Marek Nepal is the gateway to the Himalayas. This is very visible during landing. It is not easy, smooth and pleasant. The pilot does a lot of tricks to hit the airport, while avoiding the surrounding mountains. How difficult this task is can be seen in the large number of wrecks scattered around the runway.
After landing, it turns out that the English language is not very good here. Even immigration officials are not very good at questioning newcomers. The one who serves us, undeterred by the fact that we came here for tourist purposes, punches work visas into our passports.
Nepal, like India, is a highly spiritual but poor country. This is evidenced by the large number of not very well-maintained temples and the fact that the country celebrates over 200 religious holidays every year. If each of them was a day off, then after deducting holidays and weekends, the average Nepalese would spend about 3 days at work.
Poverty is of course related to the fact that the country is ruled by the communist party. The Maoists drove out the kings 17 years ago. But it was not better under the monarchy. The richest citizen, the king, was barely as wealthy as the average representative of the middle class in Europe.
Wandering around the city, we decide to hire a guide. A noisy tout helps us in this, presenting us with the candidacy of a silent, pimply teenager. He even speaks a little English, but his vocabulary is limited to: “yes, no”, “this is a temple”, “go inside and look”.
Thanks to him, we know that what looks like a temple is a temple.
After the second or third temple, praised to us in the way described above, our “guide” is fired from his job. He shrugs, takes out his cell phone and starts scrolling. Work is a waste of time, since there are so many interesting things on the Internet.
An elderly man accosts us. Fluent (well, almost fluent) English. He tells us that although he does not have the qualifications of a guide, he is an art historian by education. BINGO. “How much is your service” I ask, “You will pay at your discretion when we are done” he replies.
We set off on a trip around the city. We immediately deviate from the original course. It turns out that apart from strictly touristy areas, Kathmandu is also a completely different world. Enchanted, one could say. Locals resting in front of their old houses and not a single tourist.
Following our guide, shortening the way, sometimes passing through someone’s yard, other times breaking through the bushes growing on the river bank, we get to know more and more interesting places. At some point, we come across a funeral. The body of the deceased is carried by mourners in a cacaphony of sounds made by long trumpets, fighting for priority with bells. The entire funeral procession stretches for several hundred meters. The mourners are going quite quickly.
“They go to the river” explains our guide, “there is already a funeral pyre waiting on which the body will be burned”. “Is this what every funeral in Nepal looks like?”, “yes, if we had the money, we would cremate our dead in India in Varanasi, but the high costs mean that we cannot afford it”.
“The family of the deceased was not rich, as most families living in our country”, our guide points to the burning pyre, “for this they mainly use straw and found pieces of wood. In the old days, we used precious wood. The souls of our dead rose to heaven together with the aromatic smell of burnt sandalwood”
Almost no one from the crowd of mourners remained at the burning pyre. Only a few people sit here to make sure that the fire does not go out. They talk normally among themselves, joke, laugh. It is not the family of the deceased, but people hired to cremate the body. Despite their “undignified” behavior, we feel an atmosphere of sadness and longing. We wish the deceased that despite the fact that the ceremony does not take place in Varanasi, he will achieve Nirvana.
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