Religious Temples in Nepal

Nepal has a mix of religions, Hindu and Buddhism being the primary ones, from what I understand. Today the group took a bus from the Hotel to a Hindu Temple, called Pashupatinath, where there were outside Pyres along a murky and  polluted body of water, where bodies were cremated when they died. The upper part of the ‘river’ was where upper class persons would be sacrificed and down river would be more common people. There is a general stench in the air in most parts of Kathmandu I have been, but this had a notch up on the small factor with the burning bodies. Morbid indeed, there were also many monkeys swinging around on the building tops and trees. After this we went to a Buddhist temple, called Boudhanath which was much cleaner and nicer :) Many Tibetan Monks, sportin’ the Dalia Lama look, which is money. We spun  prayer wheels and heard prayer chants, pretty cool. Most of us bought Buddhist Prayer Strings that were blesses (see me getting mine here) to wish us well on the mountain. After this cultural emersion we got bussed back to the hotel area where a few of us when to do some last minute gear purchasing (luckily, I did not need to purchase anything due to our diligent and somewhat over preparation before leaving the US). We passed a very American looking eatery (Roadhouse Cafe) that blared American Rock (Alice in Chains, Audioslave..how could we not go in). Joe and I got pizzas (it was a wood fired pizza place) and our new friend (Nadira from Australia got the pasta. I of course had jalapenos on my pizza. Not bad at all, it was a nice oasis from the Nepal that was outside. I did buy a nose/face mask for 40 rupees (less than $1) that many locals sport to help with the pollution and dust. Also we will be expecting some dust action up on the mountain, so that should help.