Shiva's birthday!

Today was a public holiday, the office was closed so we went to Pashupatinath with our new friend from the office Sundar. We caught a ridiculously cramped bus there and back and spent all day wandering round watching people and exploring. We ate sugar cane...

And watched Hindus queuing up for hours to worship their god Shiva at the Golden Temple....

There were people everywhere...

And burning bodies in the cremation ghats in the distance...

We climbed over a big hill and over a funny bridge with everyone pushing each other. Peter got a wet foot in the smelly river and moaned about it all day long!!

We shared views over the whole site with the local holy cows! 

Marijuana is illegal in Nepal, but on this day each year it is legal! So people are openly selling, smoking, eating and drinking weed all day long! After our experience in Lucknow, we resisted, but we were tempted by the Ganga chocolate. Luckily the seller had sold up and gone home by the time we got to him!

Just like being at home!

We've spent the last week and a half getting stuck into our volunteering project here in the capital, Kathmandu. We've settled into our office which is only a 25 minute walk away from our lovely room in Patan. We both have computers, but the electricity is provided on a shared grid system, so we only receive it at certain times of the day. The plus side of this is that everyone in the office talks to each other really well. What a great, welcoming group of people we are working with. The downside is obvious since most of our work involves Excel, Word and email. Initial work has involved project planning the next two months, preparing stakeholder engagement strategies / meeting frameworks and drafting presentations. Literally like being back at work in the UK!

Aside from the volunteering, we managed to spend last weekend looking around Patan properly for the first time. We took in some impressive temples...

...creepy faces...

...impressive front doors...

...buildings being held up by sticks...

...and some locals...

Not trekking in the Himalayas.....yet!

We loved Pokhara. It's a perfect location for people that want to be active, you can go trekking for days on end, white water rafting, paragliding, horse riding, the list goes on. We decided to save the more strenuous activities for later, especially paragliding. Instead we went for a leisurely row out to the middle of lake Phewa Tal. We did hire a person to row us though! Don't want to overdo it:

You could just make out Anapuna mountains (part of the Himalayas) through the mist in the distance. We took a closer look at sunrise the next morning which involved getting up at 5am. Back to our ashram days! But the views were definately worth it:

We're so lucky to be seeing such awesome sights. I think Selina needs to remind me sometimes when I am moaning away on some uncomfy 9 hour bumpy ride. On one hand we get to see the above, but on the other hand - we ended up hiring a private car to travel across the country to Kathmandu! Much comfier, plus less moaning!

Buddha

We've arrived into Lumbini just inside Nepal. The border crossing was pretty relaxed with us literally walking across the border on a road, checking out one side and getting visa in office the other side. Lumbini is a small place famous for being where Buddha was born in the 6th century BC. We had a fascinating time looking round the site of His birth (the white building contains the stone marking the spot):

It is surrounded by a development zone in which different nations have taken plots of land and built their own monasteries. The German one was our favourite:

But China and Bhurma weren't bad. There were about half a dozen under construction. No UK or US ones yet....

We have found our introduction to Nepal really rewarding as things seem a lot calmer, with a lot less hassle from people trying to gleen money off us. However it took us 24 hours to notice that the clock has moved forward 15 minutes since crossing the border. Very random!

We are making our way across to Kathmandu where we will be doing our voluntary work. Next stop is Pokhara.

Holysh*t!!!

We arrived into the most Holy Hindu city on earth at 4.45am on an overnight train from Lucknow. We walked along the ghats next to the River Ganga, ate and drank in rooftop restaurants overlooking the Ganga and explored the narrow alleyways behind the river. I was so busy looking at everything I stepped in the biggest pile of cow poo. Pete was so busy telling me what I needed to do, that he also stepped in a big sloppy cow pat! It made my day.

We watched a Hindu aarti ceremony next to the river at sunset with hundreds of other people.

The next morning we went on a rowing boat on the river at sunrise and watched the local people and devout Hindus from across the world praying, swimming, washing their hair, doing laundry and playing in the river.

We couldn't resist going to one very honest restaurant which proclaimed on its signboard "yes, we are less dirty" !!! We also went for a tour of the enormous university buildings and chewed Varanasi paan which made our lips and tongue red.

Lucknow now

We are moving eastwards across India to head towards Nepal for mid-February. Next stop Lucknow. We enjoyed much of Lucknow where we were treated like celebrities. Everyone wanted to shake our hands and have their photos taken with us! We were quite a novelty, we hardly saw any other tourists while we stayed there.

We did a heritage walking tour round a couple of the main sights and through Chowk bazaar, a maze of alleyways, backstreet shops and houses. 

We also got the chance to taste some different food and drinks, including Namash - a sweet made from milk, and Thandai - a drink supposedly mixed with Marijuana. I drank mine really quickly and then helped Selina with hers. Two hours later I was feeling worse for wear and had to cut the tour short to go back to our hotel! I'm sure there was something more potent than weed in that drink!

We went and looked at all the main sights in more detail the next day.

Residency:

The Bara Imambara had a labyrinth of fascinating dark alleyways that we investigated:

We also loved the Chota Imambara which had some impressive buildings including:

Our next stop is Varanasi, our last one in India before we head into Nepal. Third overnight train in the last week! 

The world's most beautiful building

Wow, that'll be the Taj Mahal at sunrise!

We spent a happy day in Agra looking at the Taj from every angle possible. It looked really different colours throughout the day.

Agra was good fun. We also spent a day at Fatehpur Sikri, a fortified ancient city. The architecture had a mixture of Muslim, Hindi and Christian influence reflecting the faith's of the Emperor's different wives. 

We also went to Agra Fort which had some great views of the Taj....

We stayed in a lovely Homestay in Agra with marble floors throughout.

More aartis

We left the ashram and stayed in Haridwar for a night. We went to see an aarti ceremony alongside the River Ganga at dusk, there was lots of fire and chanting and flowers being floated down the river as an offering to the Gods.

It was fun to watch, but we were the only Westerners and attracted a lot of attention from people selling stuff, beggars and enthusiastic donation collectors! My banana leaf of flowers to float down the river went from 20 rupees to 2,000 rupees! Pete got cross and gave him 10!

Sat by the river the next day:

From Haridwar we took an overnight bus to Agra. Ouch, twelve hours on a really uncomfortable bus. Never again.......