Swayambhunath or Monkey temple

The road to Kathmandu was very long but had beautiful views with the road winding up steeply and precariously around the mountain. On the way we stopped at another roadside cafe, at which me and David opted for a cheeseburger, it would be my first since we left Scotland, David had one the day before in Pokhara and really enjoyed it, it was a burger as we know it.  I was really looking forward to it, but should have known, it would go horribly wrong. When it arrived, well the best way I can describe it is as a savoury doughnut, the type with no hole in the middle, or a  lump of fried bread. So basically we had a bread thing in a roll! Not a hint of cheese although the bread thing was orangey! One nibble of that and it was discarded I made myself a chip butty instead.

  On reaching Kathmandu we went straight to Swayambhunath, it was lovely and is a place of many Buddhist temples. As soon as you enter the grounds you come across many stupas and statues, the Buddhist prayer flags blowing in the breeze add to the colourful spectacle. The Buddhists believe that the words of the prayers are blown up to heaven on the wind.  Monkeys are all over the place with some even swimming in a pool. 

At the statue below you can try and get some good luck by throwing a coin into the bowl at her feet. David tried and didn't manage he then gave a coin to Shiv who got it in,  I think we should get good luck by proxy. 

Some of the monkeys.

The view from the top of the hill. , it was quite dramatic with the light coming through the clouds. 

The main stupa, one story about it is that some prince(forgotten his name) went here to see a divine pink lotus. He thought that everybody should get the chance to see it so he decided to raise it up. To do this he prayed to the gods and eventually a mountain arose. This took a long time and in this time his hair had grown very long. When the mountain arose he cut of his hair and the headlice in it turned into the monkeys which are there to this day.

The white round  base to the stupa is supposed to represent the earth, the faces above it on the gold are four Buddha faces facing in the direction of the main cardinal points. The nose, is represented by the Nepali number 1 which also means unity. The 13 gold rings above it represent the 13 stages you need to go through to reach enlightenment and nirvana. 

This is a lady who was bashing bricks to the right shape to fix the wall behind. We have seen a lot of women here, especially compared to India and many are doing very hard manual work. One was carrying a basket of bricks on her back, with the strap of the basket going around her forehead.