| Apr. 4, 2009 |
| Everest |
|
Wake up at 5:15 to see Willie out the door. Weather isn’t looking extremely positive, but you never know. We lounged about for a while, and turns out they are flying. With a bustle of excitement about the hotel, all the teams gear up for a taxi ride. We chilled, taking our time, until they announced that the flights have been stopped. Sweet. A downfaced Canadian team returned, again. They have been waiting here for 5 days now. We all have to wait until 12:30 until we can really relax, because there is a possibility that flights might go until then, but of course, no luck. A short group discussion ensues, which I am somehow left out of, and a dicision is made to go to the monkey temple. The monkey temple is a giant Buddhist temple, hudreds of years old, with thousands of monkeys all over the place. The monkey temple was the craziest experience yet, (except taxi rides). There are about 400 steps to get to the temple up a hill, and at the top is a huge bulbousy cone deal, the Buddhist style architecture. Surrounding it is many smaller temples with religious ceremonies going on. Rows and rows of player wheels are all around. Prayer wheels are wheels with carvings on them, and when spun it is said that 10,000 prayers are issued out. Buddhist and Hindu sculptures are all around, in amongst each other, even though they are two totally separate religions. Vendors are selling all the same trinkets and masks as on the streets, and stray dogs run everywhere, at least 5 in sight at all times. Incense fills your nostrils and eyes, choking you, then the people attack. “where you from?” “you want marijuana?” “how long in Nepal?” “you like it here?” “you come to my house?” “what is your name?” “you like me John?” “buy this bowl”
Ill pass, sorry. After the hecticness and amazingness of the monkey temple, we decided to go to another religious area. Bad idea. We tried to go through a street, but it was just a throng of people, impenetrable nearly. At the end we see a giant christmas tree structure. Army men line the street, blowing their whistles, and people are yelling everywhere. I guess we had stumbled upon some religious ceremony. There were probably 5,000 people packed into a square 500 feet. Not so fun. After making our way to the edge, we see that the giant tree is on wheels, and people are trying to pull it down a street. Another bad idea. The huge structure was swaying everywhere, and hit the roofs of the 6 story buildings, raining dirt and bricks onto the street. It seems like totally chaos, but the people love it, then some ghurkas, local soldiers, fire some ceremonial 200 year old muskets off. I thought they were cannons at first. After all the crazyness, we somehow popped out back at our hotel, escaping muggings, monkeys, and ceremonies. Not a bad day after all. |