Boudha

Saturday afforded the opportunity for some more sightseeing and I seized on the chance to make a trip to Boudha (also known as Bodhnath).  Boudha is the home of Nepal's sizable Tibetan Buddhist exiles and its stupa is one of the largest in the world.  The bike ride there was a slog (it's not far from Kathmandu but it's mostly uphill and the roads are rough).  As soon as you pass through the gate to the stupa area, however, your whole mood changes.  The first sight of the stupa is magnificent:

Unfortunately, the photo fails to do justice to its size.  It's an imposing 100m in diameter and approximately 40m high.  Since it was Saturday morning it wasn't too crowded but there were enough Buddhists there to create an atmosphere and I joined them in their clockwise perambulation of the stupa, spinning the small prayer wheels along its circumference as I went, which had a slightly hypnotic effect on me.  I found out afterwards that if I'd walked around three times, my sins would be been absolved.  As it is, I'm still is possession of two thirds of them.

Once I'd walked around the outside of the stupa, I climbed up to the next level and walked around up there, looking across at the shops, street and people through the prayer flags.  I really like prayer flags.  For a start, I find the bright colours aesthetically pleasing.  But, more than that, I'm rather fond of the idea behind them; each flag has a prayer on it and as it flutters in the wind, the prayer is released into the world (for a non-believer, quite why I like this is a mystery to me).

I had read a newspaper article which described Boudha as a haven from the bustle of Kathmandu.  It wasn't nearly as peaceful as I'd expected from reading that.  Nevertheless, as I walked around on the stupa, under the blue, cloudless sky on a perfectly warm day, appreciating the architecture of the stupa and the surrounding houses and watching the prayer flags flutter in the gentle breeze, I became aware of a sense of calm inside myself and, moreover, realised it was the first time I'd felt that way since I'd arrived in Nepal.

After a very happy hour or so around the stupa, I went off to explore some of the surrounding gompas (Tibetan Buddhist monastries).  Unfortunately, most of them were shut at that time of day, but they're still impressive from the outside and I enjoyed wandering the backstreets to find them.  Unlike the austerity of so many of the churches I've visited in Europe, I was particularly struck by the bright colours with which they are painted.  The photo below is a detail on the wall of the Tsamchem gompa:

It was with some difficulty that I tore myself away from Boudha in order to make it back to town in time for lunch with a friend.  I do, however, hope to go again.  I hear that it's particularly lovely in the early evening, when the Buddhists come out in throngs to light butter candles, covering the stupa in a glowing light.