Burning Desire For FIRE

Well, it was too cloudy for the sunrise. This was about as good as it got.

We were above the fog in the valley. We couldn’t see the lake!

It was a very early start, with a long drive out of the city and up a mountainside on a very narrow, winding road. It was pitch black, and the van’s little lawnmower engine laboured.

People would appear, walking down the road in their hotel uniforms, going to work on the breakfast shift. We arrived before the sunrise and headed up to the top.

At the end of 370 steps, we found this massive golden Ganesh. It was only installed a few months ago.

We were surrounded by hills and mountains. Some have snow on them all year round. Raj, our guide, said, “Anything below 5,000 metres is just a hill. Anything taller than that is a mountain and they all have names.”

We were on a hill – only 1,600 metres above sea level.

I liked the simplicity of this. There are 108 taps.

in Hinduism, the number 108 represents the absolute wholeness of creation, linking the human body, maths (ugh), and the universe.

At least, that’s what AI says. Why 108 was chosen to be so significant is anyone’s guess. I just think this looks like a piece of modern art.

As we were leaving, Janeen pointed out the rat at Ganesh’s feet. Raj said that the rat serves Ganesh as a protector, and also a mode of transport if he wants to go somewhere.

it’d work as a form of protection. I wouldn’t go anywhere near Ganesh if he had a bloody big rat near him.

Then it was back down the windy narrow road to Pokhara, where we visited the temple precinct of Bindabasini. This is the oldest temple precinct in Pokhara.

My stylish boots had to be left behind. It had rained overnight and the ground was wet, muddy and slippery. I wasn’t happy.

The legend goes that the king of this area wanted to establish a temple for Shiva. He had workers transporting the huge statue to the site he nominated. One night, after a long few days of lugging the statue around, they put it down and went to sleep.

When they woke up, they couldn’t pick up the statue again. When he heard this, they put it king decreed that the temple be built around the statue where it stood.
“There must be great power in this spot,” he said.

I knew who I was going to see inside this temple!

There were many fit young men visiting the various temples. This one is whispering his wishes to the bull, in the hope that he will then pass it on to Shiva.

His wish is almost certainly that he will be given a place in the Ghurka regiment in the British army. Or failing that, the Indian army. There are squads of young men all around Pokhara, running in their hotel uniforms streets and being trained in the parks, all hoping to be selected. It’s one of the few ways they can earn a decent living and get a good wage.

Just as we jumped into the van, the rain came. We sped off to breakfast.
A word of warning for the coffee drinkers: so far all we’ve been offered at hotel breakfasts is instant coffee. This current hotel has the Nepalese equivalent of International Roast. 😩

Thank goodness I brought some coffee bags with me!

Because we elected to fly to Pokhara instead of drive, we had time to see a lot more things that weren’t on the itinerary. Turns out that The Nepalese love them a temple or twenty.
We were dropped off at a spot just below a very steep walk to the temple of Shiva at the top of a hill. Other tourists were happily whizzing past us in taxis, but Russell had airily waved away the taxi driver who’d approached us.

It was very steep, but we got there in the end. This statue awaited us:

I asked Raj why Shiva was blue. He said that it was the artist’s interpretation.

This statue is so large that we could see it from the lake far below, when we were doing our boat ride.

The statue may have been a bit theme park, but the location is undeniably beautiful.

We wandered around here for a while. I bought a medallion of Ganesh for my Christmas tree, people bought mocha drinks in tiny terracotta pots- I’m bringing two pots back home with me – and then it was down the steep hill, back to the van to see a Buddhist stupa.

We were dropped off about 15 minutes walk away. The sun was out by now, so I wore my hat, but I could feel my arms getting burned. It was my own fault. I had sunscreen with me but it was in my backpack.
There were shady patches along the way, which I welcomed.

See that SILENCE thing? They weren’t kidding. The purpose of the stupa is for calm and tranquil contemplation.

This is one of 70 World Peace Pagodas in the world, and this one is important because Buddha himself was born in Nepal. Shanti Stupa is the second oldest stupa in Nepal.

When Buddha died, his remains were divided into 8 separate sections. One of these is buried under this stupa.

Once you take off your shoes and climb up, you walk clockwise around, to see the four different sides. They depict Buddha’s life and ascension to heaven.

This one looked very Thai to me.

The big blue Shiva was visible from the next hill. The stupa was ringed with mountains. Big blue and yellow butterflies were among the flowers in the gardens.

I didn’t know at the time, but the Dalai Lama laid the first stone here, and came back to open it.

