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We saw a lot of the ancient dzongs (fortresses) and temples. Note the lumber holding up the wall on the right, again due to the 2015 earthquake. Note the streets. They are original from centuries ago.

This whole story is bizarre. A king used to get frequent visits from a goddess to help him lead. But one time, the king looked too closely at her breasts and body. She said she would never appear to him again, and didn’t. But the people needed someone to adore and so they searched the land for a living goddess. She is usually a little girl about 3 years old. They take her from her family and have her live with an old established royal family until she starts her menstrual cycle and begins to look like a woman. At that time, she is let free to have a normal life. Which is no longer normal, because a man doesn’t want someone more powerful than himself, and she has no useful life skills. Then they pick another young Living Goddess.

This is the Kumari Ghar Palace where the Living Goddess lives. We were all crowded in the central garden and we all had to put away our phones and cameras before she would appear. She’s 10 years old, chubby, and very, very sad looking She appeared in the third story center window with the lightbulb. Apparently, seeing her provides the “little people” with blessings. The Living Goddesses are trained to be emotionless when they show themselves.

We had six rickshaws following in a caravan, causing a little traffic problem on the crowded street.

Typical shop in Katmandu with their brass, copper and metal wares.

Our tour guide, Anup, gave us all 100 Rupees and sent us into the Temple to get a blessing. We bowed to a Lama (or Budhha?), saying Namaste, getting a little piece of thread tied onto our wrist and we gave him the 100 rupees. The blessing really didn’t help me stave off altitude sickness or stomach problems.

Every tour guide tries to teach us the local greeting. This is the FIRST time Namaste was comfortable, easy and cinch to remember, since I do yoga weekly. It means “may the light in me, see and honor the light in you”. (Not some satanic mantra Christians want you to think it is.)

This picture I stole off the internet. If we needed to take off our shoes to enter a temple, that meant no photographs. This is typical of what we saw in the temples. There were 7 bowls of waters, that got changed every day, bowls of fruit and food offerings they changed every couple days, and the special colorful cakes, made by the monks out of flour and butter and food coloring, stayed up to a month. And, always, there were the statues of the specific gods of that specific temple. You would also see butter lamps that burned for days, made of Yak butter, vegetable oil or ghee.

More stupas!! Base, eyes, 13 levels, prayer flags.

And those dreaded fluffy white clouds that stopped us from seeing the Himalayas many, many times.

I received the red dot as a blessing at a restaurant. ….maybe because they couldn’t get it centered in the middle of my head, was the reason I couldn’t stave off my sickness during the trip? …..just sayin’.

This was the typical food and the stuff in the cups were ‘blow your head off spicy’ foods. I always had enough to eat, but always seemed to get somethinig that made my mouth burn.

We went into a suburb of Katmandu, which was Anup’s home town, known for it’s artwork and statues.

Note the wires everywhere. These are INTERENT cables that never get removed — they just keep adding more. And it’s unsightly.

The focus of this photo is the little pile of rice and red paste, situated outside a person’s home. Every morning, they make a shrine, from very small to very large in front of their homes as a blessing and a thank you to the Gods. We were warned not to step on them as respect.

You can also note the uneven steps and streets of the city. And yet we did not have one fellow traveler trip or fall on this trip. Yay, us!!

Be sure to click this vieo.

If the mother has died, the youngest son is the one to start the fire. If the father had died, it’s the oldest son to light it. Daughters do not normally start the fires because the thought is that they cannot withhold their emotions; and if they start crying while starting the fire, the dead relative will have a hard time leaving them, and they will not transition well into their Heaven.

After the first lighting, a professional steps in to add wood and straw to be sure the fire doesn’t go out.

I think it takes 4 hours to burn a body.

Note the tiny little home just five feet wide. The girl usually inherits the family home (or was that Bhutan???). Either way, the children inherit the family home and they are all supposed to live in it together. But if a brother or sister cannot abide by rules, they take part of the home and build a wall and live separately. This is probably what happened with this little home. Strange!

Shoes! We did most our shopping in Bhutan. I arrived with a 35 pound suitcase and returned home with 42 pounds; so shoe shopping wasn’t an option for me.

There were many of these painting schools. This is where they would train the locals to paint some of the most outstanding murals inside the temples.

I get a kick out of the OSHA safety in other countries. This is 2-wire electricity stapled to the ceiling with a place to screw in a lightbulb and a switch. It was low enough to touch or hit your head on …. thus, probably, the missing lightbulb.

There were alot of these strips from roofs. Something about Heaven.  

They are called a pataka, and are supposed to be a slide for the gods to descend from, when people pray to them. Cool.

I was a little queasy eating the bosa fish served at lunch right after seeing from where it was possibly caught.

This lady was serving buckwheat pancakes. By this time, I was over eating horrible food in order not to insult the locals. There were enough people in our group that I didn’t have to eat them.