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Published: March 25th 2009
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More prayer flags
Can't have enough in the hope the memory cards are found Leaving behind the mountain butterflies and bamboo, the bamboo as thick as my leg and, tapering, rising thirty feet before looping on itself and, still tapering, ending at nothing, like a horse carriage whip, we caught something of a taxi back to Pokhara. I say something as we felt sure it was a chap taking his mother back to Pokhara and we paid to ride. Still, he was a careful driver and without a word we got back in one piece. Arriving back at the cottages we found everything locked and dogs gone. No sign of life, so a new hotel was found up the road. It turned out something of a long story but a least we got our bag back.
An afternoon, well half an hour was enough, rowing on the lake as thunder rolled in the distance and, with the wind picking up, we returned to the hotel with a view to watching the impending storm from our balcony. Having now found the taste of Nepali rum, I popped down the road to buy a bottle to go with the storm. No electricity as usual so, using a torch from the shop, made my purchase when, with a
roar, a ball of dust and dirt ran up the high street. Sheets of corrugated iron flapped and flailed in the wind as shutters were instantly pulled down as shop owners withdrew their stock from display and then themselves withdrew behind their shutters. Bullets of rain hit the road, throwing up puffs of dust at each shot. With the purchase I sprinted up the high street, keeping eyes peeled for flying debris and dust. I arrived back amid flashes of lightening and cracks of thunder and, opening our new purchase, sat smiling behind steel security grills as lightening etched on the retina and thunder crushed other senses. This was wild and loud and exciting and as we finished the rum the whole event subsided to a yellow glow as the setting sun took over.
We returned to Kathmandu in an uneventful bus trip. Not so our arrival. It had been Rs100 for the taxi to get to the bus station when we left and being asked for 200 we agreed 100 although we were uncertain exactly where we were, we assumed we were close to the bus station. Having shown the taxi driver the map and where we wanted
to go, we set off. Within 30 seconds, I recognised where we were. A minute later we were at the hotel, a distance we could have walked in 5 minutes! Its this kind of behaviour and dishonesty that gives taxi drivers a bad name. All he needed to say was that we could have walked and his honour would have remained intact. Then in the hotel we found it was fully booked but no problem, a call next door, a check of the room and, for the same price, a very fine place to stay for 2 nights.
The following day we taxied to Bodruth, the largest Buddhist temple in Nepal with a stupa dating from around 1550. Prayer flags so tattered and faded looked as if they too could have dated from around that period, as hundreds of prayer wheels, some as big as 10 feet tall, were being rotated by strolling, muttering monks and "middle way" folk alike. All quite mesmerising and tranquil despite the numbers of visitors.
Breakfast the following morning would not be with our limed, (red) haired, host whose banana lassi was surely banana flavoured yoghurt with slices of banana in it, each
Kathmandu MOT pass
The spare wheel may actually be better than those already on the lorry! slice appearing in your mouth as a surprise gobbet! No; today we'd breakfast in town, so rooftop restaurant was found, a restaurant which, from the black painted walls, black cushions adorning the floor and huge speakers, was a nightclub - well at night. Today was day and bright, as the sun shone into the blackened innards of the club. Below in the street an orchestra of locals was tuning up for the day's symphony. The odd cycle bell tinkling, a vocal "Namaste", a horn or two , then the percussion coming in, as a roller shutter rattled and ran up its rails. then the bassoon of a Royal Enfield motorcycle, then more trumpets of car horns as a music shop turned on its CD player with the ever omnipresent Buddhist chant, all for the overture and beginners and our breakfast. Floors were being swept, things cleaned and potted plants watered, one such plant at our table, happily sharing its pot with three healthy marijuana plants, one can imagine planted by an aged hippy giving life to the perpetuation of his species and to the shelves, hangers and stalls full of tie-dyed and multicoloured clothing worn by it since the early sixties. Cool!
A sign of mirth was noted across the way on a huge billboard advertising a bank. Some advertising wag had managed to have passed his idea of the bank's ethos with the words "Your Money. Our Soul." A telling sign of the times in more ways than one. We laughed but not for long. It is said
"There's a one-eyed yellow idol To the north of Kathmandu; There's a little marble cross below the town;
And a brokenhearted woman Tends the grave of 'Mad' Carew, While the yellow god for ever gazes down". I know, there's a little plastic packet in the midst of Kathmandu, with a little 2 gig' card with all the pics, and a broken hearted trav'ller rues the day he put them in, his wallet for safe keeping, Oh he's sick.
You may be wondering where the photographs have gone. Alas dear reader, you shall not see them, and to us they are now but a memory. Three weeks of photographs, a hundred or so, somewhere kicking around Kathmandu. A glum day, but as the Old Man says, "Worse things happen at sea".
And so to Delhi, a flight for some being the first leg back to Heathrow but for us a taxi ride to Hotel Eurostar. Having booked in, our walk down the side streets returned us to the usual rancid roads. One in particular, with dust and open sewers ran past a large building which housed the Institute of Public Health and Hygiene. I think the advertising wag could have a field day with that one.
And so we now start our final leg in the sunny and hot southern India.
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reg tubby
non-member comment
memory card
Did you lose the memory card or is it just unreadable? If the latter do not use it or format it etc. I have software to recover the unrecoverable.