Nepal 27

One of our stops on our bicycle tour was Bodhnath, site of the World's Largest Buddhist Stupa or some such. Which I guess is sort of like having the World's Largest Fourth-of-July Rodeo. There can't be that much competition, but nonetheless, the stupa at Bodhnath is huge. Maybe 75 yards across? Pilgrims come from distant lands to walk around it, and I suppose they had to make it big enough to make it worth the trip.

But we didn't like any of our pictures of the pilgrims or of the stupa as much as the picture above, of a vacant lot nearby. (One monk at one of the attached monasteries chatted with the staff photographer for a while, and then asked to have his picture taken, inspected the results, and suggested, "Don't you think it would be better if you used the flash?" He was right, but even the second attempt, with fill flash, wasn't so great, so the picture of a brick wall wins.)