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Kathmandu is an incredibly exotic city. Noisy, bright, colorful, chaotic and eclectic. The main part of this metropolis (4 million people) resembles a giant motley lego - some random pile of rectangles of different sizes and heights. The city streets are just as crazy - buses with bundles of people hanging over the road from the door, cars, motorcycles, tractors, bicycles go wherever and whenever they want, no traffic lights and lanes. And then sacred cows are wedged into the movement, the monkeys jump out a banana skin to grab from the roadway. How they dispense with total murder is incomprehensible to the mind.
Noteworthy places here are only a few, but they are impressive.
"Monkey Temple": the famous Buddhist complex Swayambhunath on top of the mountain. It is believed that it was put in the III century BC. e. in the astral most favorable place, and prayers here increase strength by "thirteen million times." There are always many pilgrims, and with the onset of darkness, the indigenous inhabitants of the mountain begin to come together in droves, jumping on stupas and riding on garlands of sacred flags. Monkeys give the night temple an incredible flavor.
Durbar Palace Complex in the city center. The reserve of medieval architecture is so intricate and pretentious that you need to spend hours wandering around in a small territory, in order to properly consider everything and not miss anything. Fancy turrets, stone bas-reliefs, stunning carved beams, windows and doors. At one of the temples in close proximity to the royal palace - such carved compositions that the Kama Sutra rests. The ancient Nepalese seemed to be big entertainers in this matter. The bas-relief of black Shiva is a remarkable place. It is believed that if a person lies before him, then death will immediately befall him.
In former times, the bas-relief was used for defendants as a lie detector. Here is the house of the living goddess Kumar, the role of which is assigned to a little girl - until the first menstruation. The poor thing lives, of course, in high esteem, fame and like cheese in butter, but leaves the house only once a year. Golden cage. . .
Hindu temple complex Pashupatinath on the banks of the sacred river Bagmati. Here Nepalese go to another world at the funeral pyres. This is a real phantasmagoria: someone is already burning under the supervision of grieving relatives, someone in a golden veil and strewn with flowers is still preparing for the path, lowered on the stairs with his feet into the river (it’s necessary!), Right there children bathe among the firebrands dropped into the water women wash their clothes, wash dishes and wash themselves, there are a lot of onlookers, dogs and monkeys around. And everyone is fine, except for the stunned foreigners.
But the pearl of Kathmandu is Bodnath's largest stupa in Asia in the very center of the city, towering above the roofs of multi-storey buildings. It is believed that it was built 1400 years ago and the remains of Gautama Buddha are buried inside it. This is the main shrine of the Buddhist world, so thousands of pilgrims from Nepal, India and the whole world flock here daily.
They wander in a continuous stream around the stupa, muttering and singing mantras with a distant look, and form a gigantic sacred funnel, fascinating to the eye - if you look at the cafes from the terrace, which are many in the houses surrounding the stupa. travel agency here
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