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Published: April 1st 2008
We wake early and are greeted with the kind of view people write poetry about... from the back window of our room the town stretches out and gently upwards, the houses mostly traditional brightly-painted Nepali with balconies, roof gardens and washing lines, and behind them the hills climb into the distance. And finally, behind that, there's the snow-capped Annapurna mountain range which climbs to 27,000 feet. Quite often the cloud and haze obscures the range, but a storm last night cleared the air and these monolithic ghostly shapes loom through the atmosphere with incredible clarity, the easterly sides of their sheer white faces picked out in shimmering orange-gold by the rising sun. We fancy we can see an intrepid team of mountaineers in the far distance heading for the summit, a train of sherpas and yaks leading hardcore adrenaline junkies to dizzying heights, but it might just have been a hair on the window.
Out to the front of the hotel, across the road, is the lake. It is enormous and even at this early hour, boats of tourists and fishermen alike glide across the surface. A temple, accessible only by boat, sits in the middle. The town stretches along
the bank of the lake and the main road roughly follows it, rather like a promenade at a seaside resort. On the far side of the lake, the hills rise steeply and are covered in dense forest, interspersed with the odd pagoda sitting in a prominent place. The town itself is an intriguing mix of bars, restaurants, hippy shops, trekking shops etc. We stop at a Jazz Cafe style restaurant for a bite to eat.
After breakfast, we investigate the town thoroughly. We're interested by the amount of small children running around holding bombs or clutching pistols. I'm even more interested after a certain mischievous schoolkid gets me full on the side of the head with a red-coloured liquid, before running away laughing. As we pass the lake and walk into the main town, it becomes obvious that some kind of civil war is underway. Gangs of predatory children roam the streets in packs, picking on anyone foolish enough to get close. Older kids scream about on motorbikes, the rider with his head down behind the clocks, right hand twisted backwards around the twistgrip to eke every last bit of speed out of the asthmatic little 125 engine, whilst
his passengers, often up to three of them, snipe at passers-by with pistols and bombs. Nobody's safe, and the shopkeepers, many with open-fronted shops selling fabrics, are visibly frightened and take cover. We take refuge in a bar with a balcony and watch the gutters run red. Loud explosions and jets of crimson fill the air and screams and shouts follow the running street battle. Traffic stops. Suddenly we're aware of tourists being caught up in the horror - three European-looking lads are running, hounded by a gang of Nepalis. As we look on, terrified, one takes a bomb to the back of the head and falls in a jet of red liquid. Gory stuff. Finishing our drinks, we decide we have to help our Western brothers-in-arms and, with no thought as to our personal safety, heroically spring from the staircase to join what is now a violent free-for-all...
An hour later, we're walking back to the hotel. We're covered in powder paint, wet paint, caked paint... My face looks like one of those lurid, artificially-coloured chewy sweets you used to be able to buy for 1p each at the corner shop and which tasted of antifreeze, and my
Just after this pic was taken...
... they drenched me in paint... clothes are a mess. I'm green, red and blue all over and so is Maya. It's in our ears, our hair, down our backs, up our legs... and even the local wildlife hasn't escaped. We're used to seeing cows wandering the streets unattended by now, but not ones that look like they've just survived an explosion at the Dulux factory. A dog passes us, walking slowly in the opposite direction. It looks at us reproachfully and with a hint of embarrassment, from big brown eyes set just behind a vivid, almost hallucinatory, pink and green nose.
At the hotel, we bath, shower, wash, bath, shower, wash and repeat the cycle until the hot water runs out. We still have paint in our eyebrows and a large green patch under my hair seems to indicate the presence of some unbelievable tropical scalp disease. The hotel's receptionist, upon receipt of a huge bag of laundry which leaks pink paint on the hotel's 'Namaste!' doormat, doesn't seem impressed.
The occasion was the Holi festival, rooted in Hindu myth and which apparently celebrates the end of winter and the coming of spring. The Nepalis, ever amazing me with their excellent humour and
friendly, warm attitudes, enter into the spirit of the thing with extreme gusto. Tourists, as one might expect, are prime targets, but the paint weaponry is almost always deployed with very good humour and anyone carrying an expensive camera is attacked only at very close range, so as to be sure of delivering the paint to the correct target (the face) without any collateral damage. Any cars or lorries passing through the area are targetted too - one 'soupsucker' truck tasked with emptying the septic tanks of the town looked like it had only barely survived an intense paintball firefight, but there was one vehicle which drove around all day, making itself extremely obvious with loudspeakers bawling music and speech, and which didn't get touched by anyone - a Maoist campaign propaganda truck. One look at the dour-faced inhabitants with their red bandanas and hammer and sickle flags stopped any thought of a cheeky attack. As a predominantly religious exercise, would the Maoists want to abolish the Holi festival? It seems rather likely.
