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Published: July 24th 2011
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After twelve absolutely idyllic days of walking in the majestic scenery of the Annapurna Himalaya, the time comes for us to return to Pokhara. However sad we are to say goodbye to Chola, Sumit and Laxmi, the luxury of a hot shower is nothing less than blissful.
We had booked only a one-way flight from Kathmandu to Pokhara - 3 Sisters advised us to do a least one leg of the journey by bus, so that we might get a better feel for life in Nepal. As with so many things in life, it seemed a good idea at the time...
A number of bus companies operate on the Pokhara-Kathmandu route, some with locals in mind, others catering mostly to foreigners. I consider us to be relatively hardy people when it comes to travel, but the local bus - which takes upwards of eight hours - sounds like the stuff of nightmares. The "deluxe bus" it is, then. These "express" buses are supposed (
supposed) to take about six hours, to make a stop for lunch and to be rather more comfortable - what could be better? Well, the plane I suppose, but it's too late for regrets now. We
book some tickets at one of the umpteen small agencies in Pokhara - we've left it to the last minute as we decided to extend our trek by a day, so end up with seats in the very back row.
Well, the journey to Kathmandu taught us this:
if you ever travel long-distance in Nepal, never - never, ever - travel in the back row. Even on a deluxe bus. Just don't. I don't care if the seats don't recline, I really don't. I sat in an aluminium tube for twelve hours to get here so I can bear six more. The problem is suspension: Nepalese buses, even so-called posh ones, haven't got any. Travelling in the back row is almost exactly like sitting on a seesaw.
For six hours. Up-down-up-down-up-down, the whole way. Every tiny imperfection in the road surface is magnified ten-fold by some miraculous mechanism before being transmitted to your backside. And you'll probably have guessed that Nepalese roads have an awful lot of "imperfections", and that "tiny" is not the best word to describe them. Potholes, when they strike, lift you clear of your seat. And then,
thump - down you come again. The
most incredible things is that a) I managed to sleep for about half of this journey and b) during the three-hours-plus I was awake, I kept believing - I really kept believing - that the bouncing would stop "any time now".
Another supposed boon of deluxe buses is the air-conditioning. Where do you think the aircon vents are in a Nepalese bus? Yes! That's right!
In the back row!. Oh, the irony of having to wear a coat - a coat! - inside a bus when it's thirty degrees outside... Even with the jacket on it's freezing. Fortunately, I have come equipped with a trusty roll of loo paper. Rolling up sheets of this and stuffing them inside the gaps in the vents does a pretty good job of impeding the flow of glacial air down our necks. To whoever had to pick these out, probably with tweezers - sorry.
Lunch stop included, we make it to the outskirts of Kathmandu in about six hours, but it takes another whole hour to crawl our way through the city's famously apocalyptic traffic to our stop near the popular district of Thamel, where our guesthouse is located.
Next time
we are
definitely taking the plane.
We have almost two full days in Kathmandu before our flight back to London via Delhi. We spend a fair portion of this lolling about on floor cushions in delicious and fabulously cheap restaurants while reading untaxing paperbacks (we have been walking for the past twelve days, after all) but strike out one morning to visit Kathmandu's most famous drawcard: Durbar Square.
Durbar Square - a UNESCO World Heritage Site - is a collection of squares, temples and palaces dating back as far as the Malla dynasty period, five hundred years ago. Considering Nepal's turbulent history, considering fire and earthquakes, considering the structures are mostly made of wood, its survival to the 21st century is impressive. It is quite an amazing place and to me epitomises the ramshackle, colourful, heady atmosphere of Kathmandu.
The area between Thamel and Durbar Square is one of criss-crossing streets, narrow alleways, temples, shrines and markets. We leave our hostel equipped with a map and a suggested route through this urban maze, a route which takes us past ancient Buddhist stupas, multi-storey wooden Hindu temples, centuries-old carved shrines sandwiched between two mobile phone shops, cows feasting
on piles of rotting garbage while spraying the road with their "offerings", electrical and telephone cabling which really does have to be seen to be believed (see photo), impromptu market stalls... And all around, flashes of colour - silk saris, scarlet splodges of
paan juice spat onto walls everywhere, tropical fruit - and tantalising smells - spices, incense (and less mentionable ones) demand our attention at every step. Which is a rather dangerous thing as in the back alleys of Kathmandu your attention really does need to be on where you're putting your feet.
It takes only twenty minutes or so to reach Durbar Square, by which time we feel almost drained. Fortunately for us, one of the best ways of appreciating the atmosphere of Durbar Square is to climb one of the many temples, sit, and stare for a while. Which is precisely what we do from the upper steps of the Maju Deval temple, ten metres or so above the rest of the bustling complex. It is hard to convey the extraordinary feeling of relentless activity which surrounds this place.
Durbar Square retains great religious significance for the residents of Kathmandu. Sticks of incense are everywhere,
votive offerings made, bought and deposited outside shrines and temples. It reminds me quite strongly of Bali in some ways - hardly a surprise since that island is, like Nepal, devoutly Hindu. Carvings, from the gruesome to the frankly pornographic, cover the panels and roof struts of the temples; bells ring and chants fill the air. With the sounds of modern, urban Kathmandu - sirens, horns, engines - overlaid on this, the effect is quite overwhelming.
There is definitely something about Kathmandu...
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