Day 3: Lukla?

Woke up at 5:45 to get ready and go downstairs. We headed to the airport to catch our flight to Lukla. Upon arrival we found out that the flights had been delayed and just to wait, so that is what we did. Learnt a lot of cards games and got good at crossword puzzles. 5 hours later we were told that all of the flights to Lukla were cancelled for the day due to bad weather. There was a plane crash in Lukla recently (shh don't tell Mum) so everyone is being very careful. We will try again tomorrow but it means we won't have our project visit till after the trek. We came back to the Hotel and headed to the cafe down the road to eat some lunch. Naomi tried MoMos, one of the national dishes of Nepal. They are steamed dumplings stuffed with vegetables with spicy (what else?!) sauce. Most of us are trying to stick to the vegetarian food as the meat in Kathmandu is apparently either very good or very bad.
We went to the monkey temple in the afternoon on a hill on the edge of Kathmandu. We decided to brave a taxi (driving in Nepal is scary!) with Naomi, Robbie and George. Don't think I will ever get used to the driving here. When we had left the hotel the monsoon has lived up to its name and there was an absolute downpour, but as we reached the edge of the city the rain subsided. We got to drive through some more areas of Nepal and see what it's like. The monsoon rains flooded most of the streets, making the trash problem very apparent and very pungent.
When we got to the monkey temple it was still raining in Kathmandu and we headed up the main stairs. The first level had a large peace fountain and as we headed up the stairs and looked back down we saw hundreds of strings of prayer flags. Each colour in the string of prayer flags represents a certain element, the idea of hanging the prayer flags is that the wind will carry the people's prayers to all to spread good thoughts. This was the first temple we had seen in Nepal and both Buddhist and Hindu religions are represented at the stupa. The stupa itself is a Buddhist symbol with Buddha's eyes painted on and the Swayambhunath, the monkey temple, is possibly one of the most sacred pilgrimage spots for all of Buddhism. While the stupa is a Buddhist site, along the edge of the stupa, between the rows of prayers wheels were Hindu shrines where people came to leave offerings for their Gods. The temple merges both Hindu and Buddhist religions as one religious site, which is common it Nepal.
It was amazing. We were starting to think that the monkey temple was just a name and that there were no monkeys living at the temple however as the sun started to come out, so did the monkeys. There were more than a hundred of them. Pilgrims to the shrine leave donations of rice to the Gods and when soaked from the rain the monkeys ran around stuffing their faces. We began to walk around the temple, clockwise as here in Nepal you have to walk around religious sites clockwise as a sign of respect, and came across a monkey who had stolen a small bag of flour. He very carefully tore the bag open and ate half a bag of raw flour covering himself in white powder. We had already been told not to taunt of tease the monkeys because they will bite. They were really vicious with each other fighting over food and stealing food off people but in general they ignored most pilgrims, as long as food wasn't involved.
We spent 4 hours at the shrine in total and it was breathtaking. Headed back to the hotel and we paid the cab 800 rupees, roughly 8 pounds for all 4 of us for 6 hours, we were informed later we had vastly overpaid. We came back to dinner, a mix of curry and french fries. Got back around 8 and everyone was exhausted and headed to bed. Managed to get the internet working, since I've had some serious trouble trying to get my phone to work, and sent an email to my family (haven't spoken to them since Heathrow!) and to Drew (it's his birthday!). Took what could once again (hopefully) be my last real shower for awhile and headed to bed. Hopefully we have more luck tomorrow.