In the Valley of Kathmandu
White Wall of Himalayas Lonic Line crashes into the blue sky. The aircraft goes to land, the snowy vertices disappear, greenhouses appear with terrace fields, valleys, villages with tightly pressed to each other with gray brown houses. Already clearly visible cars, pets, people working in a field built in the form of mandalas a huge Buddhist Stupa Bodhnath, and after a few seconds we land at the airport of Kathmandu.
The city of thousands of formality churches are minimized, and we will very soon go to the city. The place is not reserved in advance, but fortunately, there are free rooms in the first hotel.
"Blue Star" – The five-story building on the external and internal structure is not much different from hundreds and thousands of similar hotels located all over the world.It is quite comfortable, and the fact that we are on the outskirts of the city, it does not matter at all, because the center can be reached on foot for thirty minutes. Within a few centuries of isolated development, Kathmandu embodied individual and unique features and its own special architectural style. He turned into a kind of historical and architectural open-air museum. In order to thoroughly inspect everything, a few weeks need, and to explore and feel, you need many years. Suffice it to say that in the Valley Kathmandu there are more than a thousand temples and several tens of thousands of other structures that can be found in architectural monuments. Old houses are covered with fine wood thread. Na externally with a slurry and red facade can be seen a magnificent wooden grid, decorated with sculptures Erker, richly inlaid doors. Ancient temples and palaces are built in the form of multi-storey pagodas, which suggests Chinese influence. In reality (and this is a few who knows) the situation is just the opposite. Chinese and Japanese palaces and pagodas have their prototypes here in Hepal. HA Square Durbar
Time we have, as always, little. Quickly having lunch in the restaurant, leave the hotel and go to the city center – Durbar Square, where the Royal Palace is located – one of the most interesting buildings in the city.
Roofs of the Khanumandhok Palace with wooden, richly inlaid backups rose a tier for a tier from the square. Palace includes an entangled network of randomly connected courtyards, pagodas, tombs, numerous columns and statues. Currently, it is almost completely renovated. Restoration work was started in 1975 under the auspices of Yusko, when it became clear that many palace structures threaten the danger of destruction. The most interesting place in the palace – the yard "Lohan Chauk" in the House "Meld", built in the XVIII century Province of Harayan, united the kingdom of Hepal. We have impressed by multi-storey towers located in the corners of the courtyard. Having decided to build a palace, the king turned to four cities of the country with a proposal to take part in the construction. Each city, competing with others, built his tower. The highest tower of Bhasantpur, built by Kathmandu himself. The entrance to the tower is open, and we climb up wooden stairs. From the last, the ninth floor opens an impressive view of the surroundings. Right below us – a crowded urban area covered with a red roof of the palace, away the high mountains surrounding the valley. HA Square – Buildings with high roofs, numerous temples stand on stone platforms with steep steps. There is also a huge, brightly colored bas-relief Cala Bhairava, to which the Northern Highlanders never cease to bring sacrifices. This is a huge sixth monster with naked teeth, scattered eyes dancing over the demon’s corpse. In his hands, he has swords and cloth, on the head of the crown with human skulls, the chain of the skulls decorates the belly. Next to the monster rises built of red bricks and having the form of pagoda temple. Its roof pepper wooden beams covered with brightly colored sculptures. Hippie – Beach Has Has Square many foreigners. Your attention is attracted by a group of Europeans with emitted heads, in dirty and emphasized sloppy clothes. This is a hippie, which in recent years has become a real beach for Nepalese. Traditional hospitality and friendliness do not allow the Nepalese to get rid of these adventurers. With the development of foreign tourism, many new problems arose. One of them is smuggling drug trafficking. Despite the official ban, in the city on the street, taking place next to the royal palace, there is a lively drug trafficking. What is not the only problem. Hepal police did not hold Western tourists when trying to take various artistic values from the country. The discrepancy of small decorative details of temples, various carved ornamental and metal objects, inscriptions and T. D. From the barbarian appeal, the Temple of Vishnu was suffered in Patan, from which copper bas-reliefs were stolen, calmly stood here many centuries.
Currently, the Government has been conducting serious measures to preserve and use the country’s unique artistic heritage. They are taken under state protection about 20 thousand historical monuments. However, in general, in the country, the number of such monuments significantly exceeds the specified figure that with limited resources significantly complicates work with the embezzlement.
Stupa Bayambhunath to the north-west of the city there is another most important historical and architectural monument – Stupa Bayambhunath. Straight on the square, stop the car and kill the driver to pass down. Apparently, we cannot properly pronounce a complex name, so it does not understand for a long time. Changing Clean the postcard with the image of the Stupa, and everything becomes clear. The driver speaks a little in English and knows a few Russian words. He says that in recent years, an increasing number of Russian tourists visited Hepal. He often met our doctors, teachers, builders working in the country. Drive up to the picturesque high hill. In order to reach the vertices, where it is located bembahunath, it is necessary to overcome 365 steps, but for lazy and hurrying tourists, the road is laid almost to the steps itself. The first large stupas were built in the era of the Board of the Indian Emperor Ashoki (III century BC. NS.). They were built by the type of big stupas in Santići (V century BC. NS.) in India. However, the exact date of construction is still impossible – the archaeological studies of the religious structures in the Hepali are prohibited. Stupa is a huge white hemisphere, the upper part of which is decorated with a cube with a high circular cone set on it. Cone is surrounded by thirteen belts. With each of the four vertically, the cube on the aliens are watching huge eyes, and between them – a symbol resembling a nose or a question mark. Ham explained that thus depicts the number one, symbolizing "virtue". Other numerous buildings located around, much younger than the main stupe. These are Chapels, the statues of numerous deities (and they are in the Hepalee there are up to several hundred thousand), animals from Indian myths, multi-storey monastery buildings, columns and numerous minor stups. In the surrounding cliffs, niches are joined in which bronze and often covered by the gilding statues of the gods. Walls of Buddhist temples are covered with erotic frescoes and sculptures, overfeeding the most modern western pornography. Multi-Multi and polygamy are allowed in Hepal. But the number of husbands (wives) should not exceed seven. Bronze figurines depicting a wife enjoying love simultaneously with their family husbands can be bought on every corner. The sun shines brightly. Stupa sparkles white on blue sky. We approach her closer. Cast iron grille does not allow to come close to dome. The lattice rods are enshrined consistently along the entire base of prayer drums. Inside each such drum there are convilius with the statements of the Buddha. The service process in Buddhist temples is fully mechanized: it is enough to twist a prayer drum and you can be sure that your desire will be fulfilled. Since the drums are a lot, then passing once around the stupes clockwise and twist all the drums in a row, you can achieve the maximum result.
