Shriram's space: Day 15 :: SATURDAY 29 Aug 2015 ……. Back to India !!

Woke up early and completed my kriyas, rushed down at 0545 and boarded a bus to Pashupathinath (Pashu: animals… hence Shiva as Lord of the animals) temple.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pashupatinath_Temple

http://www.sacred-destinations.com/nepal/kathmandu-pashupatinath

The Pashupatinath Temple (Nepali: पशुपतिनाथ मन्दिर) is a famous, sacred Hindu temple dedicated to Pashupatinath and is located on the banks of the Bagmati River 5 kilometres north-east of Kathmandu Valley in the eastern city of Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal. This temple is considered one of the sacred temples of Hindu faith .The temple serves as the seat of the national deity, Lord Pashupatinath.

This temple complex is on UNESCO World Heritage Sites's list Since 1979. This "extensive Hindu temple precinct" is a "sprawling collection of temples, ashrams, images and inscriptions raised over the centuries along the banks of the sacred Bagmati river" and is included as one of the seven monument groups in UNESCO's designation of Kathmandu Valley as a cultural heritage site. One of the major Festivals of the temple is Maha Shivaratri on which day over 700,000 devotees visit here.

The twelve Jyotirlingas (in India) are the body and the Jyotirlinga at Pashupatinath in Kathmandu (Nepal) is the head over this body. The temple is one of the 275 Paadal Petra Sthalams (Holy Abodes of Shiva) on the continent. Kotirudra Samhita, Chapter 11 on the Shivalingas of the North, in Shiva Purana mentions this Shivalinga as the bestower of all wishes.

The business of making money out of religion is alive and kicking at Pashupathinath with the priests asking money for rudraksha beads and for tying sutras on your wrists. After a quick darshan, I headed out of the temple premises and back to our predetermined rendezvous point by 0900, which was a big shop selling Rudrakshas, Sphatika etc. Some of us did a bit of shopping there.

One of our co-yatris was Sanjeev Menon from Palakkad who is a teacher at K V school there at Palakkad. His friends posted at the K V School in Kathmandu helped guide us around the Pashupathinath temple and even gave each of us a Rudraksha mala.

The bus left at 0900 and we were back at the Radisson by 0945 for our breakfast. Rushed up to our rooms and came down to the lobby at 1100 with our luggage for a quick check out and exit to the airport. Boarded the two buses after loading our luggage, rode away to the Kathmandu airport 30 mins away from the hotel.

Each of us were given a packed lunch by Radisson to carry onto the airport.

Scrambled for trolleys and went to the Indigo counters and got our boarding passes without too much of a hassle. If Lhasa airport is one extreme of systems, controls and checks, then Kathmandu airport is the other extreme!! I wonder how they maintain security and control at the Kathmandu airport.

Waiting for the flight to be announced, we chatted awhile, had the packed lunch and boarded our Indigo flight to New Delhi. Had a ball of a time in the flight to New Delhi with guys like Amit and Anoushka having a lot of fun a few seats ahead of us.

Landed at T3 at 1530 hrs IST and adjusted our watches back to India time, 15 mins behind Nepal time.

Once in Delhi, cleared immigration quickly and went on to our respective domestic transfer gates. So here the group broke up into its different destinations : Bengaluru, Hyderabad , Mumbai and Chennai. Our group of 10 people went towards the Jet airways check in counter for our Chennai flight scheduled at 2035. We checked in as a group and discovered that we were in total having an excess baggage of 7-8 kilos. Got chatting with the guy at the counter and discovered that he had an yearning to go to Kailash too. He requested for a little Kailash water , suggested we move out afew kilos from our checked in baggage and then waived us through with our boarding passes in hand.

Went to the food court at T3 and prepared for a loooong wait till our scheduled flight at 2035.