Kathmandu and Pokhara

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"Like anything beautiful or accomplished, or enduring. Anything finally worth while-it has become simple. It expresses, in an instant, so many things about the roots of life that you feel all at once like crying and dying, and living."
~An excerpt from "The Gate" by Francois Bizot

This will be my final blog entry, I've enjoyed writing and appreciate the connection to home its allowed me to have while away. This has definitely been the best experience I've had in my (almost) 30 years and I have learned a lot along the way. I am coming home to a blanket of familiarity, comforted by the unconditional love from my family and friends and a new found sense of warmth coming from within.

I'm coming home...
Having battled red rumped demons inside and outside of my mind.
With a new appreciation for a spoken language I understand and for meat on a stick.
Being confident to move forward without always having a definite plan or an onward ticket.
Feeling content with my life even though I don't have Brad Pitt at home washing dishes.
Knowing I'm lucky I had a wonderful childhood, having everything I needed including a child-size bike to carelessly ride through the breeze.
Having a new openness to the strangers I meet as having the potential of being a friend for life or just for one night of sipping wine while watching the sunset from a rooftop garden.
Being able to find the silver lining in the darkest (and dirtiest) of places.
Allowing myself to celebrate in life's victories, whether its climbing a mountain or making an insanely good Thai curry.
I'm coming home!

I spent the last part of my trip in Nepal, mainly in Pokhara where I spent a week trekking in the Himalayas to the Annapurna Base Camp. The people in Nepal were warm and kind; I will definitely visit Nepal again in the future. What I will not do again is take a 36 hour bus ride (during which I was getting sick in more ways than one at every stop along the way) from Nepal to Delhi. Luckily there was a thoughtful man from England in his 60's named Graham who help me make it through. He tells the story best so I have included his very funny excerpt below.

The Road To Delhiverance

( Translated into American for the benefit of my friend Aubrey )

It was pink. Flamingo Pink I guess you’d call it. Well, I never saw no pink bus
before, but then it don’t say nowhere you can’t have a pink bus. Anyways, with a
wheel at each corner and only thirty-seven busted seats out of a possible forty, this is
what counts in Nepal as a deee-luxe limousine, and pink or not, this baby was going
to take us the seven hundred miles south from Nepal to New Delhi, and no mistake.

As I climb on board, I give my fellow passengers the once over. A rag-tag bunch of
Indian tourists and the occasional timid Nepali. A Maltese guy in a poncho and
green pixie boots is the standout eccentric, but there don’t seem nobody else of no
particular interest. Until I spot her.
Late twenties, five-six maybe and the kind of hair you usually only see on shampoo
commercials, tucked into a cute woollen hat. But it’s the eyes. There should be a law
against these eyes. Imagine the deepest, darkest pair of peepers you ever saw, and
then imagine some more. These eyes could stop traffic or turn a guy’s knees to jello at
forty paces. Lucky I’m sat down.

But it seems the girl don’t care too much for the look of some of her potential seat-
mates ( with particular reference to the guy in the pixie boots ), and she asks can she
sit by me.
I check her out. She’s a twenty-four carat sweetheart.
I check me out. I’m a paunchy geriatric who’s just a little taller than his hair.
The seat is hers.
We rap a while, and the girl’s no bimbo. We talk a little politics and she don’t say
nuthin’ stupid. What she do say, however, and this I do not like, is how she musta ate
sumthin’ maybe she shouldn’t have ate and now it’s better than even money she’s
gonna be barfin’ in my lap sometime pretty soon.
Well I only have the one pair or cargo pants and I like ‘em the color they are, so I
edge a little nearer the window, surreptitious like.
The ride ain’t helpin’ none. It’s been very clear to me from the get-go that this trip
ain’t gonna be no walk in the park. We’re hitting potholes the size of Poland around
every fifteen seconds, and we’re already getting the kind of ride you’d pay good
money for at Disneyland. I’m keeping a nervous eye on the girl. You have to admire
her guts, although I get the feeling I’m gonna be admiring them in closeup before too
long. She’s using every trick in the book to keep her breakfast, and for now my pants
are safe.

We’re eighty miles down the road, there’s over six hundred left to go, and I got a
seat-mate about to erupt. Oh - Sweet - Jesus.

( Three hours later )

It’s dark now, and we’re making good time. The driver, who by the way is mentally
deranged, is hunched across the wheel kamikaze pilot style, and we’re hurtling into
the night like a pink torpedo. The girl, however is in bad shape. Whatever kind of bug
she has down there, looks like we may have to beat it to death with a shovel. I pray
we’ll be hitting the border before too long.

