Lumbini (Nepal)

From my diary (June 2013)

On a Saturday morning, my flight to Kathmandu is scheduled for a 7.45 am takeoff from Kuala Lumpur, but I arrive at the airport almost four hours in advance. When I get to the departure gate, I realise that about 99 per cent of the passengers are Nepalese immigrants going back home. There is no more than a dozen or so tourists, myself included. The flight lasts for about four and a half hours, during which time I try to rest a little. Shortly before landing, below us there are only clouds until the aircraft breaks through them, allowing one a view of the green mountains that surround the urban conglomerate that is Kathmandu and its satellite towns.

Kathmandu. A name that conjures the exotic, as does Samarcanda, Marrakech or Timbuktou. Once inside the airport, I queue for my visa, and then go out to look for the driver of the hotel I have booked, who is supposedly expecting me. I must wait awhile, but when he arrives, I know immediately from his manner I will like the Nepalese people. Less so the way they drive, though, which is of a piece with the south and southeast Asian driving I have by now encountered time and again: lorries, cars, motorbikes and bicycles coming at one from every side, on the right and on the wrong side of the road, continuously avoiding collusions. Every now and again a cow strolls imperturbably by, or rests in the middle of the carriageway.

Less than half an hour’s drive and we’re at the hotel, which is charming, located in a quiet area of the city. I’m offered a ‘welcome drink’, get through with the formalities, and go straight to my room as I’m falling asleep on my feet.

I wake up two or three hours later feeling quite dazed, but the desire to start exploring Kathmandu prevails. I have a masala chai to wake me up, a black tea leavened with milk and spices predominantly cloves, cardamom and cinnamon one of the tastiest hot drinks I’ve ever tried, and then decide to venture out. I get to the main road, and look around, incredulous at having made it… to Nepal! The streets of the old town are narrow and not always paved, with honking motorbikes and cars continuously brushing past you, whilst all around one… history. The old palaces, the Hindu temples and Buddhist stupas, the Buddhist monks, the incredible ethnic mix of Western and Eastern Asia, not to mention the shops, the colours, the affable people, the women in their sarees. In spite of my tiredness, a clear sense of being in the right place fills me with joy...


The Maya Devi Temple with Ashokan pillar. This is the place where the Buddha was born!

The Eternal Flame and the canal dividing Mahayana from Theravada temples

Karma Samteling Vajrayana Monastery 


Zhong Hua Chinese Buddhist Monastery

Nativity scene in one of the Tibetan temples

The Mother Temple of the Graduated Path to Enlightenment


World Peace Pagoda

Lumbini village


Family outside their home in Lumbini village










































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