Color in Nepal

One thing I really noticed during my time in Nepal was how colorful everything was, and I have a few examples I'd like to share. A picture says a thousand words and all that.

In between the two treks I went on, in Langtang and the Everest region, I spent time in Kathmandu and Hetauda, a medium-sized town in the south where Tiffany is living and volunteering. I especially noticed color in these more southern, more Hindu places. The more Buddhist north was somewhat colorful, as well, I suppose, but not nearly to the same extent.

For example, this was a very common scene walking into town from Tiffany's apartment.

I love the saris and kurta surwals. But maybe even more than the clothes, I really appreciated the judicious use of the umbrella for blocking the sun in Hetauda. This was the most southern and therefore the hottest part of the country that I visited, and the umbrella usage was unlike anything I saw anywhere else. Very nice.

Another colorful part of Hetauda and the surrounding region was all of the red flowering trees. This photo starts to give you a sense, although it doesn't quite capture just how brilliant these trees are this time of year.

One my last Tata Sumo ride back up to Kathmandu from Hetauda the day before I left Nepal--which was just a few days ago, crazy--we stopped at the Dakshinkali Temple just a few kilometers before reaching Kathmandu. Incidentally, the goddess, Kali, and Hinduism more broadly, is so interesting to me these days. I know quite a bit more than I did before my trip to Nepal. I guess at this point it pretty much just blows my mind. So for example, I honestly don't know what the goddess, Kali, is all about. From what I've read and some of what I saw in Nepal she seems like a pretty dark character. But I've heard and read things, too, about her somehow being viewed as a mother goddess. Who knows? Anyhow, when we stopped there by the temple to change a flat tire, a young man came over and offered everyone in our Tata Sumo this tray of tika powder, etc.

All of the Hindus in the Tata Sumo, i.e., everyone but me, took a healthy portion of the tika powder on one of the flowers and applied it judiciously to their forehead. I believe it must have been some kind of minor festival of some sort, as I had never seen anything along these lines on any of my previous Tata Sumo rides past this temple.

In Kathmandu there was quite a bit of color, in particular at Pashupatinath, which is one of the holiest if not the holiest Hindu site in Nepal. Pashupatinath, by the way, is a temple of Pashupati, a particular version of Shiva associated with animals. As you walk in towards the temple complex, you are bombarded with stalls full of color. There are the beautiful marigolds, which would appear to play an important role in Hinduism that I don't quite understand.

There was the tika powder, and not only the most common reds, oranges, and yellows, but other colors as well.

And there were the widows, the female sadhus, or Hindu holy people, who hang out at the temple.

So much beautiful color all over the country. Really, this is just the smallest little taste of what I saw. One of the most important things that is missing is the clothing that women wear and the tikas that men, women, and children so commonly have. Hard to get photos of people sometimes, I suppose...

And now as I sit in Jeff and Ruthie's place outside of Geneva, the color is starting to fade. But I know Nepal is just as colorful as the day I left. I don't see that changing anytime soon.