UNESCO World Heritage Sites

September 25, 2011

This weekend I rounded out visits to the World Heritage sites in the Kathmandu Valley. I had no idea what a World Heritage site was a few weeks ago, but they are basically like a worldwide protection designation like a US National Park, and they come in two categories, cultural and natural. Nepal is technically categorized as having four, two natural and two cultural, but I think it’s kind of cheating to group all the Kathmandu Valley sites together. The two natural sites are:

• Sagarmatha National Park: Although this is right outside Kathmandu, I am not sure I will make it there—trekking solo is really only high risk activity for females here, and two women were assaulted in 2010 in this area.
• Chitwan National Park: A park in the Terai region famous for the chance to see the rhinos and tigers from on top of an elephant. I’ll be there a week from yesterday!

And the “two” cultural heritage sites are:

• Lumini: The birthplace of Buddha. I’ll be there a week from Tuesday!
• The Kathmandu Valley:
• All three Durbar Squares
• Changu Narayan
• Swayambhunath
• Boudha
• Pashupatinath

Pashupatinath is a pretty cool place. It’s right off Kathmandu’s main Ring Road, but it somehow manages a peaceful and quiet atmosphere. The main use of Pashupatinath is for cremation ceremonies (historically and currently). In Nepal, the family takes care of cremation itself and the ceremony is attended like we attend funeral/memorial services. Right in front of the temple, there is a ramp down to the river where family members place the body to wash its feet. This apparently cleanses the body, and then it is tightly wrapped in white and yellow cloth because if the body becomes unclean after the feet washing, it will be taken over by evil spirits and that’s how ghosts are born in Hindu culture. From the ramp, the body is taken to the platform designated for whichever caste the deceased was a member of, blessed by ceremony attendees, and burned. Members of the royal family are cremated right in front of the temple, then the higher castes are close to the temple and lower castes further away. When I arrived, there was a body burning on a kind of mid-level caste platform and several higher caste platforms being prepared. Then, the bodies showed up and I got to watch a ceremony. I think Pashupatinath actually has this tourism thing worked out. The temple itself is only accessible to Hindus, and its convenient river front location provides some segregation between the religious/cremation ceremonies and the tourists. Directly across the river from the temple (in the midst of a bunch of Shiva shirnes and other temples) they have placed a whole bunch of benches for tourists. A little weird I guess, to watch a stranger’s cremation ceremony in a similar setup to how you watch birds fly over the Grand Canyon, but a neat experience nonetheless.

Cremation ceremony

Cremation platform

From Pashupatinath it’s an easy walk over to Boudha/Bodhnath. Boudha and one of the corner stupas in Patan both claim to be the biggest stupa in Nepal. Which is actually biggest depends on how you measure it. The based circumference of Patan’s platform is bigger, but Boudha is taller and the dome is larger. Regardless, Boudha is an amazing place. (I haven’t done the four corner stupas in Patan yet; I’m saving them as a special treat.) I love Buddhist stupas because they are simple but powerful and there are lots of colors. The rain decided to clear out for just a few hours today (we are still in the midst of the never-ended monsoon season) so it was a perfect time to visit. I keep having these experiences of going somewhere and thinking, wow, this is the most magical place in Nepal and then two days later I go somewhere else and it gets bumped. Boudha is my current “most magical place” but I have a lot of traveling coming up in the next two weeks, so no promises it will stay on top…

There’s only so much stupa watching you can do in a day, but like Swayambhunath, this is a place I’m excited to re-visit. It’s perfect that my dad is coming to visit in November, because I can do all these awesome things and then put together a perfect three days of Kathmandu greatest hits for us to do together.

I have a bonus four days off work this week, in addition to next week (which was already scheduled off) because my office decided to close for all of Dashain instead of just part of it. I already had a trip to Chitwan National Park, Lumini and Bardia National Park planned for my official Dashain holiday. So for this bonus pre-holiday holiday, I’m heading down to Janakpur, near the India border, first thing Tuesday morning and I’ll come back to Kathmandu Thursday or Friday. It’ll be my first long distance trip on a local bus, which I’m both excited and nervous for. Maybe a little silly to take an 8-10 hour bus ride for 1-2 days there, but the bus is half the adventure! Plus my host family got really excited when I told them I was thinking of heading to Janakpur which I think means it’s a worthwhile. That said, the monsoons will not let up and there is a good chance the road will be washed out. Wish me luck!