Our next stop was to a Tibetan refugee camp.

As we drove up, there were school kids running around playing soccer. Kids are amazing. The humidity was really high and we were all slicked with sweat. I licked my upper lip and it was salty.
Still, when you’re travelling, you have a different attitude to when you’re at home. Here, we all keep moving.

The women here make carpets to make some extra coin. Some of us bought. I really liked a couple of large ones that would have looked great in my backpack lounge room, but once again, travelling with carryon saved me money.

After watching a woman do some weaving, we were back in the van, driving to – you guessed it! – another temple.

This one, instead of being high on a hill, was down in a cave. Gupteswor Mahadev Cave, to give you its full name.

There was no avoiding the steps, but at least we could keep our shoes on. It was beautifully cool down there.

A couple of sneaky shots. This is the back of the cobra that (I think) is behind Lord Shiva.

A side view, with offerings.

Back up the steps! We’re certainly getting our training in for the Tigers Nest monastery in Bhutan next week!

Our last stop before the hotel was to The Helping Hand workshop, which was founded in 2009 to give marginalised people skills to earn a living. Many of the people here are deaf and mute. They had a shop, and it was the sort of place where you really want to buy something to support them, but I bought so many things in Peru that I couldn’t find anything I needed.
oh well. Other people bought things, so that’s good.

Anne was practically floating, as she was so enraptured by all of the temples we’d seen. She’s a very spiritual woman and this was right up her alley. I, however, needed something a little more grounding…

When we got back to the hotel, Macy and I decided not to have lunch. We went and did something else instead. Something that having a full stomach probably wouldn’t be a great idea to do.

What could I be doing, aside from looking at the camera?

A second later he let go, I took a deep breath … and jumped off the platform 110 metres over the river below.

Yes, after 20 years of waiting, I finally got around to doing a bungy jump.

I’m not going to lie… launching myself off that platform was hands down the scariest thing I’ve ever done. But once I felt that first bounce, it was amazing. I tried so many times to upload the video for you, but WordPress just wasn’t having it, so these stills will have to do instead.

Macy took this photo as we were heading off.
I’m so glad I finally did it. Time marches on, and I didn’t want to get too old to do it. Now I can move on with my life!

It’s funny what life brings. I never thought when booking this trip, ‘At last I’ll get to go and bungy jump!’

Haha.

Dad joke of the day:

The original itinerary had us driving from Kathmandu to Pokhara, but when I had dinner with Morgan in the city a few weeks ago, he strongly recommended that I go by plane instead.
“They’re doing roadworks on the whole stretch of highway. Not in sections; they’re working on the whole highway at once. What should take 3 hours takes 9.”

Yikes!

Added to that, a section of the highway is damaged by the landslides that happened 2 weeks ago, so our whole group elected to fly. None of us are keen to go near any unstable mountainsides. Our guide flew with us, which was handy.

So I’ve booked 2 domestic flights, plus a scenic flight around Mt Everest on the last day. I’m really looking forward to that one.

The photo is the view we had from the terrace where we had lunch. It was all very tranquil and peaceful.

Apples, anyone?

After lunch, I went shopping. I need some hot weather clothes for Egypt in November, so 4 pairs of trousers …

… and one hemp top later, I raced back to the hotel to meet everyone for a boat ride on the lake. I got lost heading back, but luckily I had taken a photo of the hotel when we left for lunch. A nice man pointed the way for me. I was only one street off.

To be honest, I was expecting something a little more high tech than a paddle boat. But the price was right… $10 for an hour for all7 of us. Unbelievable.

This isn’t high season, so most boats were unoccupied. It must be jam-packed in their summer.

Macy had first go, alongside our 80 year old captain.

I love how the people here are unafraid of colour.

As we rounded the corner, we could see a little island in the middle of the lake.

We swung around behind the island and pulled up to a little jetty. We had arrived at the Tal Barahi Mandir temple in the middle of Lake Fewa.

This is the most famous temple in Pokhara. It’s only accessible by boat.

Pilgrims come here, mainly in October and May.

Lonely hearts come here to pray for their perfect match, while newlyweds come to pray for a long and harmonious life together.

The temple was destroyed by floods a few years ago, so locals did a fundraiser that took a long while before they could rebuild. Another few months and it’ll be finished.

This is the temporary temple that the locals put up for people to use in the meantime.

