The yak butter lamps burn with a pale orange glow in the morning mist. Despite the early hour, there is already a throng of devotees headed out on their morning puja. I join them, streaming up the hill to the Swayambhunath temple, and am jostled by impish children racing up and down the steep and seemingly endless flight of steps.
When, at last, I crest the hill - to the sight of a gleaming vajra (carved thunderbolt - pictured above) and the giant stupa - the press of bodies is as relentless as at the base. I am swept along by the crowd. All around me are hands spinning prayer wheels, and voices murmuring and chanting. By the shrines that dot the summit sit groups of women swathed in bright winter shawls, selling what at first glance appeared to be a harvest of mushrooms but, on closer inspection, turned out to be butter lamps. The air is thick with the scent of butter lamps - some burning bright, others choking smokily - and the slightly sour smell of a hurriedly-washed humanity.
Of the famed monkeys there are a few - mostly docile, and huddled drowsily together against the morning chill. The pigeons, however, were everywhere, rising in huge flocks like a plague of flies, circling wildly, and then descending again to peck frenziedly at the grain scattered by the faithful. The roofs and eaves of the shrines were fouled with their droppings, as were the corners of the temple grounds yet unswept or untrodden by the trampling feet. I am not a friend of pigeons, but worst of all were the mange-ridden temple dogs - half-starved, with their snarling tempers and black, patchy fur - the very hounds of hell.
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