After a scenic but otherwise uneventful flight from Donegal to Dublin and a restless one from Dublin to Abu Dhabi, I spent the morning waiting for my final flight in a meticulously tiled chartreuse-and-purple terminal of Abu Dhabi’s mammoth airport. I had already taken a couple of photos when I saw the signs prohibiting it.
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At boarding time, I was bumped up to business class, probably due to someone shifting seats around in my original row. It was the fanciest, most comfortable flight I have ever taken. Still, I can’t imagine paying thousands extra to get that prime service on a four-hour flight.
Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu is a small brick building, architecturally reminiscent of a 1960’s-built community college back home. Low ceilings, exposed brick, tired employees. When I got through the visa-upon-entry line, I grabbed my bag, got waved past the x-ray conveyor belt without any kind of customs check at all and found myself out in the mid-afternoon heat, hounded on every side by touts and sketchy taxi drivers. But my welcome party was there to scoop me up and whisk me into the city in a taxi, an old Suzuki van the size of a Yugo, rattling down dusty roads packed with motorbikes carrying three people each and honking, honking, honking.
I spent two days in Thamel, the backpacker neighborhood of the city, adjusting to the pace and the time zone and the heat. I did make a couple of excursions to see things once I was somewhat familiar with the area, which of course is devoid of street signs. My favorite excursion by far was to Swayambhunath, the Monkey Temple. It sits at the top of a very large hill with at least a few hundred increasingly steep steps leading up. There are hundreds of macaques on the hill, running up and down the stairs, climbing all over the buildings of the temple and sitting in trees. I was warned not to make eye contact. There are several buildings at the top of the stairs, the largest of which is the central stupa, a hemispherical structure with a square bit and a sharp point on top. Around the stupa are several smaller temples to specific gods, with Mongolian-style architecture, square roofs with ski-jump corners. All round every temple building are prayer wheels, which are spun as people weave around the site in a clockwise direction. There are also dozens of people there to work out, running up and down the stairs and stretching or doing vigorous calisthenics at the top, with a view of the city below and the hills beyond.
The buildings and art were lovely, but I admit I found the monkeys more fascinating. I was sometimes surprised how human their gestures were, how dexterous their little fingers. There were so many people there for the sunrise--all locals--that I often felt in the way, so I’d find a little nook to sit in and watch the monkeys until I needed a new vantage point.
I have never been a religious person, but high on a hill overlooking the dusty, grimy, populous streets of Kathmandu, I certainly understood the calming power of a little Buddhism at daybreak.
