Beyond Marrs

We have finally made it to our destination: Kathmandu! Our beautiful 360 degree views are the Chandragiri hills behind us, Kathmandu in front of us, and hills and the city on either side of us. Our village in the Chandragiri hills has a court for futsal with a fence, a door, and a metal roof. The first time we played we met, like, 10 kids, and played two matches. The second time we got there with nobody at the court but, at the end, three other boys came and played for a while.

We got here a little more than a week ago, and I already love it! We have been taking nightly evening walks through our village, and we have been seeing goats, cows, chickens, and more! It is far different from the other places we have been, but also similar in a way. A few days ago, we went to a place called Kathmandu Durbar Square, and it was absolutely stunning! We even saw the Kumari! She is a young girl thought to embody the Hindu goddess Taleju Bhawani. The Kumari lives in an intricately carved house, and she never comes out, except for certain festivals (eg. Indrajatra). We ducked through an opening, and into a small courtyard dotted with pigeons. We waited for a while, and the Kumari still didn’t appear. Finally, mom said to leave, but then the guard said to stand where there was a better view. And then we saw her. A girl, maybe 11 or 12 years of age standing stock still with a permanent poker face. I looked at what mom was doing, and copied her with both hands pressed together at my forehead, with a slight bow of my head. She looked down upon me for a few minutes, and then strode away along with her caretaker. Then it was our turn to stride away. We walked through the door, and out into the constant bustle of people, and the piercing screams of the security guards’ whistles. 

We walked through a cloud of people, and among the people were flocks of pigeons that clogged up the air. I decided to stick to mom and dad, because if I didn’t, I wouldn’t be able to get back to them in the packed space. Everywhere I looked I saw temples, especially pagodas (below). We ducked into yet another courtyard, similar to the last, but bigger. We looked around for a moment, and then we went into a large, 9 story pagoda that loomed above us. The rooms got smaller and smaller as we went up. At the top, we got rewarded by a vast view of Kathmandu Durbar square and Kathmandu valley.

A bit later, we spilled out the bottom of the pagoda, and stumbled into an outside ‘gallery’. There was also only one exit: through a museum. We went through the bottom floor of the museum, up the stairs, and looked at the long, fancy hallway (that you couldn’t go into). It used to be the receiving room for important foreign officials. We stopped and looked for a moment, until a lady called us over to take a picture of me, Ada, and her daughter. We exited the museum and went to get lunch and a drink (PS, I got Fanta. Super good). We said ‘dhanyabad’ (thank you) and left. We waited a minute for our ‘indrive’ taxi and headed back to our beautiful village.