Nepal

It has been a week since I woke up on Saturday morning to the news of the devastating earthquake to hit Nepal.

Horrors.  I texted my friends in Kathmandu to find out how they were.  Of course, this was already hours after it happened, while I was sleeping the night away.  Thankfully, all of them were safe, and camping outside their homes for fear of more aftershocks – of which they’d had 32 already at that time – occurring during the night.  I kept in touch with them over the next few days, and although life is far from normal since then, they are all keeping well.

Each time a news feature shows up on the television, I quickly scan the faces – maybe I’ll see them in the crowd.  But I don’t, and I suppose that’s good news in a way.  Most of the news now is of the affected villages away from Kathmandu, and we are only now really seeing the extent of the destruction.

I see images of what their cultural and historic buildings and cities now look like.  I remember when I was also walking in the same Durbar Square that is now filled with rubble, and the temples in Bakhtapur busy with people.  

I marveled at the centuries old temples …

What used to be a watering hole or a pool in the temple …

Historical buildings were an important part of life and religion …

Modern life is visible, perhaps mostly for the tourists, but they still kept the culture as part of life …

It is easy to see how the centuries old buildings and temples had no chance surviving the earthquake, even as I admired at that time how they could be preserved and are still so much a part of the daily life of the peoples there.  These are Newari houses (outside of Kathmandu), and people still lived in these.

We were in Patan when there was a festival going on.  Crowds of people on the street, sitting everywhere to watch.

A blessing, in a way, that this did not happen during a day of festivities …

I have always wanted to return there, and I still do plan on returning.  There were still so many places there that I didn’t get to, because my trip was cut short.

Sad that I won’t be seeing the old history any more …

For more of my visit to Nepal, click here.  This is the original blog I had set up for the trip before I switched over to WordPress. It brings back good memories for me.