Our senses have woken up!!

 

We have certainly experienced a lot to enliven the senses over the last few days.

The sights are extraordinary, ranging from amazing to a little shocking. The amazing sights are numerous. Yesterday we walked to Swoyambhu (the monkey Temple). In the heat of the day, we went from many of the sights mentioned below to the magnificent splendour of a famous Buddhist site covered with many wonderful temples. We climbed hundreds of steps to the top, with monkeys and trinket sellers along the route. We resisted both!! Yesterday we were taken to Patan’s Durbar Square which we need to visit again. Splendour overload! Every door seems to open up into another spectacular view of Buddhist architecture and character.

 

           

Among the shocking are the sights of street children,  rubbish heaps, pot holed city roads and the filthy Bagmati River. The traffic congestion has to been seen to be believed!! We will learn more about these over the coming weeks and we hopefully understand the context.

The smells are mostly fantastic - in the tiny streets they are eclectic: spices, varied curries and local cooking at stalls and tiny eating houses; vegetables and flowers at the markets; joss sticks and more. The less pleasant, well, I will spare the sensitive to just say - It is very hot and humid so detritus is not top on our favourite scent list! The bikes, lorries and cars (not a catalytic convertor in sight), belch out fumes into the already heavily polluted atmosphere

 

The sounds – a cacophony of drums, bells, prayer wheels and singing bowls; chattering of girls at a birthday party (we have been given a slice of cake!); boys playing ball games excitedly in the square opposite our guest house; chattering of the same boys trying to teach me Nepali. The hooters on bikes, cars and lorries and dogs barking at night are something that we are already getting used to.

Finally the emotions. I’m not sure that I will cover that yet. We are still in our Honeymoon period and there will be a lot more to come.