We were up at 09:00 hrs. for breakfast in the Young Dung. Today we got hot milk with our porridge and this helped to dilute the thick gloopy stodge. An omelette completed a hearty start to the days eating. The woman in the Tourist Office told us that we could hire bicycles “anywhere”, but this was far from the case. We finally tracked down a couple for 8 Nepalese Rupees for the day and pedalled south to Patan to inspect the Youth Hostel.
On the Bagmati Bridge we had a fine view of the snow-capped mountains that surround the Kathmandu Valley. The hostel looked admirable for our purposes and who could grumble at 6 Nepalese Rupees per night. We returned to Mom’s Health Food Café for peanut coffee, with a brief stop at a temple with ornate lions and a pointed layered roof (probably the Changu Narayan Temple). This had all been allowed to fall into a state of shabby disrepair, which seemed a shame.
We left Mom’s and cycled past the Royal Palace, browsed in a book shop and then headed west to the Swayambhunath Stupa or Temple. Guide books said we could find peace and prayers on the little hillock of Swaymbhunath in the northwest of Kathmandu Valley.
Visitors for whom the name was a tongue twister have called it "Monkey Temple" from the 1970s. Swayambhu, overlooks most parts of the valley giving visitors a panoramic view of the city. The stupa has stood as a hallmark of faith and harmony for centuries with Hindu temples and deities incorporated in this Buddhist site. The glory of Kathmandu Valley is said to have started from this point.
Resting on a hillock 3 km west of Kathmandu, Swayambhu is one of the holiest Buddhist stupas in Nepal. It is said to have evolved spontaneously when the valley was created out of a primordial lake more than 2,000 years ago. This stupa is the oldest of its kind in Nepal and has numerous shrines and monasteries on its premises.
We left our hired bicycles under the gaze of the local kids who wanted payment for their sentry work. The bikes were equipped with locks so we didn’t need them. We mounted the steep stairs, climbing amongst Bhuddist statues, beggars and monkeys.
The temple itself was magnificent. Set on a hill with a commanding view of Kathmandu Valley it was more of a collection of shrines and religious monuments surrounding a white dome topped with a splendid gold metallic tower. This was decorated with painted eyes, Buddha's eyes and eyebrows.
This place is also known as the Monkey Temple because of the profusion of holy monkeys living in the north-west parts of the temple. They are holy because Manjushri, the bodhisattva of wisdom and learning, was raising the hill which the stupa stands on. He was supposed to leave his hair short, but he made it grow long and head lice grew. It is said that the head lice transformed into these monkeys.
We wandered around amused by the agile monkeys and the other tourists. The monkeys snatched food from a family that appeared to live up here and scattered it about as they fought for the little beans. A fat woman photographed every square inch as we, mindful of our limited stock of photographic film, tried to capture the essence of the place in a few snaps.
Priests lit small oil flames and ensured that the prayer wheels kept spinning while the temple stall owners tried to lure us into their shops. It was a strange, pleasant place, reputedly over 2,000 years old. Back at ground level we stitched up the bicycle minders by riding off with them hanging off our bicycle racks shouting for Rupees.
We returned the bikes to the hire shop and walked to Pig Alley and an untried pie shop called the Dangol. Western music LP’s played as we sat amongst the paper lanterns and Nepalese wall paintings. Short work was made of our usual sweet’n’sour vegetables with egg fried rice and we moved on to the Ashok Pie Shop for apple pie and cake.
Following this we had a quick browse of the local shops with their fantastic embroidered shirts and retired to bed early at 21:00 hrs.
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