Today, sunday september 4

Today, sunday september 4., was the day for our first group excursion.

The day started out as a sunny and hot one, which gave us a beautiful picture of the Kathmandu valley and all the rice fields.
However, we probably should have prayed to the Hindu God who's in charge of the weather, because within a short period of time the rain started. And not just a few raindrops, but serious monsoon rain. But nothing could stop us from enjoying the experience, and since it is the rainy season, the downpour was worth experiencing in itself.

The first place we visited was a Hindu temple placed in a forrest. Luckily we were there at the time of day where they were doing sacrifices - which included sacrificing a chicken to the Gods.

At the temple the girls received a blessing from old ladyes sitting on the ground. They put colored rice (red, yellow and silver) on our foreheads and put string around our handwrists while saying a long verse, that we suppose means good luck. When heading back to the bus, once again the rain started, which made some of us run as fast as we could through the mud and back to the bus. This seemed to amuse the Nepalese people, who all started cheering for us and shouting. Unfortunately it turned out the rice we had in our foreheads and the rain was not the best combination, so back in the bus we had to get out the cleanex, since we had all the color running down our face.

The plan had been to eat our lunch at a lake nearby, but because of the rain we enjoyed it in the bus - A Nepalese Happy Meal, prepared by the guys at the Platform.

Spending hours in the traffic jam of Kathmandu getting back and forth was an experience in itself, even though it was a bit over the top for us when our bus hit a scooter - but luckily nothing happened to him, and we could see him walking away in good condition. Since the Buddhist monastry we should have visited was better to visit at a sunny day, we ended up going to a Buddhist stupa. As soon as we got up there, we could see that it was the exact same one that is on the front the Nepal guide book brought from Denmark - so this was a place that we had all really wanted to see. It was the stupa with all the monkeys, jumping all over it. We got to see Buddhist monks sitting in a room and chanting, which they had propbably been doing all day. There was a certain feeling in the room when they were silent for a moment and hid the big drum, to start over again. What was also funny was seeing one of the young monks was texing on his cell phone while chanting with the others.

In total it has been a really exciting day, which ended perfectly with board games and music in the couches in the living room.