Calming Mannikaram

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We loved the food and friendly culture in Kathmandu. We hated the build-up in Pokhara. Now, it's time to get to North India. I'll give the country a clean slate, the north's probably totally different from the south. As soon as we crossed the border, the air changed. Literally. It was full of the aromas of spices that are uniquely Indian. As enjoyable as that could have been, I was suddenly reminded of all the things I forgot I hated. And how much more offensive the people are to my American senses.


On our first bus ride, I was caught in a good mood by some guy whom I maintained small talk with until he asked, "You enjoy sex in India?" with the same over-excited interest that he asked, "How many days you stay here?" or, "What time is it?" My response was to look him in the eye and say, "I don't understand why you'd ask such a question." He just giggled and stared, not realizing what I meant so I gave him the cold shoulder. It sounds sexist but if people come with respect, they talk to Mike. If they want to get a hard-on from inane conversation, they talk to me.


Nepal seemed to wipe from my memory how half a bus load of people can be so captivated by my presence that they give me the same attention a group of small children give their favorite cartoon show. Mesmerized and unflinching, they're absolutely entranced by White Woman Looking Out A Window or White Woman Reading A Book. Though the book prompted demands from one lady for me to give it to someone else. When she didn't succeed, demands changed to teaching English to the children. I deflected that one, too. How do I explain in Hindi that I'm exhausted and have PMS?


I no longer have any personal space. We're amusement for locals. And I am just a tease for men merely by being here. Men stand in groups, holding each other, as bewitched by me buying a bus ticket as they would be by me erotically writhing around a pole. This time here I can ignore people better, I can tell them, "No, leave me alone." I don't want to visit a foreign country with blinders shielding me from locals. I think this will be my last visit here.


Many overnight bus marathons finally delivered us to Mannikaram, the first attractive town since who-knows-when. Absolutely restful, it straddles the Parvati River but the main part of the town is on the side of the riverbank that doesn't support any motor vehicles except the occasional renegade scooter. Sitting outside our 3rd floor hotel room on the terrace, we got quite a 3-D experience, looking steeply down to the narrow stone streets leading into the little square below and looking steeply up to the numerous and magnificent hills and onto the snowy peaks beyond.


The valley's so narrow that it's easy to imagine getting swallowed up in green. Or white, when the heavy mist meets the rising steam from the natural hot springs. Ahh.... the hot springs! Could we be more spoiled than this, taking hot baths every single day? Only if the wine shop were closer than Kasol, a 4km walk down the way.


"If I had painted all my life, I could never have been happy. Now... I am at the same state of maturity as Goethe was when he arrived in Rome and exclaimed: 'At last I am going to be born!'" - Salvador Dali

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Photos

Government bus from Nepal to India
The seat benches aren't fastened down, the windows are broken, the scratchy speakers blast bad Indian music and did I mention the condition of the roads?