They sacrifice animals here. At first the people come to pray and ask for a favour from the gods. Once it is granted, they bring their sacrifice of a goat, a chicken or a duck. If they don’t bring animals , they bring coconuts.
Pigeons are also brought here as thanks to the gods for a job well done, but for some reason – lucky for the pigeons – they’re released instead of being killed.
At least, not being killed by the humans. I noticed a fair few eagles hanging around this temple…

While we were there, two girls brought a coconut and cracked it open. They spilt some of the coconut milk at the temple. A goat/chicken/duck is still walking around because of their decision.

Russell and Rob took turns on paddling the boat on the way back.
When someone tried to give Russell shtick about how he was performing, he shot back with, “We’ve got a combined age of 157 years here!”

We ended the day with a meal at an Italian restaurant just around the corner on the main drag. It was a really good night, with lots of good conversation and excellent food.

With so few people in the group, it’s impossible to avoid people who rub you the wrong way.
*cough Jean-from-the-South-America-trip cough **

It appears that the 6 of us get along really well. Thank god!

Tomorrow we have to meet in the lobby at 4:50 AM. Apparently, we’re going to see the sunrise.

Ugh. It better be worth it!

Dad joke of the day:

This holiday began the night before my flight. Evan29 was flying into Melbourne after spending 5 weeks away at the Edinburgh Comedy Festival, where his show “Man Sings The Same Song Over And Over Again For An Hour” was literally a smash hit.
Rather than miss each other by a few hours, I headed to the airport early, booked a room and surprised him at Arrivals.
Then it was off to Kathmandu, Nepal.
Fortunate Frogdancer was offered to move seats to a full row of empty seats. AGAIN!
This was actually really lucky because I woke up that morning barely able to walk. Somehow, I’d hurt my right knee. Weird.

As it was, I was able to sleep flat for 6 hours and my knee is totally fine now. I was worried… that Tigers Nest monastery in Bhutan has a lot of steps to reach it.

The next morning, I joined up with the whole group… of only 6 people. How fantastic is this? All Aussies, with 2 married couples and another solo traveler from Sydney. Macy is married, but her husband wasn’t drawn to Nepal, so to their credit, she’s come here without him.

Our first day was a tour of some of the sights of Kathmandu.

This city is huge! It’s much bigger than I expected.
Our first stop was the ancient religious complex of Swayambhunath (Monkey Temple.)

The prayer flags have 5 colours for the 5 elements.

Blue: Sky and space (infinite open-mindedness)
White: Air and wind (compassion and purity)
Red: Fire (passion and transformation)
Green: Water (balance and harmony)
Yellow: Earth (stability and grounding)

The more the flags flap in the wind, the more they spread harmony. I bought some for my front yard. Nothing wrong with bringing the neighbourhood some good vibes.

Buddha with a sword. There’s quite the legend attached to this.

Once, there was a big lake where Kathmandu now stands. In the middle of the lake was a huge lotus where this temple now stands. Some guy, represented by the Buddha with the sword, came strolling in and thought that this valley would be a great place for a settlement.

He cut the valley with the sword and drained the lake. 

The first settlement was established in 400 AD.

Archeologically, the story holds true. This valley used to be a lake…

There’s a reason this is called the Monkey Temple. There’s quite a few of them around.

I loved the look of the brooms around here. Just bundles of sticks, but they seemed to get the job done.

The stray dogs, the tangled wiring, the women in their bright clothes. We were heading up to the top of the temple here.

It was quite the view.

The white building at the top of the mountain is a monastery. Our guide said that in days gone by, people would climb the mountain to get there.

Nowadays, they just drive.

Our next stop was an art studio, where I may possibly have bought my art souvenir from this trip. The intricacies of this style of artwork are incredible.

The art for sale starts from very basic student work taking a week or two to do, up to the Professor level, which takes a couple of months and often uses gold dust. I restrained myself and bought a mid-tier one.

The main temple on this site.

Gold pagoda … this is a temple for mothers and grandmothers. They come here to pray for pray to their children and grandchildren.

See the prayer wheels? You spin them clockwise and they get rid of all the negativity. I think we all had a go.

There are 350 steps here. If you start at the bottom, climb up, do some rituals and go down again, all of your sins are washed away.

Look at this cheeky boi, eating the offering!

Grain is scattered everywhere around this temple precinct, to feed the monkeys and birds.

Then we were off to the Kathmandu Durban Square, which is built around a palace where the royal family used to live. There are MANY temples here.

Most were built in the 17th century, but this one, the oldest, was built in the 7th century. All the wood used here was cut from a single tree. Can you imagine how big the tree would have been?

These statues are a blend of how Hinduism and Buddhism are blended here. The tops are Buddhist, while the bottoms are Hindu. With a dog in the middle.

