Nepal: Kathmandu diaries, day by day

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24. 09. 2011 Kathmandu (NEPAL)

Etihad's Airbus 330 sets its landing gear down on the soil of this ancient Himalayan kingdom... We are in Nepal!

Arriving in a place like this after so many hours of flying, with no lights, just chaos, mud, potholes in the road, mad honking and rain, was not much fun. Ishu, the Nepalese girl who, with her family, will host us for a few days in this city, welcomes us warmly.

It is late at night when, like two mummies wrapped in our sleeping bags, we close our eyes and wait for the new day.

25. 09. 2011 Kathmandu (NEPAL)

Thamel Square welcomes us with its little streets soaked in people and mud. Durbar Square gives a sense of what this small kingdom was like in the past. So many small shrines, pagodas, Hindu temples... you only had to close your eyes to be carried by your imagination to far-off enchanted places...

26. 09. 2011 Kathmandu (NEPAL)

The days begin to fly by and we become more and more part of this background. The honking of vehicles in the street hardly deafens us any more, and we no longer even notice whether we are walking in mud or whether a cow passes beside us.

The Pashupatinath sanctuary impressed me. Hindus are a truly "folkloric" people. They worship many multi-coloured gods of the most varied forms and seem to rejoice with little.

I found a couple's scene so touching; they must have been my age, and after reciting many rituals that are strange to us Westerners, taught by a holy man with long rasta hair and the classic red "tikal" on his forehead, they gathered all the remains of the rite into a large leaf and, with great hope, let it go on the steep and dirty waters of the Bagmati river.

Seeing, for the first time, a body burning on a ghat had a certain effect on me.

The saying is truly right: "you are dust and to dust you shall return". Innocent children dived into the dirty river water, and a few dozen metres further on preparations were being made for yet another cremation.

27. 09. 2011 Kathmandu (NEPAL)

Bodnath projected us back in time. The enormous white stupa at the centre of the sacred site dominated the scene. All around, many bells of every shape and sacred objects to be spun clockwise by pushing them with your hands.

continues on