Exotic-Nepal.Com Blog

Swayambhunath : The Monkey Temple

admin — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 05:53:27 +0000

Here’s one place which always retains the loftiest standards among places to visit in Nepal: Swayambhunath, the mighty stupa atop a wooded hill in Kathmandu.

Swyambhunath bearing the meaning “self-emerged” is the most sacred and ancient Buddhist Stupa in Nepal.It was founded by the great-grandfather of King Manadev in the 5th century AD though it’s origin however, date to a much earlier time, long before the arrival of Buddhism into the valley.It is lofty white dome with glittering golden spire with pair of big eyes on each of the four sides of the main Stupa symbolizing the God’s all-seeing perspective.
Swayambhunath stupa is also called the Monkey Temple because of the many hundreds of monkeys dwelling there.There are many chaityas, temples, painted images of deities and other religious objects like prayer wheels and flags for the Tibetan Buddhists to be seen.

According to Swayambhu Purana,Kathmandu Valley at the very beginning was a huge lake, out of which grew a lotus that radiated a brilliant light.The Bodhisatva Manjushri seeing that the valley could be a good settlement for the humans,cut a gorge with a sharp sword at Chovar and drained the water away leaving the valley of present day “Kathmandu”. The lotus was transformed into a hillock and the blazing light became the Swayambhunath stupa.

Swayambhunath Temple

Stupa at Swayambhunath

Eyes of Swayambhunath

Pigeons on the white dome and dogs serenely lying around.

Stairway to Swayambhunath temple.It has 365 steps.

Shikhara , erected by King Pratap Malla

Prayer Flags

Small Stupas and prayer flags hanging around

Buddhist Monk behind the huge bell

Devotees spinning the prayer wheels

Bajra

Swayambhunath

Buddhist gompa at Swayambhunath

Buddha of light , Deepankar Buddha at Swayambhu

Statues of Lord Buddha at the entrance area.

Wishing pool with statue of Buddha at Swayambhunath

Swayambhunath hillock

Monkeys at Swayambhunath also called MONKEY TEMPLE

City view from the Swayambhu temple.

Many thanks to n95pic.blogspot.com for these absolutely stunning photographs and wonderful descriptions about Swayambhunath Stupa. All content in this particular post is copyrighted by n95pic.blogspot.com.

Brendan Work

admin — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 15:49:44 +0000

While I can’t say that I was particularly happy with this guy’s uncanny observations about Nepal in this piece, they were uncanny all the same. Although there are hard few entries about Nepal in his blog (there are hard few entries about anything, for that matter), they are more than worth reading. In some of his posts, he accurately captures how Nepal exactly is: relaxed and laid back, beautiful and picturesque, welcoming and home. Here’s the link to one of his posts I really liked. He talks about an assortment of things including his first bungy jump experience.

Then with a 3, 2, and 1, I spread out my arms and dove.

Sweet Mary, mother of Jesus.

Indeed.

I myself had bungy jumped at the Last Resort around a week before I left my Nepal for the States. It is indeed a sensation unlike I had ever experienced in my life: short yet never ending, an ephemeral eternity. While hard few tourists actually know about Nepal’s only bungy line, it’s indeed the longest jump in entire Asia, and perhaps the second or third mightiest in the world. All I can say is, if you ever happen to visit Nepal(which you should), do try Bungy Jumping. If you are brave enough, that is.

A blog? Duh! What for?

admin — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 05:31:19 +0000

Exotic-nepal.Com has been online since what could count as time eternity. I started this website as a hobby. Back then, the aimless, counter-productive kid that I was, I was more interested in the design and deployment of this website than in offering viewers good, worth-reading content. Now that I have grown up into a man (pretty much), I realise how much I could achieve through this website. Notwithstading the fact that there are thousands, maybe even tens of thousands of websites out there in this vast expanse of the internet, I have yet again set about to promote my beautiful, exotic country to foreigners and locals alike. While such and such sites definitely exist, at their cores lie biased, partial information. Most are online to advertise their own travel agency, or hotel, or product in the veiled guise of nationalist spirit. While it is indeed true that the first primal desire of humans is to survive, by doing what’s best for themselves, and only them, I have set about on a noble mission to present impartial facts about Nepal to viewers. Why the renewed interest in something as stagnant as Exotic-Nepal.Com, you might ask. The basic reason why I stopped working in, and for, the website is because I did not have enough time in my hands. School-work, academics and extra-curriculars consumed almost all of my energy and left me with nothing but tiredness. Eventually I indulged in new interests, newer hobbies, and larger, material ideas. And now, I have not only graduated from high school, but after a gap year, have ended up in perhaps the most prestigious small New England school. Time is still very sparse, but if there is anything my freshman year has taught me, it is that one must balance the intense college workload with what one loves doing. And this is what I love doing: promoting my nation. Perhaps because it was an outlet for the nationalist sentiments lurking inside me(or any other Nepalese for that matter, I can assure you), or perhaps it was the sheer number of New Englanders I have met who have not even heard of my beautiful country, I found myself thinking about my old website quite so often. And now I have returned to a project which I probably started in Grade 8, and since left to be remembered as extant by some (read me) while defunct by others. All I wish to do, is to provide viewers with better and better sources of information about Nepal. Time is definitely more than scarce, so I plan to seek out help from others, with their respective permissions of course.

So much for this wild, pointless rant. All I want to say is that through this blog, I seek to compile good, and perhaps the very best, unbiased, impartial views on tourism in Nepal. At times, if time permits, I also do intend to spill out my own thoughts. So, until the first (or second, depending on your relative frame of reference), au revoir, my friend.