed as the royal palace complex for the Newari kingdom. It has gained more prominence in recent centuries as the many kingdoms became unified with a capital in Kathmandu. In 2001, the world was shocked when the crown prince of Nepal allegedly (there are many conspiracy theories among the Nepalis) massacred nearly the entire royal family including his parents before taking his own life. The monarchy was formally abolished in 2008. There are numerous wooden temples in the square in pagoda-style architecture, the highest one being the nine-story Nautalle, which you can climb for beautiful views of the city, including the next door market and Freak Street, a street named for the pot-smoking American backpacking hippies who visited in the 1960s and 1970s. Another prominent structure is the Kasthamanap wooden temple. The original building dated to the 7th century; however, sadly, nearly all the UNESCO sites that I am mentioning were severely damaged in the April 2015 7.9 magnitude Nepali earthquake, which left 9000 dead and 3.5 million homeless. The Kasthamanap was completely leveled and those inside at the time died. However, it was reconstructed and the copper plates from the 14th century were recovered and placed in the new building. In the Durbar Square, some buildings have wooden carvings that are hundreds of years old depicting graphic sexual acts from the Kama Sutra, including with multiple sexual partners. My guide explained to me that this was done so that children could come and learn about sex from these images and be more educated for adulthood, a stark contrast to the attitude of Utah, where I live.

The most fascinating place in the Kathmandu Durbar Square was the palace of the Kumari. The Kumari is a living goddess – there are four of them in Nepal – and they are considered the most important people in the country, who the president even seeks advice from. Here is the surprising catch: each of the Kumaris are young girls, who are picked for this role at age 2 and remain the Kumari until they enter puberty. The current Kumari of Kathmandu is 3 years old and lives in a three-story palace away from her parents, where she has special tutors and all her needs taken care of and she only leaves her palace once a year for the Kumari festival. While imagining my own 3 year old daughter, I felt bad for this girl, but it was explained to me that the Kumari has a good life, that children are brought to play with her, that she is hypermature, and that she receives a lifetime pension once she is no longer the Kumari. While I took pictures of the exterior of the palace, a crowd emerged for the twice daily (12pm and 430pm) viewing of the Kumari, where she emerges on her balcony and waves to the crowd below and smiles at each person. As the greatest anticipation I have ever experienced to see a toddler mounted, multiple police came into the square and made sure everyone’s phones were put away so that nobody could take pictures of the Kumari (they do give you a postcard with her picture in full makeup and dress, though this is not how she appeared when we saw her). At noon, a little girl emerged smiling from the balcony and waved to the cheering onlookers below.

The final site that I visited of the Kathmandu UNESCO locations is Nepal’s holiest Hindu site, the Pashupatinath Temple, dedicated to a manifestation of the god Shiva. The complex has 518 mini-temples and a 5th century principal pagoda. It is located on the holy Bagmati River, where priests and holy men sit and will bless and pose for pictures (for a small contribution) with tourists. Right next to the temple is a hospice where people go to die, and within hours of their death they are taken down to the river, washed, and cremated. Cremations go on at all hours of the day and night, and visitors are welcome to watch from across the river the entire ritual, and even take pictures to be able to learn more about Hinduism. While my guide told me that some feel understandably uncomfortable or upset at witnessing this event, I felt a special privilege to be able to watch the concluding chapter of a person’s life.

When you ask people what they know about Nepal, the answer that often arises is Mount Everest, the world’s tallest peak at 29,031 feet. I had two disappointments about Kathmandu. First, and there is no other way to put this, their airport is garbage, easily the worst airport for a country’s primary airport I have been to. The screens on the televisions and the Wi-Fi do not work, and there is one coffee shop, meaning a long line, and no other restaurant. Make sure you bring a book if you must spend time here. The second was regarding the smog and the Himalayas. Kathmandu has the worst air pollution of any city in the world. Living in Salt Lake City, with over a million people in the metropolitan area and surrounded by beautiful mountains, the air pollution often gets trapped like a bowl and creates what is called an inversion. Kathmandu, with a much larger population, significantly taller mountains, and fewer emission requirements, has severe inversions that make it impossible to see the Himalayas accept after days of rain and wind. While in Kathmandu, for a few hundred dollars, it is worthwhile to wake up bright and early and take a trip with Buddha Air, a commercial airliner. Though you can do the same in a helicopter, this costs a couple thousand dollars. With Buddha Air, everyone is assigned a window seat as the pilot flies early in the morning in a one-hour loop around the Himalaya mountains at a cruising elevation of 25,000 feet, coming within 20 miles of the mountains. Being above the inversion level, you are given on clear days spectacular views of the world’s tallest peaks, including Everest. The flight attendant gives everyone a map with the names and elevations of each mountain and moves up and down the aisle pointing them out to each passenger. I had debated whether to do this and booked it literally the night before (I also wanted to wait last minute to ensure good weather), and I am glad that I did. Though it was not risking my life hiking Mount Everest, to see this mountain and its summit was truly a remarkable and deeply moving once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Everything I have written about so far was just through an action-packed first 36 hours in Kathmandu. As you can tell, there is a ton to do in this country, and I had an entire week where I focused on wellness just in the Kathmandu Valley (my next article). A journey to Nepal’s capital will give you an array of diversity of culture, food, history, and memories that will stay with you, all in an affordable place with kind people. If you want to experience the craziness of an Asian capital city with these things, head to Bangkok, but if you want to go at a more peaceful pace, head to Kathmandu.

Recommendations:

Swotah Travel & Adventures: https://www.swotahtravel.com/

Kathmandu guide: Sonika Rana, WhatsApp +977 9841501479 https://travelwithsonika.com/

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