Dakshinkali Temple and Pharping

Travel Day 1005 – Kathmandu Valley, NEPAL

One of the things that I had not done last time in Nepal was visiting the famous Dakshinkali Temple at the southern end of the Kathmandu Valley and Saturday was supposed to be the best day for that…

Empty Streets of Newari Town Pharping

So I found myself early in the morning walking through Kathmandu’s little alleyways, that were already busy with local markets, all the way down to Ratna Park, the local bus station. On Saturdays there were supposed to be extra buses going to Dakshinkali and even if I couldn’t read one single sign at the front of a bus, eventually someone pointed me to the correct vehicle. Unfortunately it was hopelessly overcrowded and I rather waited a while and had me pushed into the next one, between parents, kids and goats…

The goats had obviously only a one way ticket to the temple and I used my 1 ½ hour bus ride to ask myself if it really had been such a good idea to try and go to this temple in the fist place. Two years ago I had already accidently attended a complete blood bath at the Kali temple on top of the mountain behind the small town of Gorkha and the images were still stuck on head. Back then I had decided that Hinduism was certainly not my kind of thing, but luckily in India only flowers needed to be offered instead of blood and I could live pretty well with that…

Busy Killing Line at Dakshinkali Temple

So why was I really going to this Dakshinkali Temple again? I wasn’t quite sure, but I was going to have a look anyway. Luckily it turned out to be extremely unimpressive and underwhelming, leaving me to turn away and go for a walk after watching the spectacle for about ten minutes. The temple itself was nothing much to write home about and it was lacking the entire atmosphere that the remote location of the old Gorkha Durbar had had. Only the last-minute purchase opportunities of live chickens and butcher knives were slightly amusing, but in a rather gruesome and cruel way…

So I rather went for a walk though the fields to the nearby Newari town of Pharping. We had passed it with the bus already and the book had told me that Pharping was mostly famous for its large amount of Tibetan inhabitants and its high density of Buddhist monasteries. Since this sounded a whole lot better to me than animal sacrifices, I not only went for a stroll though the empty streets of the old Newari town, but I also set foot on the Buddhist Pilgrimage Route…

Above Buddhist Monasteries in Pharping

I first followed the trail along the monasteries while spinning some enormously large prayer wheels along the way and eventually I decided to climb up the steep trail between two Gompas, to reach the hill overlooking the valley with all its many prayer flags. This hill turned out to be the most peaceful and atmospheric place I had been to the whole entire day and I ended up sitting there for quite a while before turning back home. But it was overall an interesting day: I had come for a gruesome Kali temple and found a peaceful place on a hilltop instead… : )

Find all Dakshinkali Temple Photos and Pharping Photos here.