And what a shame if this beautiful country, and its proud and eminently wonderful people, end up like its close neighbour, Tibet. Incidentally, the papers are
full of the news of Tibetan monks being wounded by Nepali riot police in Kathmandu outside the UN HQ where they're protesting against Chinese rule and the Beijing Olympics. Showing solidarity to their brothers and sisters who are simultaneously protesting in Lhasa (and receiving much worse treatment there, by all accounts), the monks were beaten back and arrested by the Nepali authorities. Some were hospitalised. Any silver lining has a cloud, and in Nepal the government recognise Tibet as a legitimate part of China, probably to safeguard trade and limit any argument with their extremely powerful neighbours. There are a lot of Tibetan refugees in Nepal, and some in Pokhara. We decide to buy some jewellery from a lovely old refugee lady who sits with us a while as we play with a dog. After a while, we say 'namaste' and walk off, and she corrects us - 'Tashi delek' - she calls after us, a big smile on her red-cheeked, happy face. She turns to the road to watch another Maoist truck roar past.
She's old enough to remember when the Chinese invaded Tibet, and under the same red flag. I would love to know what she was
Nepali bikers
Riding around, throwing paint at people... thinking about the Maoist presence in Nepal and their increasing influence, whether she's thinking 'Here we go again...', but it's impossible to tell and I don't like to pry. As a Buddhist, she would probably (and likely she was the first time round) be forgiving and peaceful, even in the face of awful atrocities. And this is why I'll never make a good Buddhist... in her place, or the place of any Tibetan in the current climate, I'd be screaming, shouting, violent even... and probably in a cell in Beijing, or worse. The Dalai Lama appeals for calm from the pages of the Kathmandu Press alongside pictures of bleeding, shouting monks, the veins on their foreheads standing out in anger, fists raised in defence against and defiance of the batons of the Nepali police in Kathmandu or the automatic assualt rifles of the Red Army in Lhasa. Tibetans really must have the longest fuses in the world, but it is looking increasingly like even they are in serious danger of detonation...
I wish I'd brought one of my Free Tibet T-shirts with me to wear in Kathmandu...
22/3/08
A lazy day of bumming around in Pokhara and
A brave lone calf...
... running the gauntlet in Pokhara doing almost nothing. In the evening we had a couple of cocktails (I had a whisky sour, closest thing I could find to a mojito), and Maya asked the waiter for a Kiss Me Quick, cringing from the inevitable wisecrack. After a few more we hit a bar which was advertising a live DJ, and drank a little more beer. Maya and I started to play pool, as it was still pretty quiet, and I relaxed into the game as it became obvious Maya wasn't great at pool. The self-satisfied smirk was wiped from my face as I dropped the black in style, only to watch the white rebound and go down the opposite pocket. Maya 1, Will 0. Thankfully she decided to quit whilst ahead and spare me any further embarrassment, so I started playing with one of the bar staff. I beat him, then his mate, then him again, only losing the last game. By this time the remarkably Western club had filled up somewhat, almost exclusively by Nepalis. The young men were sharply dressed in the urban styles so favoured of Brixtonites - baggy jeans, baseball jackets, NYC caps. The ladies wouldn't have looked out of place
in any reasonably normal R&B type club in London... so as a pair of rather scruffy white hippies we attracted some attention. At just the right moment, two familiar faces walked through the door - Dan and Ohad, the Israelis from the Varanasi train in India! With two more friends in tow, we all sat down together and caught up. The night descended into chaos, I danced like an idiot to some rather good techno (the music improved as the night wore on) and got lifted up into midair by some grinning Nepali, walked back to the hotel and back again to get more cash, I nearly had a fight with an Australian, only saved at the last minute by a local dog I'd made friends with baring its teeth at the Aussie, and then we eventually staggered home very late at night indeed. Belch.
23/3/08
I woke up with the worst hangover ever. Trust me to combine cocktails and beer and expect to be fine. Maya headed off for a jewellery making course she'd enrolled on, leaving me with just two tasks to complete - sort a bus ticket for Kathmandu and buy toothpaste. However, as one
might expect, I managed to get as far as the nearest shop where I bought a big box of Pringles and some chocolate biscuits before heading back upstairs to stare at the cable TV and stuff my face in comfort. I didn't even realise I'd forgotten the toothpaste. Maya returned six hours later from her course, where she'd learnt to make silver jewellery from scratch, incorporating gems and shells etc, to find me staring out of the window, lying on the bed surrounded by empty junk food wrappers and crumbs, the TV blank and lifeless due to a power cut. Leaving me in no way unsure about how lazy I am, she dragged me out for food. I still felt funny when I went to bed.
24/03/08
Spent the whole day trying to send a 5kg parcel of stuff home. Cheapest quote was over 60 quid! We unpacked the box we'd spent an hour wrapping previously and managed to absorb it all into our rucksacks, somehow. I'd finished all my books and sold them all at a book dealer, only to blow the cash on another book. It is an Aldous Huxley though, so worth it. Maya thinks
less so. We did manage to get a ticket to Kathmandu for tomorrow though. Early bedtime as up at 6am.
If these last few entries appear rushed it is because basically we did nothing in Pokhara except bum around and soak up the atmosphere. It's a beautiful place, very chilled and yet lively at times. Pokhara reinforced our opinions of Nepal still further - a truly amazing place. However, Kathmandu tomorrow - the guidebook describes it as 'dirty, smelly and horrifyingly polluted'. Could it be worse than that pit of pollution hell, Delhi?
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