A fieldtrip to Patan's old town

On Tuesday, my whole class took a bus to Patan (pronounced PAT-an, not puh-TAWN). It's about 20 minutes south of school. We were with Anil, who seems to have his fingers in many pies: The Great Himalayan trail project, Blue Angels cooperative, the Nepali Tukis (see article in an earlier post), hydropower, reviving Patan's old city, and many more I'm sure. On this trip he guided us around and pointed out why some architecture was significant and took us through side alleys that led to little havens of quiet, green spaces with few cars. 

I cornered him and asked if he had heard of the two guys doing cataracts surgeries in Nepal for very cheap (my life goal since elementary school). Sanduk Ruit and Geoff Tabin go to villages and do hundred of surgeries in a day. This process has been perfected so that previously blind people can see in a matter of 3 days. For more info, read "Second Suns" by David Oliver Relin. Apparently he and  Ruit (one of the ophthalmologists) are buddies - they're both Ashoka scholars. He says that most of the sustainability people in Nepal know each other. Anil is going to Palpa with our class this coming week, so we will have more time to pick his brain.

 

This is a little door on the front of a mandir. This is interesting because the wood carvings are new, compared to the other carvings on the 3 doors on the other sides of the mandir. The wood wears away quickly, and sometimes people have no idea of what used to be carved there. Some of the wooden beams have just been left blank instead of being re-carved. Sometimes, the beams are not re-carved because there was not enough money to fund it.

 This is a reservoir in the old city. I never found out if people drink from here (hope they don't - the water is lime green), but it is definitely used for irrigation. Near to this is a Buddhist stupa built by an Indian king, Ashoka the great. The stupas became his trademark to spread Buddhism. There are thousands of them in south asia, all containing some relic of the Buddha. They look something like this picture of Swayambhunath in Kathmandu. I would  recommend reading about how Ashoka spread Buddhism (Yep, it's just good ol' Wikipedia).

Every year, villagers would clean out their wells. then they'd have a ceremony to the snake god (who was in charge of water) by lowering a flame into the well. If the flame was extinguished it meant the gods were angry, but what it really meant was that there was carbon monoxide in the well! So they wouldn't use it. I thought that was so cool, so I decided to look some Hindu myths or practices to see if there was a chemical explanation to them, but research proved really hard. Hindu traditions are highly variable, and most info about them describes the purpose of the act or which god is being appealed to, rather than the actual method. I have decided to do research on adoption instead.

As a side note on Hinduism, we had a lecturer come in and speak to us about it. What was most memorable for me was his question: "is Hinduism monotheistic or polytheistic?" Everyone responded polytheistic (many gods), but in fact it is kind of monotheistic. He says "There is unity in diversity, and diversity in unity." All the gods are a variation of 1 god. For example, In the morning, the sun looks different than it does at noon, which is different than the afternoon, and different than at sunset, but we know that it's the same sun. Same with my mom: she's a mom, wife, daughter, sister, cousin, etc but we all know her as Karen, still the same person. All the gods you've heard of (Shiva, Vishnu, Ganesh, Lakshemi, Durga, etc) are varions of 1 god. They represent differnt "personalities," such as destruction, creativity, protection, learning, knowledge, power yadda yadda cows, cookies....Kind of like those Catholic patron saints. So in this sense it takes diversity to make unity. Nepal especially has more diversity than I realized. There are more than a hundred ethnic groups (depending on whom you ask), different caste groups, different geographic regions, and even economic diversity. Despite all this diversity, Nepal is still united (contrary to all the politcal strife we've heard about). So, I thought the monotheism idea was interesting because at face value, Hinduism seems polytheistic. Also unity in diversity, and diversity in unity seems relevant to most things. The more I learn about Nepal, the less I know!

 

Cool building in Patan.

 Prayer wheels in a mandir.

 Guest house in Patan. If you visit Nepal, you should stay here. It's a super fancy renovated old house, right in the middle of old town. The catch is that the house was built for people born a few hundred years ago: aka short people. Even I had to duck a couple times. In the picture, Jacob is probably my dad's height, so you can see the ceilings are pretty low

 The human watering hole. Kathmandu is a valley. Dig deep enough, and you find water (that's the impression I got from Anil). Old Patan has never been conquered, mostly because of this. Enemies could lay siege to the city, but the city could still access water.

Patan's Durbar square. I think we visited this last time we were in Nepal because I was having  deja vu all over the place.