Poking around Pokhara

---

Pokhara's a great place to put your feet up, get your washing done and eat food that isn't lentils after a trek and I ended up staying there longer than planned. On the first morning I was momentarily disturbed from my relaxed musings of the beautiful Annapurna range, sitting in a barber's chair having my Grizzly Adams beard shaved off, as a large cow came into the shop. "Sorry, I have to buy cake.",said the barber and he dashed out to the bakery. It turns out the cow pops in every morning for an iced bun. I remembered reading that some scientists had discovered that cows could bear grudges, something the barber obviously knew too.

The next few days are a bit of blur of sitting down doing not much or sitting down and eating. Nevertheless Sayed, Frede, Davide and I somehow managed to fit the funniest fishing trip ever into our busy schedules. Frede and Davide told us they were experts, previously attempting to catch tuna in a glacial river at 4000M. I'd been fishing once before in a trout farm and managed against the odds not to catch a single thing. Sayed was a complete novice. After Davide rolled another Nepali herbal Benson and tangled his fishing rod into an impossible knot, we headed off to see a chap about a boat. Davide gave his tangled line to Frede, saying "Frede, you are good friend." Frede dutifully started the untanglement process that in the days before television would have passed for an evening's entertainment. Davide turned dramatically toward me and Sayed, clenching his right hand into a claw and exclaimed "I don't 'aaave!'. Apparently, he meant finger nails, as his were bitten to the quick and no good for untangling fishing line.

The four of us clambered into the fairly small and very unstable boat and headed for a seemingly endless line of similar boats packed with Italian totty, a sight for sore eyes after a few weeks of looking at yaks. We knew they were Italian as Davide and Frede shouted some words of encouragement to them in their native tongue and they unexpectedly answered back. Oops!

As Frede concentrated on rolling duties and Davide guided our ship towards the areas he divined would be full of hungry fish, Sayed and I flicked the lines into the water. After an hour or so of wobbling round the lake catching nothing but weed on the lines, I decided it was time to put more effort into casting. I moved the rod right back over my shoulder and cast the line out as far as possible. But where was the line? "Aaaagh!", shouted Davide, "Chriiis, you catch me!". There was no room to move in the small boat; you couldn't even move your head without fear of capsizing and I couldn't turn round anyway as the fishing rod wouldn't move. In the sunglasses of a giggling Sayed I could see Davide's reflection as he stood up in the boat and attempted to extract the hook from my line from his shoulder. Davide's about 6 feet tall, so you can imagine how dramatically the boat was swaying from one side to the other. How we managed not to capsize I don't know.

We decided it was probably a good time to go for a swim and so headed for a suitable landing place. "I don't like water snakes", said Davide as he, Frede and Sayed jumped right in. "I don't like cold water", I said as I inched my way in. Eventually we were all swimming in the lake and Sayed headed to shore to take a picture. It was a good job he was quick because a few seconds later Davide made a weird gurgling sound that somehow Frede and I both managed to understand to be the noise of a man who's just felt a water snake brush past his leg. After a nervous glance to each other a split second later we were swimming like crazy to get to the shore. All style went out of the window as in our panic, according to Sayed, we were all "swimming doggy paddle and not really getting anywhere". Eventually we made it to dry land where Davide explained that as well as not liking water snakes he doesn't like touching the bottom of lakes with his feet, but that he makes the same noise for both events.

"Freeesbeeee!", exclaimed Davide and there followed a quick game of frisbee, that involved Frede, to Davide's taunts of "Frede, be careful, the water snake", having to get back into the imaginary snake infested lake, which is probably more scary than an real water snake infested lake, to retreive the spinning and quickly sinking piece of plastic at almost every throw. As the sun set over the lake we headed back to shore for some more sitting around doing nothing and sitting around eating. Once you get out of Lakeside, Pokhara becomes a lot less tourist-oriented and you can see water buffalo wallowing in mud round the shore of the lake and professional fishermen throwing their nets (which is cheating) into the water and pull them back in full of fish. However, one of the highlights of the touristy part of town soon drew me back: the Royal Enfield Bullet dealership, Hearts and Tears.

I'd had a vague plan of hiring a Bullet for a day or two when I got to India, but after speaking to Rick, the English guy that runs Hearts and Tears and taking a few bikes out for test drives, I was hooked and started to think about perhaps riding from Nepal into India. Pokhara's quiet roads seemed like the perfect place to get used to the bike and, to make the decision even easier, the best mechanic in Nepal, a lad called Raju, had his workshop a three minute ride away.

Inevitably, I ended up buying a motorbike; a 1993 model 350cc Bullet. It looked great in black and was the most comfortable of the bikes I tried. It even already had luggage racks. After giving the bike a service and me ten days or so of very laid back tutorials on basic bike maintenance and tuning, Raju gave us both the thumbs up for our trip into India.

