Lumbini and beyond.

Lumbini is beautiful, and complicated. It is the birthplace of Buddha, and so a very sacred site. A building marks the birthplace itself; it is comparatively simple: a large white structure over the remains of an ancient temple.

Around it lie the walls of the old monastery, and a holy tree. Prayer flags flutter against a gloriously blue sky. Pilgrims from all over the world are quietly reflective. 

But this huge site is, so much more than this original temple. So many countries have built temples here. Are they trying to outdo each other in beauty or complexity? Two temples stand out - this is ceiling of the German temple:

It is surrounded by an immaculate garden, with giant prayer wheels and sculptures like this telling the Buddhist story:

And this is one corner of the huge Thai temple:

Is one more perfect than the other? More important? Evidence the generosity of the countries that built them? They are the most dramatic temples, and draw the biggest crowds. Smaller, less remarkable but still beautiful, many temples are passed by as tourists crowd in the more famous buildings.

But the one that touched me most - and where photography was not allowed - was the Nepali temple. It is a simple dome, with minimal decoration outside and inside just a huge wooden Buddha. Around the walls are long wooden benches, for the pilgrim (or weary tourist) to sit and reflect on why there were there. Nothing gets in the way of thinking. That, for me, is what Lumbini is really about.

(And while we were there we had a very small earthquake. Barely enough to make the earth move. But one of us was sitting on the toilet at the time …the Buddha was looking out for us!)

I’m back in Pokhara now - which meant Tika drove up the Siddhartha highway. It is a notorious road: beautiful and, according to the BBC, one of the world’s most dangerous roads (but they did drive it during the monsoon). I’ve been on the road before - I was driven down it, in the dark, after a cyclone. So I was understandably wary this time. Not without reason - it clings to the mountainside for mile after mile after mile. Bend after bend, steep drop after steep drop, landslide detour (those are interesting) after landslide detour.

But it is, as promised, beautiful. Photographs don’t show the scale of it - and the sun was fierce that day and so many of my pictures are bleached. But this bridge hints at the size of the valley (with apologies to at least two people who will be having a fit of the vapours at the thought of it):

I’m in Pokhara for a few days now. But one last picture from Lumbini: this is the Peace Flame, lit in 1986, and with in a Buddhist prayer that all peoples and faiths can find harmony together. It feels needed more than ever now.

Lakes, mountains, forests …

l left the mayhem of Kathmandu for the relative peace of Pokhara. I’m staying with Tika and his family - he has built a self-contained studio flat on the top floor of this house, so I can potter about on the balcony and be well out of their way. The first night Tika and I went to the supermarket so I could stock up with breakfast bits. But before I could pour a single cornflake into a bowl Tika’s daughter knocked to tell me that I had bought the wrong milk. I must have breakfast with them. And supper. And breakfast the next day …

Lakeside isn’t the retreat it was when I first came here (there’s a KFC here now, and even a casino), it’s s short stroll to the waterside and the quiet of Fewa Lake. When Shobha asks what I’ve been doing, sitting by the lake sounds as if I’ve been idling. But there’s something reparative about being by water, the gentle lap of it. And how could anyone tire of looking at this:

I tear myself away for a day in Chitepani, Tika’s village in the mountains. There’s a road all the way there now, complete with random zebra crossings one of which has been adopted by the monkeys as their crossing place. (Though they don’t stop to look before leaping out.) The village itself is much the same, as is the welcome. The villagers are as generous as ever with their time and their cups of tea. And the view - the mountains kept there summits hidden in the clouds, but the view across the valley as green as I’ve ever see it, with houses dotted along a well-worn path.  

We would have lingers but for rumbling thunder. I’ve learned the hard way not to get caught in the mountains in a thunderstorm.

Pokhara is addictive, but there’s so much more to see. So we trundled off to Chitwan National Park - this was nothing more than a village when I first came but it’s highly commercialised now. But that doesn’t detract from the magic of the jungle, with its chorus of birdsong, the smell of damp foliage and occasional scat of animals. (I can still tell the difference between rhino and elephant poo - travelling can be so educational!) I’m happy just chugging through the jungle in a jeep, or paddling down the river. Just being in the jungle is a joy. But it’s wise to take note of the animals - and this crocodile was further away than it looks in this picture:

And then Tika snapped this magnificent deer:

On to Lumbini - the Dashain festival is is full swing and has shaped the timing of these last few days. As we were leaving the lodge a man arrived with a goat. ‘We will cut it,’ the owner told me. I know what he means: part of the festival involves the celebratory sacrifice of a goat, which is then skinned, cooked and eaten. 

(Tika and his family don’t do the goat-thing anyway, but their celebrations are muted this year by a recent bereavement.)

Of course I find the whole thing repellent, but maybe that’s a little hypocritical. Most of us in the west are happy to collect our turkeys, plucked and gutted and wrapped in plastic, from the supermarket shelves. Rarely a passing thought for the bird that once strutted round a shed. Nor the man or woman who killed it. Not so different from the festive killing of a goat?

It’s been too long.

Oh Kathmandu, it’s been too long. But let’s not linger on the challenges of the last few years. For now I’m here.

And I’ve had a hiccup on the camera front, so no photos this time.

Has it changed? The pandemonium of the arrivals hall up at Kathmandu airport hasn’t changed. The traffic mayhem is, if anything, even worse. The only way I can cross the busiest roads is to find someone else looking to cross, tuck in behind them and follow as they weave through lines of traffic. (And especial thanks to the young man who spotted me looking hopeless and steered me across the road like an old person. Without him I might still be there). The air is so thick with diesel I could taste it.

The welcome in my hotel is just as warm. The pomelo tree in their lovely courtyard, set back from the chaos, gives a dappled shade: my refuge from the streets.

But there are changes. The earthquake in 2015 did such damage here; while most ancient temples have been repaired many buildings collapsed completely and new structures have emerged. A new temple is being built where a school once stood. Swanky new hotels rise, incongruously, in the ancient streets of Thamel.

It is obligatory to get lost in Thamel - which is how I stumbled on the garden behind the Museum of Nepali Art. There js a cafe in one corner, and I sat under a jacaranda tree with my coffee. The frangipani will smell sweetly in the evening. It is mercifully quiet.

The rest of the space is divided into quarters. At one edge, a small plaque with a quote from Rumi: ‘Somewhere beyond right and wrong there is a garden. I will meet you there’. I wander on. Not a blade of grass is out of place; such a contrast to the chaos of the streets outside. There is a large, bronze vajra (it is a religious symbol. If I’d taken time to google I could tell you more). And some fibreglass statues - a reclining woman, an androgynous man. I’m trying to find a word other than peaceful to describe it, but for now that will have to do.

Surrounding the garden is a hotel, small shops and spa. Along one wall there is a series of photographs that tell the story of this space. Before the earthquake, this had been an unremarkable courtyard alongside a hotel. In 2015, within minutes, the site was destroyed. Nothing but a sea of rubble. Buildings alongside at risk of total collapse.

I don’t know who took the decision, but this rubble was cleared and the garden planted in only three months. There is a photograph of the gang of workers, dusty and disheveled and rightly pleased with themselves. I know that there were still people living in tents at the time (I visited and saw them), and you could argue that homes could have taken priority. But the men and women who survived the trauma of the earthquake and rebuilt Nepal also needed a restorative space; and here it is. I love it even more now.