I always want to recreate with photograph that specific moment when you finally arrive to Boudah after all that long and hard way. This is the main gate between two houses where you look at the Stupa for the first time and the stupa looks at you. All those times I've come there the road always had been was long and hard. You might still remember what happened in Kiev but my adventures were not over yet. Why? Because... I lost my passport!
About one year and half ago during small prostrations retreat in Bodhgaya I used to miss Boudah very much and think that it would be much better place for practice. One year passed, we're in Boudah doing prostrations.
Unlike Boudah stupa Swayambhu is located at the top of a hill. If you plan to go up by main stairway then be ready to pay an entrance fee. But my tourists use entrance as an exit only.
Most of all in Nepal I fancy balconies and windows decorated with wooden carving. This photo shows not the most picturesque option but then it's new and cozy, most beautiful windows are usually old and covered with dust.
Streets of big cities in India are totally a hell but somewhy all the same mix of people, auto rickshaws and cows on streets of Kathmandu, Nepal's capital looks natural and fine. This could be because there are much fewer cows and buddhist temples and stupas are virtually at every corner. But let's start from the very beginning. Taxi brings you to crossroads before entrance to district of Thamel which is a tourist mecca full of souvenirs, trekking stuff, hotels, restaurants and agencies. Thames is right on the back of this photo and if you walk left then you would reach Indian and British embassies in about 5-10 minutes. However, you hardly will even need the latter one.
If I didn't like this place then I would have to start liking it because this time everybody wanted statues and buddhist gaos, sometimes going to look for them few times in a raw. This is the difficulty of making one's buddhist choice :)
Now I know absolutely sure that the time difference between Nepal and India is 15 minutes. Well, time difference between Moscow and India is 2 hours 30 minutes. My friends used to laugh: what a time zone can be there for 30 minutes, it's impossible. But no, even stranger things happen.
I don't quite know what I can write about Boudah. I've come to this place so many times, walked around it so many times, did prostrations together with Tibetans so many times... I bought so many statues, thankas and different little things in the local shops... Hardly I have right to call this place my home but I can definately adress the Stupa as homely and native.
Shamelessly using the fact that I cannot drive bicycle I sent away all of my tourists to explore Lumbini on their own. "Why not? Just browse around temples..." - and took only Alenka whom I wanted to pay some special attention to as the only non-buddhist person in our totally buddhist trip. We hired cyclerickshaw for us too and want to see the garden of Lumbini.
Very often I see recurring dreams, and some of them are about the same places. One is a mountain city, either Dharamsala or Kalimpong. Another place can be recognised only from the specific smell, exactly as it was on the second floor of the temple in Tashiding. And another one extremely resembles the garden where Buddha was born.
It's approximately how (skipping special Russian words) my friend commented on one of previous stories about Nepal. But the place I talked about then is not visited by buddhist travelers so often and here in Pharping many of them actually live and practice for long time. These are those who truly can call it their home.
Yes, I've been here many times, so what? I still love this place. It's very easy to get here: just board local transport right on the left of main Bouda stupa's gate. It takes half hour in bus or microbus which gets more and more empty as you go and in the end you see traditional nepalese gates to Sankhu village.
Every group has its own karma but some of the moments are very similar. If it's not because of the same group leader it can be because of the same places visited. Road from Kalimpong to Nepal is very long even when everything is going on well. But when something stars to go wrong, it becomes plainly endless.
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