Nepal Day 10 - Hindu temple

We walked all the way to the east end of Katmandu. (For a city of 700,000 it was remarkably easy to walk from end to end.) This Hindu temple is a UN protected heritage site.

We didn't know that funeral cremations happen every day. We watched men build a funeral pyre. The body was brought along on a stretcher. The face uncovered and ceremoniously washed by the grieving family members.
The smoke here is a cremation in progress when we arrived.

There's one body wrapped in white cloth. The second body wrapped in orange cloth was moved to a pyre out of camera range.

As a photographer I want to capture everything but capturing someone's pain in a funeral was a line I didn't want to cross. (There were some people down close to the ceremony taking pictures.) Ann and I moved to a vantage point more than a football field away where visitors stood with guides taking pictures. These pictures are the result of zooming in and cropping.

The final picture (also taken from a good distance) is of two men painted up with dust in their beards. Ann's Lonely Planet explained that we'd see them. I just don't remember why.