Wednesday in Nepal: Visiting the Temples

Wednesday, January, 20, 2010


In the morning a group of us walked to Durbar (Palace) Square, a 15 minute walk from out hotel. The square is an historic site and a complex of beautiful temples and shrines, both Hindu and Buddhist. They look like large pagodas and have intricately carved exteriors that I couldn’t really capture in photos.

One o many temples at Durbar Square

A peek inside one temple

We happened to visit the square when the locals were celebrating a national holiday. I can’t remember the exact name but it is to celebrate the goddess of knowledge and education! Apparently, it is considered a very auspicious day and therefore, many weddings and other events are planned to coincide with it. There were many little girls dressed up to look like the goddess. On the way, we saw many Hindu residents on their way to make their offerings to the gods at small and large temples along the way. According to my guide book, they put various foods on a plate, offer them to the gods, then take the rest of the blessed food home to their families.

Girls dressed as the goddess of knowledge

I was on a mission to find a post office. I read in my tourist book that one existed in the square. When I finally located it, I was surprised to find just a little room with one woman behind a little wooden desk. I didn’t see any stamps or envelopes or any indication that I could trust that anything I would send would actually arrive at its destination. Indeed, the woman said that they didn’t send packages; I would have to go to the “main” post office. After 15 more minutes of traversing small unnamed roads and asking more people (no one knows where the post office is!), I final got to the main post office. It was so small, I couldn’t believe it. They did not sell supplies and they don’t give receipts to guarantee the package will get to its destination. So, I gave up and went to Fed Ex and paid a fortune to send my kids gifts that cost half the price of sending them! Later I asked another local if he ever sends letters by mail. He replied that he uses the phone because it takes too long for letters to get anywhere!

Here are some more pictures from our walk:

There are lots of dogs here that just roam the streets without collars or leashes

I would need to see a chiropractor immediately if I did this!

After our tour of the temples, we took a bus to our scheduled visit to the Nepali Association for the Blind. There, we met with the director, the president, and several other board members and officers of NAB. They warmly welcomed us with flowers and music performed by some of their members studying music. They gave us a tour of their rented building where they have the largest Braille printing press in Nepal. NAB translates many of the country’s text books into Braille through contracts with the gov’t which then distributes them to schools. NAB seems to have a strong advocacy arm. The President spoke of their advocacy efforts to impact the new national Constitution currently being written. He said that disability is mentioned six times in the draft in regards to education, employment and rights.

They asked us many questions about our disability laws, coalition activities, and specific situation of people who are blind in the U.S. It was a very nice mutual exchange.

Tomorrow, we have site visits with a human rights association and the National Federation of the Disabled. We have Dr. Kafle to thank for helping to set up these site visits in Nepal. He even took time off from teaching at his university to accompany us on these visits.