Destination: Nepal : CROSSROADS KINGDOM : Himalaya trekkers gather here, but they’re only the latest pilgrims to this valley where cultures and religion have mingled for centuries

This is a tale of three cities in a green valley astride a Himalayan crossroads in the middle of Asia. In ancient times they were known as the kingdoms of Kantipur, Lalitpur and Bhaktapur and were the repository of a deep Hindu and Buddhist culture.

Today, they are called Katmandu, the capital of Nepal; Patan, which now abuts the capital to the south across the Bagmati River but maintains its separate identity, and Bhaktapur, seven miles to the east. Throughout the Katmandu Valley in which they sit are scores of Hindu temples and Buddhist stupas, medieval palaces and struggling museums, Tibetan monasteries and craft centers in a complex of riches that could take weeks to explore.

The most popular time to be in Nepal begins this month and goes into November. The weather is clear and dry; the monsoon rains that sweep up from India have passed, and the Himalayan peaks can be seen almost every day in their full glory. If the past is any indication, the trekkers are arriving in droves from Germany, Britain, France, Japan and the United States. After a day or so to meet their guides and pack up their climbing gear in Katmandu, they will fan out to the northeast to trek toward Mt. Everest and Kanchenjunga, and to the west toward Annapurna and Dhaulagiri, the world’s mightiest mountains.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, however, government reports on tourism indicate that most visitors come to Nepal for non-trekking holidays, many to delve into the nation’s ancient and diverse culture. Indians from next door are by far the largest single group of tourists, with the vast majority coming to visit cultural sites--or, a more recent development, to gamble.

The foundation of Nepal’s culture is religion that exerts a pervasive influence in everyday life. Everywhere are small shrines at which passersby, men going to work and women with children in tow, stop to ring a bell, to touch hands or heads to stone, to sprinkle flower petals, to dab a dollop of vermilion on the god depicted there.

At first glance, it would seem that the Kingdom of Nepal, the only nation in which Hinduism is the official religion, is tolerant of Buddhism, once a competitive faith. It soon becomes clear, however, that Hindus in Nepal have fused into Hinduism elements of Buddhism that have roots in India and Tibet. Unlike Christians or Muslims, Nepalis see no contradiction in holding beliefs from two religions.

One Saturday, an elderly Nepali gentleman stopped to chat as my wife and I came down the long stairs from Swayambhunath, a Buddhist stupa--a place of worship much like a temple--just west of Katmandu. During the conversation, I asked: “Do you come here often?”

“Oh, yes, from time to time. I like this place.”

“You are Buddhist, then?”

“Oh, no,” he said with a puzzled look, “I am Hindu, pure Hindu.”

Later, another Nepali explained that Hindus see Buddha as the ninth incarnation of Vishnu, one of the trinity of Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the Preserver and Shiva the Destroyer.

To most Westerners, Nepal seems a remote land, caught in a vise between Tibet and the Himalayan massif along its northern border and a lower range separating it from India to the south. The Katmandu Valley itself may be the Shangri-La of James Hilton’s famous novel, “Lost Horizon,” although other sites have been named as the inspiration for that storied location. The kaleidoscope of faces on the streets, however, shows the impression of remoteness to be mistaken. Rather, the valley is an ethnic crossroads. We saw people who could be cousins of my ancestors, the Celts, and others who could be cousins of my wife, Fumiko, who is Japanese, plus those whose forebears came from northern or southern India, from Tibet and Mongolia, from Persia and even Greece.

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The valley that is home to these people is said in legend to have once been a shallow lake that was drained when the god Manjushri cleaved a gorge with his sword and spilled the water into India. Over the centuries, the valley and surrounding hills drew Indo-Aryans from around the Volga River in Russia who migrated through Central Asia and across Afghanistan and Kashmir. Mongols, Manchus and Tibetans seeped through the forbidding but porous Himalayan barrier that separates Indian and Sinitic cultures. They were the ancestors of the Gurung and Gurkha hill people; for more than a century, the Gurkhas provided the British army with valiant soldiers. Indians came to escape the searing heat of the Ganges plain; Persians wandered in from the west, and Tamils came from the south of India. Greek blood is carried by descendants of Macedonian soldiers commanded by Alexander the Great when he invaded northern India in the 4th Century BC. Recently, Tibetans have come to escape oppressive Chinese rulers.

