Nepal- between life and death

Today Paula and me felt so bored so we decided to go out with the kids. Last week they went to a park and a big swing so we thought we could go there again. Raaj also joined us because we had no idea where to go haha. Luckily we took the bus (even if we were 14 persons..) but otherwise we would have needed to walk 5km.. and it was so hot again so I was really not in the mood for this. At least I have some hotpants now (Paula brought them with her from germany) 😊👍. So yeah we took the bus which drives to Boudha, but we got put of it ca 2km before. Then we had to walk for about 15min and finally reached the swing. It was actually the same as in the garden of dreams and again I was quite scared to use it because these constructions just look sooo unstable🙈. We spent about one and a half hours there until everyone had swung (even me haha). One of the kids swang so hard, the whole swing was shaking and actually everyone thought it would break😅. After swinging we went to Pashupatinath. We had to go up some steps until we reached the top of a little hill. There one had a nice view over kathmandu. Basically it was like a park... People were playing cricket, sleeping, picnicking or just enjoying the view. We were just staying there for few minutes, then we went down on the other side of the hill. After some steps we reached a big temple complex. In the middle of the complex was a river called Bagmati river. Kids were swimming in it and in total the place looked quite nice and happy. Well, until I realized that this wasn't a happy place at all... Basically the funerals of Nepali people were happening there. We stayed at one side of the river and watched the whole process which was going on at the other side. Death people were lying there in a row, wrapped in yellow cloths. When everything started they unwrapped the death person's face and the feet. Then the relatives came and spilled water over these body parts and kissed them. Afterwards they wrapped the person in its cloths again and put flowers on them. Then they carried her/him to a wood heap, burnt the corpse  and wiped the ash into the river. Writing all of this down sounds really unemotional.. Well for me and of course for the family members it wasn't like this at all. It really touched me. The people were crying so much, wear breaking down and one even passed out. For all the relatives it was so emotional and sad. And it felt so weird that we were breathing the air with the ash of dead people in it...I don't know watching this whole process really felt scary and touched me... actually I do not even find words for how I felt. Also it was just such a strange atmosphere. On the one hand there were people crying and everyone was so sad on the other one tourists were watching it and kids were jumping in the river in front of the burning people and were having fun... I mean this is just so.. I don't know, it's just weird. Some of the people watching it also filmed everything and were zooming at the dead people and relatives who were breaking down. This was so disrespectful !! I mean imagine my parents or grandparents would lie there and other people would film them burning because of being interested in the culture or whatever it would make me so angry. Yeah so this place made me feel really thoughtful and sad. 


After watching all of it (btw I really didn't want to watch it and I also walked away when they started burning the woman, but the kids were so interested in it and wanted to watch it....) we went back to the orphanage and were just relaxing and watching tv. 

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