Around this time one of the political forces in Nepal called a general strike (a bandh) and with it being the anniversary of the death of a fellow Bullet rider, at about 9 AM a group of us congregated at Raju's Bullet Surgery for some beers. Shortly after a friend of Raju's turned up looking for someone to give her a lift to the maternity hospital where her sister in law had just given birth. As the only non-resident the task of breaking the general strike, during which the only permitted activities for locals appear to be playing cricket in the street and drinking, fell to me. So, off we went to the maternity hospital.

The journey there was no problem and the hospital looked fairly decent, but quite basic. There was a lot of groaning coming from the A&E department and I worried that perhaps someone had received a beating for disobeying the bandh.

After congratulating the proud mum and taking a photo of the new arrival, I was asked to give a lift to a guy who'd just been discharged from the hospital. "No problem", I said and a few minutes later we loaded the bike with his belongings and headed back into central Pokhara. It wasn't long before we were stopped by a group of angry-looking Nepalis who forced my passenger off the back of the bike. A crowd soon gathered. Fortunately, the Nepalese sense of fair play and their fundamentally good nature won through and once we'd explained that I was a tourist and that he was just out of hospital they let us pass.

During one of the many nights in the Busy Bee bar with Rick and the several other British expat Bullet owners I met a Canadian girl, Jessica, who was heading to Kathmandu. I'd had a few beers and it seemed like a good idea to offer her a lift on the back of the bike. I had no idea if all the luggage would fit or how the bike would handle with extra weight on the back, but I figured it would be good to have someone to talk to in the event of a breakdown and getting stranded in the middle of nowhere.

A couple of very rainy days later with my luggage bungied on to the bike I headed over to Jessica's hotel to head to Kathmandu, a journey that should take around four or five hours, depending on road conditions and torrential rain. I took a bit of an indirect, longer route past an area used to graze cattle, to make sure the bike was ok with the luggage. As I pulled up a hill, out of the corner of my eye, I could see a cow running towards me. I thought she must be trying to get to the other side of the road, although I couldn't imagine why she was in such a hurry. I couldn't remember ever seeing a cow run before so guessed it must be important, so I slowed down to let her cross in front of me. As I did, she changed direction and it became obvious she was running towards me. I tried to remember if I'd done anything that would cause her to bear me a grudge. Arriving at the the conclusion that it must be a case of mistaken identity, I made a mental note to carry a bun on the bike at all times in the future. In the meantime, I took evasive action, skidding all over the wet tarmac with both wheels locked. Then I had a nervous few seconds as I pulled away at the milk-van like rate of acceleration of a 350cc Bullet carrying luggage as the cow skidded and changed direction cartoon-style to chase me at full pelt up the hill.

The cow was gaining on me quickly. How can a cow be faster than a motorbike? I was laughing, but it seemed like an eternity until the bike picked up enough speed to pull away from the sprinting beast. "Everything ok?", asked Jessica as I arrived at her hotel. "Fine", I nodded.

Luckily we could fit both our rucksacks on the bike and in the pouring rain, wearing not very water resistant ponchos, after picking Jessica up a helmet and gloves from Rick, we headed off to Kathmandu.

Shortly out of Pokhara and the rain stopped What could possibly go wrong?and I successfully navigated landslides, enormous potholes and a river of water so deep it came up to the top of my boots. We stopped for lunch in a place where they didn't know what "dahl baht" was. I couldn't beleive it as this is pretty much the sum total of Nepali cuisine. Eventually we managed to communicate that we were sitting in the restaurant because we did actually wanted something to eat and not just to be stared at. As my delicious potato bread and lentil soup arrived, so did about a hundred bees that had been swarming round the doughnuts stacked up on a table in the corner of the restaurant. Leving Jessica to be hassled with offers of marriage from the local men I went to eat outside.

The journey was soon underway again and avoiding all sorts of vehicles coming towards me from all directions, bricks and tree trunks, suicidal pedestrians, goats and chickens we managed to arrive in Kathmandu in time for what looked like an impromptu bandh with abandoned cars littering the streets in a haphazard manner. It was nothing to worry about, it was rush hour. An hour's sweating battle through the mess of honking tucks, cars and bikes for every inch of forward motion we eventually arrived, faces black with exhaust fumes and road dust, at the sanctuary of the Kathmandu Guest House. The friendly face of Sayed is there to greet me, "Alright mate?". "Interesting journey", I replied.

---

Photos

Cow in a barber shop
...she pops in every morning at the same time and the barber buys her a bun so she won't bear him a grudge, I imagine.

Raju gets his hair cut
...his cow phobia prevents him from visiting the barber's.

Pokhara Hospital
This little lady didn't know there was a bandh planned.

Boats for hire, Pokhara
What could possibly go wrong?

Fishing, Pokhara
That's how it's really done.