This tour is designed for people to see some important religious sites of the hindus and buddhists living in complete harmony. This tour will also take you to the heart of kathmandu valley which is Ason where all the daily necessities of the locals is available.
Tour will start from your hotel and the first site you will be visiting is Pashupati temple. Pashupati means “Lord of the animals” and it one of the forms of Lord Shiva. Lord Shiva has 1008 name and forms and as Pashupati he watches over the souls of men and is worshipped as the patron deity of Nepal. Though there is no proof when the temple originated the oldest evidence is data 477 A.D but the temple may have stood here nearly 1000 years before that. One of the legend about Lord Shiva is that once Shiva took the form of an antelope being weary of throngs of worshipping demigods and wandered in the Mrigasthali Forest on the Bagmati river’s east bank. The Gods were looking for him and finally found him as an antelope and they grabbed him by horn and forced him to come back to his divine form. The broken horn was worshipped as a linga, and it was buried and lost. Centuries later an astonished farmer found his cows showering the milk on the earth. Digging deep in the site, the farmer is believed to uncover the divine lingaofPashupati. Lord Pashupati is invoked on official treaties, pledges, political speeches and appears on coins and royal coat of arms. Pashupatinath is one of the great holy Shiva places of the Indian Subcontinent, and no pilgrimage is complete without a visit to it. Then we can see the funerals of the Hindus on the banks of the river Bagmati.
After Pashupati we will head to Boudhanath Stupa whichis the largest stupa in Nepal and the holiest Tibetan Buddhist temple outside Tibet. It is the center of Tibetan culture in Kathmandu and rich in Buddhist symbolism. The stupa is located in the town of Boudha, on the easternoutskirts of Kathmandu. Bodnath was probably built in the 14th century after the Mughal invasions; various interesting legends are told regarding the reasons for its construction. After the arrival of thousands of Tibetans following the 1959 Chinese invasion, the temple has become one of the most important centers of Tibetan Buddhism. Today it remains an important place of pilgrimage and meditation for Tibetan Buddhists and local Nepalis, as well as a popular tourist site. From above, Bodnath Stupa looks like a giant mandala, or diagram of the Buddhist cosmos. And as in all Tibetan mandalas, four of the Dhyani Buddhas mark the cardinal points, with the fifth, Vairocana, enshrined in the center (in the white hemisphere of the stupa). The five Buddhas also personify the five elements (earth, water, fire, air and ether), which are represented in the stupa’s architecture.
We will stop over for Lunch in Thamel on the way to Kathmandu Durbar square. After Lunch we will walk through the back streets of Kathamndu via Ason to Kathmandu Durbar Square. While walking through Asonyou will witness the the locals doing their shopping for almost all of their daily household needs. It is crowded with lots and lots of small shops, narrow alleys and temples.Kathmandu’s Durbar Square is the site of the Hanuman Dhoka Palace Complex, which was the royal Nepalese residence until the 19th century and where important ceremonies, such as the coronation of the Nepalese monarch, took place. The palace is decorated with elaborately-carved wooden windows and panels and houses the King Tribhuwan Memorial Museum and the Mahendra Museum.Time and again the temples and the palaces in the square have gone through reconstruction after being damaged by natural causes or neglect. Presently there are less than ten quadrangles in the square. The temples are being preserved as national heritage sites and the palace is being used as a museum. Only a few parts of the palace are open for visitors and the Taleju temples are only open for people of Hindu and Buddhist faiths.
At the southern end of Durbar Square is one of the most curious attractions in Nepal, the Kumari Chok. This gilded cage contains the Godess Kumari, a girl chosen through an ancient and mystical selection process to become the human incarnation of the Hindu mother goddess, Durga. She is worshiped during religious festivals.After seeing the Durbar square we will be picked by our vehicle to take us back to our hotel.
