Day 1 (Wednesday) Kathmandu, Nepal
As we saw the views flying into town, we could already get a glimpse of what we were about to experience. I saw smoke stacks from brick factories lining the outskirts of the city as we were dipping below the smog and haze. I could see bits and pieces of the traffic that we were about to driving in. We landed and were soon off the plane standing in the airport. The airport was nothing fancy and not much different in size from that of Bozeman’s. It was just after noon by the time we landed. We quickly made our way through immigration down to the baggage claim. We had over fifty 50 pound bags and were only missing 5. Wow! We were able to get them all the next day without any hassle. Praise God that all of the supplies made it! We grabbed all the bags and walked beside the guys as we just walked through customs because of the overwhelming amount of people we didn’t get stopped. This was a huge blessing because we did not want them to go through any of the bags and steal any of the supplies we were bringing. We loaded all of the bags into a truck just outside the building. We were beginning our trip of a lifetime.
We all got piled into a big tourist bus where we were given fresh marigold leis from our Nepali friends! We then took off for our first adventure which was a Hindu temple. We made sure to pray it up on the plane as we knew we would be stepping into darkness and see some evil things. This is one of the most important temples within Hinduism. The temple was quite a sight. We walked into the temple walls where we saw store after store selling man made gods, idols, and souvenirs that were being offered up to these deities. These idols had pornographic, demon like characteristics and just pure evil. As we continued walking through the temple we came upon some burning bodies. This was part of their ritual to get the dead to move onto their next reincarnation and they hope to be able to help them move up a caste or level. The smell of the bodies was terrible. They burn the bodies next to their holy river, Ganges. This river is suppose to help them in the reincarnation process. It is full of trash and sewage. If they can dip their feet into the water in their last dying minutes and die with their feet submerged, then they get a better chance of moving up higher. What a way to spent your last few minutes of life. The fact that these people died not knowing Jesus and they will be going to hell. They will not get a second chance. No amount of rituals is going to help them.
We walked by a group of Gurus that had ashes from the dead spread all over their bodies. This is suppose to help them reach the next stage as well. They might even be able to reach the ultimate stage of Enlightenment where they will no longer be reincarnated. People will also drink cow urine and spread cow pies all over their houses to help bring them luck and to move up the ladder in the reincarnation process. We saw a lady that was wailing so loud over the death of what we think was her mother. This lady had no hope. Nothing to believe in. It was a cry of despair not a cry of knowing that they have moved on to a better place. The experience at this temple was overwhelming. Those people are so lost and they are caught up in the lies of the devil.
We made our way out back to the bus so that we could head off to the hotel to finish out the day. The traffic was a little hard to believe at first. I thought it would be similar to the chaotic streets in the Philippines, but to my surprise it was much worse. There was more honking and more people passing and pushing their way into traffic. I knew about the cows as I remember hearing about it in India while attending middle school. I knew it would be similar here, but never thought about it much. They were all over and everywhere. The middle of the road, next to food stands, it didn’t matter. This also added on to the list of all the traffic obstacles. I am sure that Brent will go into more detail about the traffic later. We arrived at the hotel, got our rooms and then had a meeting to let us all know what the plan was for the next week and a half. The room was hot and stuffy. This made it hard to pay attention as the meeting mostly dealt with the trekking teams anyways. The fan in the back of the room was also creating some nice ambient noise. This was not good after hours of flying and feeling jet lagged. Despite all of this, the meeting was great. We all finally knew a tentative game plan and got introduced to our Nepali friends.
The rest of the evening was quite calm. We ventured out onto the streets to exchange money and to get a few of the guys some extra trekking items they needed. The streets were hectic as I just stood around for a moment to people watch. We went in and out of a few shops before heading back to our hotel for dinner. Dinner was exhausting. We all ate dinner and then went up to our rooms to crash. Brent packed his bag as he was headed out early in the morning to make his way to where they would trek. It had been a long but great first day in Kathmandu.
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