Thursday we spent the day visiting two religious sites, one Hindu and the other Buddhist. The first place we went was a scared Hindu temple Pashupatinath. We did not go into the temple as you have to be Hindu. The temple is golden and is quite old although we were not told exactly how old. Inside is a stone shaped like Shiva that was not carved but self materialized from a piece of Shiva's horn when he spent time as a goat. But the main attraction at this site is the burning ghats along the river. This is where the people of Kathmandu bring their dead to be cremated. There were some fires underway but we spent our time watching a family build the funneral pyre for a family member. The bodies are wrapped in orange cloths and covered with marigolds after death.
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| Pashupatinath |
We then moved on to one of my favourite places, the stupa at Boudhanath. We spent some time again spinning prayer wheels and just taking in the atmosphere before having some lunch and heading home.
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| The stupa |
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| Ali and the giant prayer wheel |
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| Prayer flags in the wind |
The story in tourist book on the stupa is that a women went to the king to get some land to make an offering to Buddha using her savings from raising poultry. The king said that she could have a piece of land that would be the size of the area covered by one water buffalo skin. The women took a buffalo skin and cut it into small strips and laid them end to end to get the site that is there today.
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