Dakshinkali

After breakfast, we walked out of the old city to a taxi stand in order to have better competition and bargaining power for our ride to Dakshinkali. We managed to get a price slightly lower than that asked for by the hotel’s taxi driver.

The ride took about 45 minutes. Once we left the valley, the road was potholed and muddy – much like some of the ones inside the city except that they were windy as well. We had a few glimpses of the sprawling city and later on, green terraced rice fields.

At Dakshinkali, we walked past the stalls selling offerings, religious items and soft toys before descending the stairs down to the temple area by the river. It was raining lightly so we waited under the covered bridge until it eased into a drizzle.

The temple was a lot more substantial than 21 years ago. People who had offerings mainly had flowers, coconuts and other small stuff in a little basket. There were very few chickens being brought.

Last time, I recall the floor at the altar being red with blood and kids were finger-painting with the blood on the wall.

I did notice a shed where a decapitated goat was being tidied up. There were lots of chicken feathers in that shed too. I don’t have a problem with animal sacrifices like this as it is eaten afterwards. Some chickens here get to walk and run around compared to in developed countries.

We walked uphill to another temple but couldn’t enter as it was a requirement to remove our shoes. That didn’t appeal to me as it as wet and muddy. We walked back to the main temple and had another walk around before heading back to Kathmandu.

For monsoon season, I guess we have been lucky with the weather. We had a few scorching days followed by cooler days with some showers. When the weather was scorching, we’d have a shower to freshen up before our afternoon lie down. But when it got cooler, it was very pleasant except when there was some wind, making it chilly actually.

As we weren’t hungry, we shared a light lunch. The elderly Nepali man at the next table told me that I was a very handsome boy. Not bad for 49 years old with a very grey stubble, I thought. He and his friends enquired as to whether I had a girlfriend and I wondered where that was leading.

We spent the afternoon chilling then walked around to understand what’s good value in Kathmandu in terms of shopping before grabbing dinner. Hiking and winter gear were good value. I toyed with the idea of Keen sandals (which I had before as fakes from Beijing) but everyone had every size except mine. It is a popular size.

The ambience on the streets felt different today.  We noticed that some shops were closed; Saturday is the “day off” in Nepal as we learnt.  Sadly our momo place was closed too.  But there were more young people out on the streets enjoying themselves.

Unwrapping our laundered clothing today, we noticed that they had been individually tagged.  A small piece of cloth with a number had been loosely sewn to our clothes as an identifier.  Imagine the labour cost of doing something like that in New Zealand!