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Published: July 15th 2009
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It’s a 200 km journey and we were told that it would take 7 long hours to navigate the windy mountain roads and bad road conditions in a generally shitty minivan to get to Pokhara from Kathmandu. I couldn’t imagine it would take that long. Instead, it took us 10 hours! After a quick glance inside our minivan, I decided that the corner back seat would be the most comfortable and spacious position, that was until 3 massive Indian ladies ended up with the same theory, and the 4 of us considerably sized women squished ourselves into the back seat. It would be the most uncomfortable 10 hours of my life! Halfway to Pokhara we get stuck in a traffic jam for 3 long hours, a bus had parked itself across the road, blocking both directions of traffic. We never found out why or how it happened, or more importantly, why it wasn’t removed from the road, but we figured that was just how Nepal rolled! It did give me an opportunity to talk to my fellow travellers, a Brit who owns her own bookstore and wanted me to explain in detail how the Borders inventory system works (random!), a Belgium
guy who works for Lufthansa and gets 3 months off a year - prompting me to decide I need to work for Lufthansa, and a Nepali guy who enjoyed telling us how corrupt the country was, and how we should watch our step if we wanted to survive in his country. According to him, in Nepal if a car hits you and you don’t die, the driver will most likely attempt to run you down again and again until you are dead, otherwise he is will be in your debt and must pay all your medical bills and compensate for the trauma caused! Made me look twice before crossing the road!
We arrived in Pokhara in the late afternoon, unfortunately the weather was pretty bad and we didn’t get a view of the Himalayas towering above the lake. I would spend 8 days in Pokhara, and I only see the Himalayas on the 8th day!
I spent most of my time in Pokhara walking up and down the lake, checking out the cool shops in the touristy areas, eating the most amazing Nepali food and being asked really random questions from local shop keepers. In their weird way of
getting your attention and the possibility of getting a sale from you, they came up with great opening liners such as “What do you think of the Ku Klux Klan?” or “How long does it take to fly from Sydney to Coober Pedy?”
I got a new henna tattoo from a street vendor, which ended up an epic failure because I figured it would dry quicker than it actually did, so walked back to my hotel only to discover all the henna designs had merged into one and much of it had dripped down my foot resembling a weird foot disease!
I had recently told myself that I needed to open up to more experiences while overseas, and do things that I wouldn’t do back home, so I decided to enrol myself in a meditation lesson. Not knowing what to expect, I found myself in a tiny hall in one of the backstreets of Pokhara, standing alone staring at giant posters of Osho. A lanky, tall man with emo hair, a scattered beard and bright orange fisherman pants appeared and asked if I was interested in joining him in Kundalini Meditation. He promptly told me what was involved;
an hour long lesson broken into 4 parts, completed in silence and with eyes closed. 15 minutes shaking on the spot, 15 minutes dancing, 15 minutes sitting and finally 15 minutes lying in the corpse position listening to chanting monks and banging drums. It was an interesting experience, I defintely wasn’t good at it, I kept my eyes open most of the time - watching my ‘teacher’ shake and dance like a crazy man was extremely entertaining and worth the $2 I handed over for the lesson!
I spent a good deal of time in cafes reading local Nepali newspapers. My favourite was the Himalayan Times which described the global health alert as being caused by “Swan Flu”, and had great headlines such as “Peace Minister Threatens To Go Back To War.”
There is a Himalayan lookout called Sarangkot not too far from Pokhara, and I had been waiting for a clear day to take the trip up there. My last day arrived and it still wasn’t clear, but I took a taxi up despite the weather and enjoyed the not-so-great mountain views with a cup of Nepali tea at a little house near the lookout. I was
pretty upset that I couldn’t see the mountains, as all of the postcards I had seen of the place looked spectacular!
The following morning I woke to clear skies and a perfect view of the mountains. I begrudgingly packed my bags muttering to myself how unfair it was that the Himalayas were finally visible the day I was leaving and made my way to the bus station. I was met by stranded passengers and no bus, Maoists had called a strike and no one could leave or enter Kathmandu so the bus was cancelled. I dumped my bags at the nearest hotel, grabbed a taxi and headed back to the top of Sarangkot, this time with amazing views of the Himalayas and the whole valley! Oh thank you Maoists! I spent ages playing with the timer function of my camera, taking dicky photos of myself doing star jumps and jazz hands in front of the mountains. I probably spent about 2 or more hours just sitting at the lookout when I remembered that my taxi driver was still waiting to take me back to my hotel. Oops. Thank goodness it wasn’t a metered taxi.
Later that day my
hotel owner offered to take me on his motorbike to see a waterfall and the Tibetan Refugee Village. I was a little nervous at first, as I knew that my travel insurance didn’t cover motorbikes and I sure as hell didn’t want to end up in a hospital in rural Asia, but it looked like fun so I did it anyway. He put his helmet on and I asked for mine, he stared at me like I was crazy and told me that I didn’t need one. I barked back and said I sure as bloody hell needed one and wasn’t going unless he give me one. In many places in Asia, only the driver of a bike must wear a helmet, the passengers (even children) can get away without wearing one. I tried telling my driver that it was just as dangerous being a passenger of a motorbike as it was being a driver, but he just laughed like I was an idiot. Real comforting knowing this before being his passenger!
The next day we were free to drive back to Kathmandu, this time only taking 7 hours to get there. I stayed in a super cheap hostel
that was located right next door to a blasting Hindu nightclub before taking the most awful flight in the world: Kathmandu to Delhi to Colombo to Bangkok, taking around 15 hours. I already miss Nepal like crazy and can’t wait to go back!
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