Wee glimpse of Himalaya - Back to the mountainside

I wasn’t able to escape the heat. Somehow in Cambodia it’s even more hot than Laos! How is that possible? We have been in Phnom Penh couple of days and thank goodness Toni found us a place with a pool. Mercury has climbed way closer to 40C than I would like, yesterday it was 38C during the day even the sky being clouded!

We have couple hundred unwanted neighbors though. My ankles are full of mosquito bites and itching like crazy. I haven’t been able to find a aloe vera gel anywhere but Toni was the best and bought me tiger balm. I am just little undecided if it really helps or not. Maybe I will have to lean in to the placebo effect? What I know is that if the itching is only problem I will get, I am not going to complain. Much.
Will have to keep fingers and toes crossed that I won’t catch dengue fever or malaria or whatever these little fuc#&!s are spreading in these parts.

Okay, I could rant for ages about gnats so lets backtrack from possible maladys to the fever I did have.

From Chengdu we headed back to Himalayans. To Kathmandu to be exact. I have been coughing a little for couple of days and was starting to feel even worse so I was relieved when our guide dropped us to our hotel. The clock wasn’t much but I wasn’t feeling up to even for a walk. Don’t get me wrong, I wanted to. I really did. While travelling one thing, I don’t like to do is coop up in the condo when there is so many new places to check out (That’s why this heat we are having now is starting to eat my mood too!). Alas, my head was starting to pound and my cough get worse, so what we did was laundry and took a nap. The nap didn’t help. I was feeling actually much much worse than before. And hungry. So we headed restaurant downstairs. On our way back we asked a thermometer for a loan from reception. I did have fever and Toni was starting to feel ill too. I started to pop painkillers and we spent the night napping and coughing.
To no surprise, either of us wasn’t feeling better the next morning so we contacted our guide to tell that we just weren’t up for any sightseeing. Our guide was understanding and both he, his boss and reception of our hotel asked several times during the day if there was anything they could do to make us feel better. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much more to do than just keep popping those painkillers, sleep and drink lots and lots of tea. Our guide did suggest ginger-and honey tea and it was delicious! Didn’t stop the cough but at least it tasted good.

So, our first full day in Nepal was spent basically in bed. Not fun. So even if not feeling 100%, next day I was adamant to do something. Anything. We had a visit to Chandragiri Hills in our itinerary so I asked if we could do that. We opted not to leave first thing after breakfast but noon instead, so we could sleep late. Well, I woke up before 6AM but at least Toni got to sleep in.

On our the way to the hills we stopped to buy some cough drops and those really helped!
Chandragiri Hills are close to Kathmandu and have panoramic view of Himalayas. On good weather you can see peaks from Annapurna to Mount Everest up there. We did have a good weather and cable car took us up the hill. Even our activity being just slow walk, it took my energies and we headed back to the hotel instead of doing something else from our itinerary.

Tomorrow was going to be our last day in Nepal and I was determined of being healthy. Dammit.
And dammit. I wasn’t. But denial is powerful tool when wielded right so we headed to our excursion. We had several sights on our itinerary and becouse of spending so much time in bed instead of exploring we had pretty much our pick what we could do. So, Durbar Square and Monkey Temple it would be. With many temples in Durbar Square there are also Kumari Ghar, the House of the Living goddess. Kumari is believed to be a living incarnation of the goddess Taleju Bhawani.

Kumari is a young girl chosen from specific community to live in Durbar Square. Devoted believers and curious onlookers may get to see a glimpse of her while visiting the square. It is strictly forbidden to take a photos but it is said it to be a blessing to see her. Her visiting her windows are not a everyday occurrence. This tradition is said to be a bridge between mundane and spiritual. That I don’t know anything about but what I know is that her life is not mundane. Comparing to lifes of other girls of that age hers is sheltered and has more religious aspects and rituals.
When current Kumari has her first period (or bleeds in anyway, even from scraping her knee or something like that), the choosing of next goddess begins. Having lived such a secluded life, it is good that human rights advocates had taken interest in this tradition. Having private tutor, access to internet and books are for sure helping the transition to “normal” life after being goddess for your whole childhood! In the yesteryears that hasn't been the case and I can imagine how one would struggle for your life changing so drastically!

We didn’t see Kumari, and I didn't really expect to, and continued our journey to the next destination. Swayambhu Mahachaitya, or better known the Monkey Temple. You might think that the name derivates from all the monkeys that live there but no. Back in the day, Buddhist deity, Manjushri spent time in the hill and he let his hair grow long. Apparently, he didn’t think washing it to be important and got lices. Some of them dropped from his head and turned in to the monkeys that now call the hills their home.

Even being one of the main attractions in Kathmandu and enticing bunch of tourists to visit, it is active place of worship which you could immediately see when you walk around the area. Beside all the souvenir sellers there are religious people walking clockwise turning the prayer wheels while they go. From my childhood I remember religion to be sitting quietly in the church and listening the priest so this kind of worshipping is foreign to me. But that’s part of travelling. The very best part, encountering customs and things that aren’t the same than back home!

Well, visiting these places didn’t take very long and we would have time to do something more today. Even if not having a fever anymore, I was still having a headache and a cough so I opted to see Bhaktapur. It is one of the 3 important cities in the Kathmandu valley. Even it not being very far to get there we would need to sit in the car for a bit and that would be perfect for me right now. Opportunity to see something and still letting myself to heal some more.
When we got there, we had a nice walk in the square and while our guide kept us entertained telling us interesting things of our surroundings I have to say that I don’t remember any of those. Shame on me! I still have positive feelings of this outing though, and we did have a nice chat with group of tourists in a cafeteria when we took a little break of walking.

I was starting to feel tired so when we got back from Bhaktapur, we just went back to our hotel. I was really starting to get fed up this coughing!

Well, the cough eventually ended and now I am dealing with the heat. And empty fridge. In my future I see me abandoning my little haven by the pool and defying the heat for exciting outing of grocery shopping. In a few weeks, we have a flight to Bangkok but after that our plans are wide open and I am really starting to consider South Korea. Now there is nice, cool 15C weather. Could be perfect, what do you think?