Nepal – Day 1 – Never Ending Peace And Love

Today was a fun and interesting day, what they call exotic on excursions like this. This morning out tourist guide Asook led us to to the Swayambhunath Temple, better known as the Monkey Temple. On the way over he stated the unofficial national slogan of Nepal was that Nepal was just an acronym for “Never Ending Peace And Love”. With two days in country, I think he might be right, the people here are extremely nice and open. Even the street vendors take it well when you finally tell them NO.

Once we arrived at the Temple, we were challenged with 365 steps up, yep one for each day of the year. About half way up, we stopped to look at a room that had a large prayer wheel. The prayer wheels here are Tibetan in origin and the protocol is to always walk on the right and turn clockwise. On the big ones, you are to walk around it 1,000 times, if not able, then 100 times, if not able then 3 times, if not able then once and if not able to do once, then you will have bad karma….. There were four locals who came in while we were there and all walked around it 3 times while spinning the wheel. It is supposed to train the mind too focus while the body is in motion.

Back the steps, the heat and a little sweat, we made it to the top in short order. Glad I had practiced on football stands. At the top was a huge Buddist shrine and on the back of that, there were several Hindu shrines. Nepal is very broad in how they view God. As Asook said, Nepal has 10 of the highest peaks in the world, so they believe there is nowhere else to go but to look up and reach God. Seeing such a mix of religions and traditions make for a very interesting time. Asook said at the top of the Temple there lived monkeys, pigeons, dogs, vendors and devotees. We definitely saw all five today.

I guess you are waiting for me to tell about the monkeys. Well, they were on the three Budda shrines when we exited the van, they were along the climb up, they were all around the shrines up top and as we left on the back side, they even had a swimming pool setup for the monkeys. The monkeys are revered and allowed to do as they please. Several women were taking food to them whilewe were there. The warning is to not carry food or they will attempt to steal it, sometimes with force. You can see a few in the pictures.

There is so much symbolism here, I will try to remember to talk about that in later posts.

My bag is ready to go on the flight to Lukla in the morning. If inclined, you might pray for us to the one true God. Having fun and amazed by everything.

I am looking g forward to tomorrow.

Genesis 1:24-25

continue to day 2