bliggity

Continued from the previous post...

I neglected to explain all of the pics I put up in the last post, which were the Himalayan landscape as seen from the plane, central Bhaktapur, dyed yarn drying in the sun along Bhaktapur's backstreets, the Bodhnath Stupa, baby and mommy monkey, and the sadhus (the monkeys and sadhus were both at Pashupatinath).

This is a miscellaneous picture because I wanted to show the manner in which people move big things around here. They carry them. Whatever it is, they carry it, giant sacks of grain, big metal file cabinets and furniture.


So we got a late start then ran around like crazy to try to get to Patan. Once we got there, we checked out the museum there which was fantastic. It explained so much of the Buddhist symbolism I've seen but not understood. Now I understand the importance of the position of the Buddha's hands and the reason a stupa always has the same distinctive shape. It really helped to clarify a lot of things as well as helping me to notice additional symbolism in the art (for instance, Ganesh anyways has his trunk stuck in a bowl of sweeties.)


After the museum I got a fantastic set of ox bone prayer beads that are all carved to look like skulls, a wide ox bone bracelet, and a gorgeous ox-bone and wood necklace (they use a lot of ox bone here) all for less than $10. Sweet. Then we wandered around the main square for a while before checking out the backstreets.


Soon, it was about 4pm and we took a taxi back to Thamel where we picked up the bus tickets from the travel agent and went back to our room to change to meet Sulo (the friend of a friend I mentioned that we contacted in the last entry). After a bit of confusion, we found her driver and went over to her place.


Sulo welcomed us into her home/office with open arms and showed us all over her carpet factory. We saw women weaving massive rugs stitch by stitch. It's hard work, but they get good wages and there's day care for their kids. It was amazing to the the creative process that happens behind things that we totally take for granted (rugs). She got dinner for us and we had a fantastic time talking with her and her husband, Richie. Soon, we were all tired and Matt and I went back to the hotel and to bed.

The pictures in this post are Patan's Durbar Square, a coppersmith's shop in Patan's backstreets, and busy Thamel (where we're staying).