A goat's life
Trip Start
Sep 23, 2004
1
6
77
Trip End
Ongoing
Kathmandu,
Nepal
Sunday, October 3, 2004
I put a message on the Lonely Planet site to give a report on Kathmandu at the moment, as they like to have regular updates from people who are actually here- other people's reports reassured me so I thought I'd pass on the favour. A guy called Ben read it and sent me a message to say he was arriving soon- he'd been wondering about changing his plans but had decided to go for it. So i sent a message back saying to let me know if he fancied a beer on arrival!
I had a bit of a lazy day on Thursday and went to a cafe outside the Kathmandu guest house for a coke early evening. And this random guy asks me if my name's Andrea! 'Twas Ben- turns out he'd e-mailed me again to suggest I meet him there- but I hadn't read the message. And he'd arranged to meet a few others who he'd met on his travels or through lonely planet, and some of them had brought friends too
01 Sacrifice for Bhairab
. Two guys are going to Everest; Daine set off today to walk in and Ollie wanted to fly, so he's managed to get tickets to come with me tomorrow! We seem to have a similar attitude of 'Don't care how long it takes' and similar goals as well- exploring round Gokyo lakes and Everset Base Camp. So we think it should work out quite well. We're predicting spending about 25 days there, with is pretty laid back and gives us lots of exploring time. In the meantime I have continued my exploration of the city. On Friday I went to Durbar Square, in the middle of Kathmandu. It was a lovely day and I sat and did a sketch of a mask of Bhairab- a rather scary looking chap. I attracted quite a crowd of small children ,who thought my pens were great and played with them- they were all very well behaved and put them back after drawing on their hands (I am probably fairly unpopular with a few Nepali mums!) and a few of the guides and locals stopped to watch me for a bit (which was good fun- one Indian chap appointed himself my critic and translator!- but I need to learn the nepali for 'excuse me I can't see!' I also need to learn how to say 'yes I know I haven't done the nostrils; i'll get round to them in a moment!').
I was fairly absorbed in my sketching when a man rushed up to me saying 'look! look! you're missing the ceremony!' I glanced up in time to see my first goat and buffalo sacrifice (think I could have missed that quite happily! The goat wasn't amused either! I'm told that the animals accept the sacrifice before it happens, but I think this goat would have used its 'get out of jail free' card if it had one!)
Yesterday I went to Dashenkali, which is a temple dedicated to the goddess Kali
02 Hanuman
. She's also rather bloodthirsty (they get through lots of goats and chickens at that place- people take them to be sacrificed then cook them and have a picnic. This is not a good place to be a goat or a chicken if you want a long and full life....!). There were amazing views from the bus driving there as you get right into the hills- lots of paddy fields and a bottomless lake where the nagas- the snake kings- live. Don't fall in! It's nearly harvest time, and everything is bright green or yellow. Climbing farther up the valley, there were more great views, huge butterflies and a couple of waterfalls. I could see right across the valley to a Buddhist monastery which was covered in prayer flags. A Nepalese guy had offered to take me there so I bought him lunch and we found a pleasant restaurant, with butterflies flapping around our heads as we munched! And tomorrow.... big mountains are calling! 
