After leaving Cafe Cheeno and all of its wonder we hopped on a
microbus and headed across to the village of Thamel where we could see the
monkey temple, Swayambhu. Upon arrival to Thamel we now had to find the temple,
weaving our way though the busy aged streets, asking show owners if we were
headed in the right direct, the common response being yes and just a unclear
wave in the general direction we were heading. We trekked down the alleys,
passing butcheries with counters of decapitated goat heads, and walked
alongside children pushing old bike tires with sticks, laughing about how
surreal that was. Finally after about a half hour of walking towards the
distant temple we could see in the clouds above the buildings we found
ourselves at the base of many stairs.
All around us music was playing and monkeys were jumping from
statue to statue. We began our climb up the many steps that would bring us to
the temple in the sky, passing stalls selling silver cuffs and singing bowls.
The only thing I can directly compare these stairs to is the ski jumps at home
and how we would run them for track and how thrillingly terrifying it was.
Puffing along with Steven at my heels we fell into concentrated silence, our
only thoughts: make it to the top and, why did I wear pants today. Then at
last, there it was, the Stupa. Walking around the side we saw the magnificent
view, the best I had seen since arriving in Nepal, laughing at our own naivety
in thinking our rooftop view was beautiful. After spending some time walking through
all of the temples, bowing to all of the gods, and laughing at all of the
clever little monkeys we decided to head back down. Only then did we really
realize the how steep the steps really were, making it to the bottom in but a
few jumps, or what seemed like anyway. We met back with Cara at the base and
found a microbus that would take us directly back to Chabahil, or so we
thought.
The thing about microbuses is that they are not
exactly taken for the convenience of the journey... more for the cheapness of
the ride. The most you should pay on a microbus is 20 rupees, but on average it
is 15 rupees to get where you need to go, that is less than 15-20 cents for a
15-30 minute ride. So we get on this bus and we have lots of room, but not for
long. Soon there are more people in this thing than you ever thought possible.
I found myself squeezed into a corner, practically sitting on this girl around
my ages lap, both of us in extremely close proximity to a middle aged man with
a very active phone and social life apparently, and a little old Nepali women
that had decided to bring all of her groceries home by microbus. So we rode on
for about 20 minutes, people coming and going of all shapes and sizes, smells
and ages. Then we realize... we were right back where we started, in the
village of Thamel... we had literally just done a 20-minute loop. We
stagger off the bus and onto another one, this time going to the right place.
Finallyyy after what feels like an eternity we get off at our desired stop and
slightly carsick, walk back to the hostel. Later that night I met my last housemate Kai, a Vietnamese boy from Germany. It is his 4th time in Nepal and he is here to help children in need with donations he had collected since his last visit. All in all it was a pretty exhausting, cram-packed day...
But
what an adventure it was.
No comments:
Post a Comment