Timeless land a big draw
On a typical day, columns of smoke from the funeral pyres at the Pashupatinath Temple disappear into the dusty haze above Kathmandu.
Situated on the banks of the sacred Bagmati River, it is one of the holiest places on the subcontinent and these cremation rituals have remained mostly unchanged for millennia.
Many of the Nepalese Hindus who died in Saturday's earthquake will be taken to Pashupatinath by loved ones, their bodies washed in the river before being adorned in flowers and placed on the pyres.
The ritual is less about death as it is about rebirth, which is why it is socially acceptable for Western tourists to watch and photograph the cremations from the opposite bank. Pashupatinath, along with other UNESCO World Heritage sites such as the imposing Boudhanath Stupa, is a standard inclusion on tourist itineraries.
According to Nepalese Government statistics, more than 22,000 Australians visited the country in 2013, staying an average 21 days.
For these visitors, the allure of Kathmandu remains as strong now as it was when hippies flocked there in the 1960s, hungry for exoticism and cheap cannabis.
The main tourist district Thamel is a frenetic and claustrophobic place, and with clusters of overhead power wires ever-present it is the last place you would want to be in an earthquake.
But one suspects many of the Aussies now in Nepal probably spent only a day or two in Kathmandu en route to trekking in the Himalayas.
Most will go to the Mt Everest region for its famous base camp trek or Pokhara, the picturesque lakeside town that serves as a staging point for the Annapurna Circuit.
