Swayambhu Temple and the White Monastry

This past Saturday morning a colleague invited me to drive to two different sights around Kathmandu. He and his daughter picked me up around 8:30am and we went straight to Swayambhunath to beat the crowds. The stupa is located on top of a hill and people climb over 360 stairs to the top (unless they have a car that is...).

Swayambhunath is also sometimes referred to as Monkey Temple, for obvious reasons...

We walked around the stupa in a clockwise circle once before leaving and we looked at all the smaller ancient stupas located there as well.

Next we headed to the White Monastry, which was located high on a hill past Swayambhu. This Buddhist monastry mostly has female Buddhist nuns living on the grounds and it is only open to visitors on Saturdays. I really recommend taking a car if you go, because it is an extremely steep road up a very high hill to get there! 

Inside the building in the above photo, the women were gathered to do their morning prayers. Unfortunately, I was not allowed to take photos inside, but I could enter and watch their prayers - it was one of the most fascinating things I've seen. Before even taking off my shoes and entering the building, I could hear the sound of drumming. Inside, the women were sitting in rows, maybe 12 rows of 10 women each, with the rows split so they faced the center of the room. All the women wore dark maroon robes, had shaved heads and they sang in unison, while other women sitting at the front played drums and bells.

I've visited one other monsastry (Kopan) but I arrived later in the day, missing the morning prayers, so this was a complete surprise to me on Saturday. I would never have known to come here unless I'd been invited to go for a drive, but I would recommend a visit to others.