Trip to India & Nepal- Boudha- Bodhanath

There is no place quite like Boudha. I was priviledged to live here for weeks at a time over the course of several years, volunteering as a teacher in the local schools. They were unforgettable experiences. This is one of the few places in the world where Buddhist culture is accessible and unfetered, and the lanes around the stupa are crammed with monastaries (over 40 at the moment) and workshops turning out butter lamps, ceremonial horns, plumed hats for Lamas, and other paraphernalia for Buddhist life. You enter through a gate off the main road.

The yellow on the stupa is marigold paint. Thousands of Buddhists gather daily to make the circumnavigation of the stupa. We used to love to sit at an upstairs window table at one of the local restaurants and watch.

With so many monastaries where are usually groups of monks on the street. The stupa is ringed by what originally was local homes. Most have shops at the street level.

Of course, lots of prayer flags are flying from the stupa.

One of the newer monastaries built around 12 years ago and replacing an old building on this corner.

All the monastaries are decorated with fabulous murals. This one is a little different as some of the murals are 3D.

Monks at their prayers.

The area used to be full of vacant lots. Not very many are left now.

Another monastary.

Shechen Guest House where I stayed for several weeks in 1996 with my two granddaughters when we were volunteering in a school here. It was called Rabsel House then and didn't have the furniture in the yard.

We had a triple room on the upper corner. We did our wash by hand and hung it on the roof. My older granddaughter was startled one night to find a monk praying on the roof when she went up to hang the laundry.

They now have a fancy restaurant in the garden. And the prices are quite a bit higher of course.

And the neighborhood is now all built up.

Well, ok, the meat markets have improved a tiny bit. There still is nothing resembling refrigeration. But they used to be just a little stand on the side of the dirt path. They would close down in the heat of the day and come back in the evening for returning home customers with a candle plunked in the middle of the meat to light it up for customers.