The mighty elephant with its amazing strength plays an important role in southeast Asia. Domesticated in Thailand and Nepal it is used as a pack animal, hauling and carrying. It has become a tourist attraction in both countries and visitors get thrills out of riding atop the patient animals. The howdahs on which they sit are plain but in times past when kings paraded grandly through their cities, the howdahs on which they were enthroned were gorgeously and elaborately decorated as were the elephants themselves. Lord Ganesha, the elephant-headed God of Success is also the God of Removing Obstacles, an appropriate title, and is, with the goddess Kali in the highest ranks of the Hindu pantheon.
My exposure to elephants in these two southeast Asia counties was extremely limited but I was impressed by the genuine affection the mahouts seemed to have for their charges, the care they took of them, and by their obvious pride in them.
Everyone knows the name Kathmandu but two other royal cities, so-called because kings have lived there, get little publicity. Patan, on the sacred Bagmati river and so close to it as to be almost part of Kathmandu, has its own Durbar Square and its temples and palaces--it seemed like dozens of them. We spent a morning prowling through the center of this city noted as the home of artists and artisans.
Temples, palaces, and shrines were everywhere but the Square seemed less crowded than that of Kathmandu. The contrast between Nepalese architecture and that of its neighbor Thailand fascinated me. I had never seen nor imagined such unique structures as these. Patan was impressive but later in the day when we drove a few miles east to Bhaktapur and entered its Durbar Square, we found a place even more so. Besides temples and an especially grand centuries-old palace, there were monuments everywhere. Most of these seemed to be made of red sandstone and they were mounted on beautifully carved wood or stone pedestals. There was the great Lion Gate.
There were so many riches here that it was impossible to take them all in. Bhaktapur justly prides itself as being the cultural and artistic center of Nepal. Late in the afternoon of this day the bus took us east to a site where there was said to be a superb view of the Himalaya at sunset. Unfortunately the weather wasn't clear enough and we had only a glimpse of a single peak in its "Alpine glow". The drive was interesting however and we went through a grove of trees where reputably, hordes of bats lived and descended after nightfall in search of prey.
Buddhism has become comprehensible to many in the western world but Hinduism with its gods and goddesses remains mostly mysterious. Kali, the Divine Mother is fierce. At one time she was offered the male human and animal sacrifices she demanded but in these days offerings are symbolic. It was to her temple at Dakshinkali that we went next day. We walked down the path from the parking lot along with pilgrims carrying caged roosters and leading unaltered puppies and baby goats. In the old days, we were told, these would have been slaughtered in the temple. Kali is said to have her softer side but it is ferocity for which she is noted. The pilgrims were a cheerful lot, stopping here and there on their way to buy food and drinks at the open stalls that lined the path. From the savage Kali's stronghold we traveled west to Swayambhunath, the very ancient Buddhist stupa perched on a hilltop. Swayaanant is also known as the Monkey Temple because of the colony of monkeys in residence there. The giant stupa has an unusual spire beside a Buddha head.
Like its counterpart in Kathmandu, this Buddha's eyes seem to be seeing everything. The place was crowded with pilgrims but we didn't see any of the monkeys.
The piece de resistance, the perfect grand finale of this southeast Asian journey was a flight past the superb, the sublime Himalya. I had seen it in Galen Rowell's fine photographs and now I saw the real thing. The pilot let us take turns going to the cockpit to take pictures but I was too dizzy with excitement to get any good ones.
It really didn't matter. I was on top of the world. What I had dreamed of and longed to see was before me--this glorious mountain range. I was seeing its highest peak Mt. Everest, known to the Nepalese as Sagamatha, the goddess of the sky.