Visited Swayambhu today. It’s a spiritual place for Buddhists atop a hill in Kathmandu. I walk there from my hotel. We visited here 10 years ago and little has changed. It all looked very familiar and I suspect it hasn’t changed much in the last 100 years. At the base of the hill, possibly all the way around, are prayer wheels of all sizes. These are drums engraved with prayers on an axel and the Buddhist way is to go in a clockwise direction and spin the wheels in a likewise direction. Within the grounds are huge and beautiful gold Buddhist statues being visited by locals and some tourists, and of course monks. These places are are designed for mass worshipping and there is always a colorful cross section of humanity flowing through. It’s fascinating to observe. Then you climb countless steep stairs to the top where there is a large stupa and more prayer wheels. There are markets as well for tourists and locals. And monkeys. This is also called the monkey temple. The monkeys have free range here and possibly have some spiritual significance. There was damage here from the earthquake effecting some precious spiritual artefacts.
Being on top of a hill, there are spectacular views of Kathmandu valley, sort of visible through the Kathmandu smog. On the way back I got approached by a Hindu man who placed flowers on my head and I tika ( red dot) on my forehead. That’s nice I thought, then he asked for 200 rupees. Not so nice!
While here I get accosted by several groups of school children. They are from a private school working on a tourism project. They have to interview tourists from at least 5 different countries. It becomes tiresome after a while, despite their politeness. Avoiding them became a sport. I met their teacher who is interested in organizing teacher swaps with Australia. He wanted my advice!
The rest of the day was restful. I started work on laying out Dad’s memoirs on my computer
angusmccoll 
I remember that place well. Is the slimy green ‘swimming pool for monkey’ still there? I think it was on the other side of the hill. Loving the updates Angus 🙂
Great to have you following. I didn’t get to the slimy green pool this time. Very little has changed here so suspect it is the same. There is earthquake damage at the top but the beautiful gold Buddha statues are intact. Quakes are frequent here. Had one last night that rom led for a few minutes apparently. I only remember about 20 seconds. Bit unnerving when your 5 stories up and it’s 11pm 😦
Ron led = rumbled ( bloody auto correct.
In Pokhara now.