We talked for a while with an american felow who seemed to be reviving his visits to Nepal in the late 60's. He was a calm man in his fourties, very meditative. He had been living in India for some years (6 or 9, I don't remember) and he was in Nepal for some monthes. He gave us some advices on Pokhara, where he had been for some weeks before returning to Kathmandu. He told he prefered to be in the "dam side" than in the "lake side", as it's more calm, quiet and it can be a little bit cheaper too. He told us also to make the bus trip at least once, otherwise we would loose spectacular views.

During our conversation some young boys and girls appear in the esplanade to sing a song that might be traditional for that festive time of year. We saw some of those groups of children singing on the door of restaurants, cafes and shops for earning some money from the owners. Our companion was very well impressed with the generosity of the owners of the "German Bakery" with the children. In fact, they gave a lot of notes, bread and cakes to every child that appeared singing at the door. Those chants were another note of joy that one felt everywhere in Kathmandu. Another one, less pleasant was the fire crackers. However, we were told by our conversation chap, that in India they use a lot more fire crackers, so he wasn't much annoyed with them.

After breakfast we went to the real Kathmandu Guesthouse to see if there were rooms available and which were their prices. The prices ranged from US $20 to $40, but they had nothing available. The place looked us nice and cozy. It's a small in, with a small esplanade in the front. The entrance hall is small, with wooden furniture decorated with traditional motifs, a little bit like some of the windows and doors on some older and nicer looking houses on the cities of the Valley.

On the afternoon we went to Pashupatinath, the largest Hindu complex in Nepal. It's a large area of temples near a sacred river. I guess that this river is an affluent of the holiest Ganges. Like we had been told by someone at the Tashi Deleg, the place is like a miniature of Benares (Varanasi), in India. We spent several hours there, enjoying the athmosphere of the place. Non Hindus are not alowed inside the main temple area, on the right bank of the river, but everybody can stroll around freely on the other parts, except inside some fenced areas of major temples. They have signs in english informing of the prohibitions. There were rather few tourists. The "population" was mainly constituted by Nepalis, holy Hindu men (babas) and - of course - lots of Rhesus monkeys. These monkeys here were nothing shy, almost shameless. Some of the holy men passed their time smoking what seemed to be some sort of cannabis and laughing a lot and loudly. Others were much more quiet. Maria Jose talked with one of these for some time. He was from Goa, as Maria Jose's mother and he had a wife and children in Germany, where he had been some times. In his opinion buddists were more peaceful than hindus, that tend to be a little bit more trouble makers. Strange point of view for an Hindu!

In spite of the gay animation of the others holy men and the funeral that was going on on the river border, one felt great on that place, one could feel a strange kind of holyness and peace in the air. As people with roman catholic education, it was nice to discover that Hindus have a lighter, uncomplexed, more natural relation with death. Catholics are kind of morbid, they pass their life thinking about and "adoring" death but at the same time they fear it a lot. When compared to other religions, catholic rites and temples seem too opressing and frightening. Anyway, I know very little about religion, these are only feelings. It was unthinkable to assist to a christian funeral with such quiet minded atitude. I allways thought that seeing a corpse being burned would be very impressive, perhas even shocking, but there I was assisting to that funeral completely calm. Their natural atitude towards death seems to be contagious. Note that I wasn't indiferent to what's going on, I felt much "respect" inwardly, but I was watching to something very natural, although sad. It felt good being there in company of those holly men and monkeys.

Don't think that "holy men" are persons much away from reality in their meditations. One of them didn't hesitate to ask for money when he noticed I was trying to photograph him. Perhaps that was a complete delusion for someone more idealistic... :-) When we were going away we would ask me for cigarettes for him and his servant, who appeared to be cooking his dinner. He was intrigued by the mark, which he didn't know (perhaps it was portuguese, I don't remember). I think our relation didn't go further because of his poor english. Interesting the fact that this felow that looked like a beggar had a servant. I had read that it's common that these men are followed by boys that are their disciples, but that servant looked too old and not "intelectual" enough to be anyone's disciple. But who knows? Perhaps the man decided seeking the truth after being middle aged.

We knew from a boy that came talking to me that Mother Theresa of Calcutta has a settlement nearby, where there is a school and an hospital.

From Pashupatinath one has some good views on Kathmandu and all its area. We can see the nearby large buddist stupa of Boudnath. We went there after leaving Pashupatinath.

Boudnath is another magical place! It's inside a closed circus where everybody circulates clockwards, as the buddists laws order. Due to being closed, the place has an acoustics rather strange, with lots of echoes. That contributes a lot to the mistics of the place, with the chants of the tibetans monks, mixed with the buzzing made by the movement of the prayer weels that circle the base of the stupa and the ringing of bells. I didn't noticed any of those prayer weels stopped. As or the bells, there were some very small, hand held, and others "normal" and "large" size. The place seems to be inhabitated and frequented mainly by Tibetans. The major part of the many shops are run by Tibetans and some of the buildings look like convents or any other sort of buddist institutions frequented by monks.

We were lucky by arriving at the end of the day. The colours of sunset reinforced the mistic athmosphere. The place appeared on Bernardo Bertolucci's film "The little Budda". They succeded rather well in capturing some of athmosphere of the square, but as allways with the *really worth* places, being there is another thing, there's no way of describing it by words or showing it by images, although it is very easy to obtain impressive photos and videos.

That night we knew a couple of Danish young brothers in Tashi Deleg. They hardly looked like brothers, one being thin and talkative, the other a littel bit fat and vey quiet, timid perhaps. The fatter one had also beard and the other one used glasses. They had travelled a lot since they had left their country. They had done all the trips by land, they don't like the feeling of changing from one place to another very quickly. They are right, I think, it's strange to leave Europe on one day, be on a "nowhere" and lethargical environment of an airplane for some hours and landing on Far East the other day. It's quite a shock, specially if it is the first time! On the other hand, avoiding the plane it's rather time consuming and so it's not possible for the vast majority of those who, like me, have not more than a month of yearly holidays. They had taken the Trans-Siberian from Moscow to Beijing, then they went to Lhasa, in Tibet, by land too and then they got into Nepal by bus. They had just arrived from a trek to the Annapurna base camp. I enjoyed hearing that they had no trouble walking in those high altitudes without any experience and without any guide. Although I was optimistic, I was a litlle bit worried about treking, not only because of altitude, but also because of my lack of training and the eventual need of a porter and/or guide. We didn't know also very well how easy could be arranging accomodation during the trek, if we had to rent any camping equipment and food, etc. Hearing talking about how easy everything went to them on their walk to the Annapurna base camp made our worries disappear.

After saying goodbye to the Danish brothers, we went for a walk. We ended up in Darbar Square, which is a nice place during the night, much more quiet and deserted than during the day. We couldn't avoid noticing that there were lots of people sleeping in the streets and even in some temples in Darabr Square. On the way back, we had quite a surprise when we assisted a rock concert in a square full of people. It was a nepali band who played some old well known hits from the sixties. I remember to hear some Beatles songs. We were the only non nepalis insight and Maria Jose was one of the only woman in the square. I guess that it was too late for the majority of tourists to be in the street. After all, the major part of people goes to Nepal to do trek, not to see the "Kathmandu street life by night".