Around a hundred and seventeen years later, we make the Nepal - India frontier. It
is not the border crossing I was expecting, but at no time during this trip do I have the
faintest idea where I am, except to say that I very much do not want to be there. After
the customary three hours of interrogation, form-filling and visa checking, we stagger
reluctantly back onto the bus and roll into India. I comfort myself with the thought
that now, at least, things can in no way get any worse.

India

Things just got worse. We have now hit a stretch of road which defies description. It
consists of bare earth littered with rubble and smeared with a mixture of tarmac and
cow dung. The bus skitters and leaps along, throwing the passengers around like so
many rag dolls. With luggage raining down on us from the overhead compartments, I
feel that the bus must now begin to fall apart.
But the Pink One must have solid rubber tyres and a tungsten steel chassis. The
psycho behind the wheel just grins an evil grin and jams his foot into the floor. We’re
overtaking everything that has the brass nerve to get in our way. Straight into the
blazing headlights of oncoming juggernauts we fly, making last-minute lurches to
safety and scattering cows, chickens and cyclists in our wake.
I haven’t cried since I lost my mother, but I know that if this nightmare continues too
much longer, I’m going to be weeping like a baby. The girl has been curled into a
ball for some hours now, and I assume she must have died. I envy her.

Delhi

The guy ( and for guy read lying bastard ) who sold me the ticket informed me that
the trip was around twenty-five hours. Where we lost the other eleven I will never
know, but it is at exactly 3 a.m. after a day and a half of unmitigated purgatory that
the Pink One shudders and wheezes onto a vacant lot in the suburbs of New Delhi.
Obviously no self-respecting bus station would have admitted us.
As we lurch to a halt, the relief is indescribable. The passengers hug each other like
the survivors of a nuclear holocaust and I swear even the driver is sobbing quietly in
his cab.
A few at a time we’re rickshawed away into the Delhi smog. For me and the girl
(who incidentally is not dead ) the story is not quite over, but for the moment this one
pretty much is.
Needless to say that if you ever have to travel south from Nepal to Delhi, I beseech
you to travel by plane, train or pogo stick . Do not under any circumstances place
yourself at the mercy of the Modern Era Bus Company, and their motorised
instrument of torture, the Pink One.

The End

I had a great time traveling and would love to chat with anyone who is interested in traveling in the future...and anyone can travel. Before I left I didn't know where some of these cities and even countries were on a map. I now see the importance and benefit of traveling and will be planning many fun trips in the years to come. I'm hoping to save up some of my frequent rider miles and get some free rickshaw rides in the future.

Love,
Aubrey


Info for travelers
Kathmandu
Happy Home-shared bathroom not very pretty but helpful staff and $3 a night. Have own bath options.
Walked to the Monkey Temple-was worth it.
Bus to Pokhara was Open Heart (booked through gh) very good driver and didn't pack bus.
Pokhara
Stayed at Peace Eye Guesthouse. It was my favorite place to stay and inexpensive. Very clean (I actually slept in the sheets). The best part is there is vegetarian cafe and bakery run by the family who owns the gh. E-mail [e-mail] Phone-9804197125 or 00977-61-531699. They are located Lakeside north of Trek-o-tel.
Sacred Heart is a more expensive but also a good place to stay.
I stayed in the dorms at the Butterfly for $1.50 which was nice but the manager was very weird and really pushed getting an (expensive) guide for trekking, and laundry, and bus tickets. Not worth it.

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Photos

Along the trek
We came up to this valley in the early morning. It was the most peaceful place I've ever been.

Along the trek
Getting closer to the top!

Crossing the border into Nepal
These people had to stand the entire 5 hours. I was very thankful for my seat!

Late Night Out??
Playing cards at a bar with the Irish couple I met (Marie and Rob). At 11:30pm they secretly shuttled 50 of us out the alley entrance since it was past curfew. The streets were completely empty.

Bakery
My typical "healthy" breakfast

Along the trek
We would go through these small villages along the way and the children would run up to us and ask for "treat" or "school pen"

Along the trek
One of their main crops just before harvesting

Along the trek
This was a typical family-owned teahouse that we stayed at. Lauren is a girl I met from Canada and my trekking partner.

Along the trek
One of the many not so safe bridges we crossed with white knuckles.

Along the trek
Finally made it!!

Along the trek
At Base Camp