A couple of volunteers and I from the hostel are out on our official sightseeing trip of Katmandhu. We are at our first stop, The Tempel of of Pashupatinath, which honors the God Shiva. People are running through the enormous flock of pigeons who have claimed their own area of the temple, and our own driver from the hostel starts playing kick with some of the goats.
The hostel workers are not allowed to act as our tourguides, but discreetly show us different areas of the temple so as to not just be dropping us off. Pratima, who is also our Nepali teacher, leads the way to the crematorium which makes up a rather large part. The closer we get, the more it smells like fire and smoke. I don’t make the connection that its coming from the crematorium before Pratima points it out to us. We are on a bridge, and we see the actual fire now, something I had assumed would be behind walls. There is a small procession of people gathered on the outskirts of it, and a few who are tending to it. Its our second full day in Nepal, and we are watching bodies being burned.
So as to not be mistaken for our tourguides, Pratima and our driver leaves us for 30 minutes and we explore the premisces on our own. We walk up nearly all of the steps around the temples, and its beautiful. We see more monkeys, more monks, we see artists and tourits. At the end, we walk pass the crematorium once more to get back to Pratima and our driver, and near the end of it a man approaches us. He asks where we are from, and a volunteer from germany tells him his nationality. He turns at me, still walking along side us, and says “Guten Tag” with a strong Nepali accent and smile. I tell him that I am from Denmark, not Germany, and to my surprise he then shoots off a few Danish phrases. I am impressed, and I laugh and am about to answer, but the man pulls me out of the way as a carriage is coming right at us. “Dead body coming,” he says, and we stand back to let it pass through to the crematorium. I try not to look, afraid to see something I don’t want to, but as it passes our view I see only a hint of the white sheet that is hoisted above as a kind of tent, and flowers sticking out. After the carriage has passed the man leaves us again and we continue down the temple and find Pratima and Mr. Sujan waiting.
This Friday, a few volunteers and I are going back to Pashupatinath for the first time to celebrate Maha Shiva Ratri, a large hindu festival honoring the God Shiva. Several traditions have been told to me (still unsure how large a percentage is true or not), including naked holy men, weed smoking, money being given to women, men being tied up, roads being blocked off with rope by civilians, and, of course, more than 2 million people gathering at Pashupatinath to worship Shiva.