Let it be said, however, that the Katmandu Valley is not for the squeamish. Poverty prevails and many people live in dank hovels. Water is in short supply and is polluted; personal hygiene is only for the upper class. The air is fouled with black exhaust belching from worn trucks, buses and taxis. Streets are covered with piles of garbage, cow dung and dog-do, and the cities need a scrub and a coat of paint. Litter has spread to the mountain trekking areas, even those around Mt. Everest. Fumiko saw a man behead a goat on a side street as she walked to a cultural lecture from our hotel, the Shangri-La, in the embassy district of the city. Visitors are accosted by persistent porters at the airport, by demanding cab drivers who overcharge, by pestering “guides” at cultural sites, and beggars who appear to be as able-bodied as those who work.

All of that, combined with political dissent against the government in Nepal’s new-found democracy, strikes by transport workers demanding higher wages, floods in Nepal and recessions in the industrial world, explains why Nepal has lost some of its magnetism. The number of tourists last year dropped by 17% below that of 1992. A senior official at the Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation, Laxman Upadhaya, acknowledged the problem but said “we don’t have much money to spend on tourism. Tourism is not on the government’s priority list.” Before we left in mid-June, however, the government cut the visa fee to $15 from $40.

Even so, for the adventurous, for incorrigible romantics, and for those with a taste for history, the Katmandu Valley is a trove. We are both culture buffs, confirmed temple-goers and amateur historians, and we discovered that a good place to get a feel for early history is the temple dedicated to Vishnu called Changu Narayan. Believed to have been founded in the 4th Century AD, it sits on a hill seven miles east of Katmandu, just outside Bhaktapur, and offers a breathtaking view of the valley. Maybe Hilton had this in mind when he had the adventuresome but other-worldly English diplomat Hugh Conway and his companions first see Shangri-La.

We hired a car and driver to go to Changu Narayan on a Sunday, a working day, to find it nearly deserted and thus serene. The main hall is built like a pagoda that, to this amateur eye, showed strong Buddhist influences. Wood carvings on pillars and over doors, however, depicted Hindu guardians as did stone sculptures scattered about the courtyard.

In contrast to Changu Narayan’s tranquillity, Pashupatinath, on the eastern edge of Katmandu and the most sacred Hindu temple in Nepal, was clamorous at mid-week. Non-Hindus are not permitted to enter the temple, perhaps because priests fear that non-believers may ridicule the object of worship, Shiva’s lingam (phallus), carved with the god’s four faces. From a hillside across the narrow, polluted but sacred Bagmati river is a clear view of the sprawling compound. The sound of chanting and the scent of incense wafted from the temple while pilgrims splashed water on themselves at riverside. Along the riverbank are ghats , concrete platforms or steps on which the dead may be cremated.

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In Patan, the temple dedicated to the god of compassion known to Hindus as Machhendranath and to Buddhists as Avalokiteshwara is another pagoda in a quiet compound just steps from a frenetic street. In the spring, the countenance of the god, a red figure painted on a shingle, is slowly taken through the city’s streets in a swaying, 60-foot tower of poles, flowers, and rope atop a heavy cart. Passersby bless themselves by touching any part of the tower and then their foreheads.

Perhaps the most imposing sites are the Buddhist stupas at Swayambhunath just west of Katmandu and Bodhnath to the east. They are huge, round, whitewashed mounds, the domes of which are crowned with tall, square golden spires, on each side of which are painted brooding blue eyes that stare off into the distance as they watch for evil. At Swayambhunath, monkeys clambering up the long stairway and around the shrines paid little attention to people, and vice versa.

Swayambhunath was more elaborate in shrines and statues than Bodhnath, which is particularly sacred to Tibetan lamas, but the latter seemed more imposing in its simplicity. The stupa, which is surrounded by a circular road lined with bookshops, souvenir shops, and a Tibetan temple, was founded in the 5th Century. By the stairs leading to the stupa is a huge prayer wheel; anyone can give it a spin to pray for the well-being of the world.

We walked through the narrow lanes running north from the stupa to a score of Tibetan monasteries constructed by refugees. In the Nenang Pao monastery, we met a 19-year-old novice who had fled from Tibet at the age of 13, walking for a month through the mountain passes to reach Katmandu. A student of English, he explained about the bodhisattvas, that they are beings on the way toward enlightenment but who have not quite reached it. They attend the Buddha, who was born Siddhartha Gautama in Lumbini, a Nepali town near the Indian border.

In each of the three cities of the Katmandu Valley is a durbar, or palace, from which kings ruled tiny fiefs until the Gurkhas swept out of the hills to unify the country in the 18th Century. The squares in front of the durbars are both historical sites and hubs of present-day life. Durbar Square in Katmandu was clogged with unkempt temples and alive with street vendors hawking food to Nepalis and trinkets to tourists. Perhaps the most colorful was the Black Bhairab, a stone god carved on an upright slab and dancing on a corpse. We watched a woman stretch up to smear vermilion on the chest of the god; legend has it that anyone who tells a lie before this god will vomit blood until he dies.