”Sometimes there’s a cat!” said the guide when I pointed it out.

Then suddenly we were being rushed to a house a few minutes away. We raced into a courtyard, being filled with a mixture of locals and tourists.

See those windows behind the scaffolding? We were about to see the living goddess Kumari.

This is a tradition going back centuries, where a little girl is selected from one family to be the representation of the Hindu and Buddhist divine female energy, or goddess Taleju Bhawani.

She lives here in this house, secluded, with her feet never touching the ground outside. Once a day, she comes to the courtyard, where no photos are allowed. They were serious about this, confiscating phones. I decided to refrain from my usual sneaky photos.
Thirteen times a year, she is taken outside and paraded around the square with men pulling a wagon where she’s seated.

In modern times, tutors come for her education, and her family is allowed to visit, but not to stay.

Unlike the Dalai Lama, this is not a lifetime assignment. When she gets her first period, or she has a major injury with lots of blood, the goddess is said to have left her body and she is returned to her family, free to live a normal life, but with a handy government pension for life.

Being selected is regarded as a huge honour. The living goddess must pass strict screenings evaluating 32 perfection traits, including specific hair, eye, and teeth qualities, alongside a test of fearlessness.

The current one is 3 years old. She appeared above us for about 30 seconds, all dressed up and made up, before being whisked away.

Here she is.

This is the Hippy Temple. Back in the 70’s, marijuana was briefly legal. Lots of hippies flocked here, buying their MJ and coming here to sit and smoke on the steps.

Cosy boi.

Janine ended up buying some bags from this woman. On the right, the upper story of the building reminded me of the buildings in Lima with the balconies where women could see and not be seen.

I liked this old crumbling temple.

Black temple. Back in the day, they didn’t believe that people could lie in front of this temple. Otherwise they would be struck dead instantly, so it was a very good way to keep criminals honest. If anyone was accused of doing something wrong they dragged them there and they would tell the truth.

It probably doesn’t work so well today.

Here is part of the royal family’s palace. If you squint, you can see a row of portraits under the verandah roof. It’s the series of kings, ending with the massacred king and crown Prince, with the last one being so incompetent that the Nepalese people pushed him off the throne.
The Nepalese royal massacre was a mass shooting on June 1, 2001, at the Narayanhiti Royal Palace in Kathmandu, which claimed the lives of 10 people, including King Birendra and most of the royal family. 
Our guide was a child when it happened, and she can still remember the shock of it.

Excellent wooden carving, with a close-up below.

How is this even possible? They have a guard here, and I don’t blame them.

I saw this as we walked to the van to go for lunch. I hope she was bringing her washing in, rather than putting it out…

This is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Boudhanath Stupa. It used to be the biggest Stupa in the word before Myanmar stole its thunder.

Our lunch location. Are we under observation?

We came down to thundering rain. It was pelting down. This trip, I have only brought one pair of shoes and one pair of jeans, so I was worried about the jeans getting saturated, like they did in Norway when I went sloshing through the rain to get my artwork.
Naturally, all of us had left our backpacks with our umbrellas in the van. Our poor guide borrowed an umbrella from the restaurant and set off to fetch our things. I was so cross with myself for forgetting about the weather forecast. The sunny morning had lulled us all into a false sense of security.

Anne went in here to do a spot of meditation, while the rest of us stayed on the balcony, chatted and watched the rain.
Remember how excited I was to get that rain poncho in Cusco? It was worth its weight in gold.

Marigolds are popular here.

As Max from Get Smart would say: “ That’s the second biggest prayer wheel I’ve ever seen…”

Dad joke of the day:

We had an evening flight, so after breakfast I went for a walk. This time, once I hit the beach, I turned left.

Mornings appear to start late here. There were tourists and people walking their dogs. It was warm… it wasn’t long before I shed a layer of clothes.

I was heading towards the hill to the right.

Look who I saw at the top of the hill! He certainly keeps an eye on everything here.

Now THIS is a sculpture that I can identify with! A book, a dog…

It’s practically me.

The foreshore is littered with statues like this. This one is of a novelist, Clarice Lispector. She and her dog were apparently well-known at this end of the beach.

Am I the only one to get a whiff of a Dune sandworm here?

I saw this bridge, looking like a lay’s leg, as we were going to the airport. I was sitting on the correct side of the bus.

You know those little electric vehicles in airports that take people needing wheelchairs to their gates? Val, Liz and Terry were riding in one. I said hi as they whipped past me, then they stopped. I got a ride to the security screening!!

