Second day in Nepal

April 14, 2012

The second day in Nepal, I spent the night in the city called Bhaktapur- this is where one of saajan’s best friends lives. I was so lucky to be there because there was a New Years festival going on. The city was bustling. Now Bhaktapur is different from Kathmandu in that all of the buildings are very ancient, mostly wooden structures, the streets are paved with brick so it is much less dusty, and it’s relatively less chaotic and easier to navigate than Balaju/Kathmandu .

**A quick word about the photos from this venture to Bhakatapur- we took LOADS of pictures on our camera before the battery ran out- fortunately we did have our phones and were able to take more pictures- however… Saajan’s nephew- accidently deleted the photos from our SIM card while trying to consolidate pictures from another camera that also contained pictures of saajan’s arrival- SUPER sad face for me- and for saajan- SUPER pissed face- but in the end “mutlah pynah”. **

Now, the tradition in Bhaktapur for New Years consists of 3 parts. The first part is where all of the people try to lift a 52 foot long tree by pulling on thick ropes the size of my arms- this tree symbolizes one of the many Hindu gods. This tree was incredible in size- it took the people all night and all morning to lift the thing straight up. Once lifted up men race to climb the ropes in search of three flowers that are hiding at the “head” and “arms” at the very top of the tree. These flowers are blessed flowers and it is believed that these should be given to women who are unable to have a child- once given these flowers, they would be able to have children. It was so scary and nerve racking watching the men climb the trees- saajan’s best friend Anil informed me that every new year someone one to three people die- either from falling off the tree while attempting to climb- or being squished by the tree once it is pushed back down.  Mind you- we watched the tree lifting on the television for that very same reason- I watched as a few of the ropes snapped from the strain of the pulling and weight, watched as it swayed dangerously towards the crowd- no way in hell I would be there, and I was thankful that Anil and his wife were gracious hosts and didn’t try to force us to be in the crowd at that time. As it turns out- someone did die- a man- he was literally cut in half horizontally legs one side and torso/arms on the other he was crushed by the tree.

The second part of the ceremony is a wooden temple that is pulled with this ropes- remember the roads are paved with bricks- most of them protruding every where- all day long the men sacrificed chickens and poured blood on the front head part of the temple- this bloody display was foreign to me and I was surprised with how un-queasy I felt- what I thought and how I reacted to this whole trip have been entirely different things. For example seeing half bodies of buffalo bleeding on the street, getting chopped and cut into different parts for different food- I honestly thought I would walk away from Nepal a vegetarian but- I’ve taken to this whole bloody situation pretty well. Back to the ceremonies- after a full day of sacrificing chickens (people from the city buy these chickens and offer them up as sacrifices, the head is cut off and given to the gods, while the body is given back to the person for them to clean and eat) - the temple is then pulled close to the tree- this required lots of men, rope, pulling and pushing. Eventually the temple moved and was parked near the “god tree” and everyone celebrated.

The third part consisted of a smaller temple (I cant remember if they sacrificed chickens on it or not on it, but I’m guessing they might’ve). This temple was pulled by little boys- and it too was successfully parked near the god tree and people cheered and celebrated.

We toured Bhaktapur and saw some amazing things- a beautiful sunset, a giant koi pond, the old bhaktapur kings (from 17^th century) bath place, and palace- the whole thing was amazing, not to mention what is known here as Roxie- this was my first taste of roxie- which is a house wine made from rice- and boy it’s got a nice smooth burn, I loved it and it helped to ease some of the anxieties I was having about eating food outside of saajan’s home. We went to a place known as the “green curtain” there are many places like this, and this is where one goes to eat some drinking food- oh how I love drinking food- it’s usually fried guts, or in the Philippines it’s a type of ceviche or tartar like food- and it’s served in little portions for munching and snacking on while drinking some great alcohol. I stayed away from the buffalo meat tartar with the advice from a well traveled woman Dot “don’t eat anything raw jess and make sure you boil your water and you’ll be just fine”. Oh it was so hard to resist- but I’m thankful that I did because the next morning Nirmala had stomach issues and she was the only one who had eaten the raw spiced buffalo meat .

We toured more of the city the next day alongside Anil and his wife- we saw lots of temples, and ate a delicious home cooked meal which like most home meals here in Nepal consisted of rice, dahl (or lentil soup), some form of achar (or chutney) which can be made from potatoes to just chilis and tomatoes and curry- this meal was cooked in a wood fire, and it was damn good. We chatted more and talked about our drunken antics the night before at the green curtain and I mostly listened enjoying the sounds of Nepali words- we arrived there on a taxi and  going home we took a local bus which was actually pretty cool- considering we had seats- as the journey back to balaju wore on it was packed with bodies and I could understand why saajan was privy to taking taxis to get to different places. I really liked bhaktapur and hope to go there one more time before we leave.