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In contrast, the smaller Durbar Square in Bhaktapur was well kept and clearly a gathering place for men to gossip during the noon hour. The palace has been turned into a museum in which a guide explained through the art collection the complexities of the Hindu trinity. Shiva appears to get most attention, perhaps because he destroys evil, and Vishnu as guardian warrants much consideration. Brahma the Creator, however, is barely seen--but no Nepali with whom we spoke could explain why.

The Durbar Square in Patan is rather more neatly laid out and less confusing than the jumbled square in Katmandu. The former king’s palace is being converted to a museum; splendid wood carvings stand in its courtyard awaiting places inside. The museums in Bhaktapur and Patan seemed more inviting than the National Museum near Swayambhunath. The National Museum has lovely bas-relief carvings in stone that show the variety of Hindu gods, and bronze sculptures that display more imaginative ways to achieve sexual intercourse than can be described in a family newspaper. It was not well-lit, however, nor did it have adequate explanations for English-reading visitors.

Opposite the palace in Patan is an elaborately carved temple dedicated to both Vishnu and Shiva before which the figure of a king kneels in prayer atop a tall pillar. Next door is another elaborately carved stone temple dedicated to Vishnu in his incarnation as Krishna.

Across from those temples is a hiti or bath that was built in the 6th Century. It is still in use, underscoring the poverty of Nepal; the polluted liquid that trickles from its pipes is the only water available to those who come to bathe and carry water home.

In contrast is the luxurious, modern palace of the present ruler, King Birendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev. Situated near the center of Katmandu, the palace grounds cover 15 acres and the main building, built in 1970, has three wings of 30 rooms each. Visitors are permitted in the Narayanhity Palace in the state wing but not the guest wing nor the private wing. The fee for foreigners, who may visit on Thursdays only, is 250 rupees, or $5.

Another insight into the life of the valley comes from the carpet makers, who also offer good bargains. The craft was brought to Nepal by Tibetans after 1959 and is practiced by Tibetan women in Jaulakhel, a Tibetan neighborhood on the southeastern edge of Patan. There we saw four women weaving a room-sized carpet that would take several months to finish. Nepali women weave carpets at the Patan Industrial Estate, in the southern sector of the city, where furniture, brassware and woolen sweaters are also made. (We bought a carpet there for about $170.)

The point is that people in Nepal work hard for long hours with little return. Life in the valley, and the hills beyond, is really on the edge. Yet through it all, we found Nepalis not to have been hardened by poverty but to have a grace and charm, perhaps infused by the deep religious culture around them. I spoke with a Western diplomat about the grim side in Nepal. “Yes,” he agreed, “but it’s hard not to root for these guys, isn’t it?”

GUIDEBOOK: Katmandu Connections

Getting there: Katmandu is around the other side of the world so plan on at least two and better three days to get there. The best connections from Los Angeles are through Singapore to Katmandu on Singapore Airlines, lowest round-trip fare $1,450; and through Bangkok to Katmandu on Thai Airways, lowest round-trip $1,575. Connections are available only several days of the week.

Where to stay: Hotel Yak & Yeti is reputedly Katmandu’s finest (off Durbar Marg; from U.S. telephones 011-977-413-999, fax 011-977-227-782). About $150 for a double. Hotel Shangri-La was comfortable and well-run with three good restaurants and a lovely garden (Lazimpath, within walking distance of American Embassy; tel. 011-977-412-999, fax 011-977-414-184.) About $115 per night.

Where to eat: Bhanchha Ghar (Kalamadi, off Durbar Marg; local telephone 225-172). The lamb was succulent, the vegetables tasty, the spices mild, and the service attentive. A waiter poured raxi (rice wine) from a pewter pitcher held head high into a shallow cup without spilling a drop. Katmandu at its best. About $30 for two with wine.

Naachghar, in the Yak & Yeti Hotel. A fun place to dine a la Nepali. About $30 for two with wine.

Utse, a Tibetan restaurant in Thamel, the area for young tourists on a budget, was good and only about $10 for two.

For more information: Royal Nepalese Consulate, Tourist Information, 820 2nd Ave., Suite 202, New York 10017; tel. (212) 370-4188. Or, one of a number of agents specializing in travel to Nepal: Himalayan Treasure and Travel, 3596 Ponderosa Trail, Pinole, Calif. 94564; tel. (510) 222-5307 or (800) 223-1813.