Santiago airport has been my nemesis for the last 3 times I’ve come through, but the fourth time seemed to be the charm.

I’m home now. Mum isn’t doing so well, and the dogs didn’t enjoy being left on their own most of the time. Scout was well-behaved, but Hazel was a bundle of anxiety. She didn’t make the kids’ lives easy while I was gone.

I guess a month-long trip is too long for my little girlies. So far, I have 3 more holidays booked, but they’re all short hops. That’s probably for the best.

Dad joke of the day:

Today was a free day, so I chose to do the optional tour to Sugarloaf Mountain.

I almost always pick up the optional tours. I figure that they’ll take us to places that we’ll want to see anyway, and it’s a lot less mucking around.

Zero in here. We’re waiting for the cable car. These climbers are making their way up this cliff.

When we came back down again, they hadn’t made much progress.

Charlie Chaplin is alive and well and living in Rio!

A couple of views of the Atlantic as we took the cable car to the first (lower) part.

Look who I saw in the distance. It was perfectly clear today… damn…

I liked the sprinkling of buildings going through the mountains.

The marina. The views were amazing.

And then a plane flew right down into the harbour to land. We had no idea that’s how we got here a couple of days ago.

See the twin towers forming a cross? The whole thing was designed to be viewed from here. The pyramid-shaped cathedral is right in front of it.

It was a sparkling day.

This is the reason why Rio de Janeiro is named after a river, even though it has no river running through it. The mouth of the harbour is so narrow that the first Portuguese explorers thought that it must be a river.

After galloping around the lower part, it was time to ascend to the top. All 396 metres of it.

And here’s why it’s called Sugarloaf Mountain. Back in the day, the ships used to export sugar in these cones… called Sugarloaves.

Up we go to the highest point. Christ the Redeemer is still visible.

The vultures soar very high.

They start to develop a sense of style very young here.

Please excuse the smudge in the middle. It was on the window of the cable car. The curvy beach at the top Copacabana, where I was walking last night.

How wonderful! A marmoset, right beside the path. So tiny.

It was like a last farewell from the wildlife of South America.

Once you know the sugarloaf history, it’s easy to see why they named it.

This is a replica of the Paris Opera House. It was built when all of the cities in the new world were desperate to appear sophisticated and French.

The old aqueduct used to provide the city with water from the mountains. Now, trams run along the top of it.

It’s nice to see that they’re repurposing it, rather than just knocking it down.

The cathedral of St Sebastian. Patron saint of the city and the Portuguese army.

1964 – 1979

Brutalist style. Our guide came in with us because he likes to see the “wow” moment when people see how different the interior is to the exterior.

It’s pretty large. It seats 500, with an extra 1,500 standing room spots.

This is the unfortunate reflection on the building opposite…

This terrifying statue is of Mother Teresa. What a nasty piece of work she was. I was horrified when I found out how she treated her patients in the slums of Calcutta.

However, THIS statue, I love.

It’s called the ‘Jesus Homeless’ statue, by Canadian Timothy P. Schmalz.

What a fabulous idea. It encapsulates so much.

This is what the twin towers look like on the ground. You can see how the cross is formed to be able to see it from Sugarloaf.

This is the Royal Palace.

In 1808, the Portuguese royal family fled Napoleon and came to Rio. They stayed in the house of the Viceroy, so by default, it became the royal palace.

Queen Maria, she was insane. I don’t know if she was afflicted before she arrived in Rio, but that’s how she died.

Her oldest son was John, so he inherited the throne.

His oldest son was Peter. After Napoleon was defeated, he refused to return to Europe.

“I will stay in Brazil. Here is sunshine, soccer and Samba.”

He gave up all rights to Portugal.

So his uncle took the throne. This made Peter cross, as he wanted to put his sister on the throne.

I have no idea what happened after that, as the bus passed the next attraction and our guide switched to talking about that.

I’m going to do some research, though. It sounds like an interesting story.

This is the Olympic flame from 10 years ago. They turn it on whenever the Olympics are on. I like that.

Who knew Utopia was so close?

Street art. This is in a section of town that the city is trying to rejuvenate by creating residential buildings.

This is our last night on the trip. In a few minutes I’ll be meeting everyone in the lobby and we’ll be going to a farewell dinner with samba music.

It’s funny. This was a very long trip, but it’s flown by. We’re all so glad that we chose this one. We’ve seen so much. Who knew South America was so interesting???? 🤣

Tomorrow we embark upon our last 3 flights to get home.

Dad joke of the day: