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Published: October 7th 2014
For the Nepali festival of Dashain I have a 2 and a half week holiday and finally a chance to explore Nepal a little further with Wend and Alan visiting. The first thing we noticed as Dashain approached was the arrival of enormous bamboo swings throughout Kathmandu, all surrounded by children. As we travelled to Chitwan, Pokhara and Bandipur we saw that these swings (all to pretty much the same design) had been build all over the country. Each year these swings are put up for the 16 days of the festival and then taken down at the end. As we drove through the smallest villages and found that even they had a swing I wondered who is it that co-ordinates this? Having an official somewhere in a office organising people to put them up and to have the equipment to do so seems highly unlikely so I suppose it must just be people in each village get together and do it. Perhaps Nepalis observing English homes in December would ask themselves where we all managed to suddenly get decorated trees and colourful lights from? The second thing we spotted was an increase in the number of goats: goats on the
road, goats in gardens, goats on mopeds and on the top of buses. And occasionally, just occasionally: goats running away!
For the first day of our holiday we decided to visit Swayambunath (the Monkey Temple). As one of the biggest attractions in Kathmandu I was skeptical and assumed that it would probably be a bit of a let down but it seems that my expectations are almost always wrong. We approached the temple from the east side where there’s about 300 steps as this was what Isaac thought was the best way to do it: he failed to mention that coming at it from the other side was a much shorter walk! However, despite the many stops that we needed to rest/look at monkeys he was probably right as the views across the city improved step-by-step. When we reached the top we found a restaurant for lunch in what I think is the first peaceful place I’ve found in Kathmandu. Definitely worth the visit but perhaps next time I’ll approach it from the other side and give the 300 steps a miss.
The following day we set off for Chitwan National Park. We were
collected at 8am by a 7seater jeep so for four of us, even with a week’s worth of luggage we were as comfortable as we could be. Our driver told us that driving as fast as you can it would be possible for us to get to Chitwan in about 3 hours but was more likely to take us about 5. The first 50km of our journey then took us 5 hours and we were only half way! This can only lead me to discuss the things that I have seen and learnt of the joys of Nepal’s roads…..
First of all I am still glad to have driven (now that I’m safely back with my life intact) as some of the views as we drove throughout this trip were incredible and unless there’s a time pressure I wouldn’t want to miss that by flying to Pokhara. However, on more than one occasion when we found ourselves on the same side of the road as an Indian lorry with an “om” sign on the front hurtling towards us I pretty much figured that would be the last thing we’d see. The driving here is mad! There is a constant
battle to overtake as many people as possible regardless of blind bends, sheer cliffs to the side or an obvious lack of space. There will be no stopping or slowing down for motorbikes, children, old ladies or dogs. Ducklings of course will stop all traffic it seems – they aren’t monsters, who wouldn’t stop for a duckling? A big lorry or bus might occasionally realise the impact they’re having by slowing down the overtaking race and as a means of suggesting that you should overtake them will put on their right hand indicator (Nepali’s drive on the left…..mostly). Initially I thought that this was a fairly good way of telling the people behind that it was clear to overtake…..nope, this isn’t an indication of safety, just that the driver is happy to be overtaken. Another obvious problem with this is that the right indicator can still be used for (its more traditional purpose) telling people that you’re intending to turn right, although this isn’t often done. A personal highlight of my views from our car was a bus passing us in the other direction advertising free wi-fi on board, not unreasonable you might think but this same bus didn’t have
a windscreen. I also saw some gates that had been shaped so that one said “wel” and the other “come”, unfortunately they’d been hung the wrong way around so that instead of “welcome” the gates said “comewel”.
Not unsurprisingly, accidents are fairly common on the road and throughout our journey we saw at least 4 buses that had crashed (one of which being the reason that we took 5 hours to move 50km). Even without a crash, it was clear that the road would have been busy with hundreds of lorries from India transporting all the things that Kathmandu could possibly need. Since we’ve been here, we’ve consistently been impressed with the things available in the shops here as it all has to be trucked in and the road we were following is essentially the only one – pretty much everything we have here has got here on the back of a lorry along this road.
Back to our journey: after the first hour as we crossed out of Kathmandu and had a short stop. Isaac took this opportunity to wander into the bushes to relieve himself. Once back in the car, he went to scratch his foot
and realized that his itch was being caused by a leech. The car was stopped and an extensive search carried out to find the leech from the floor of the car: we were not going anywhere until Isaac knew he was safe again. At this stage I thought that this was quite an overreaction but more on my thoughts on leeches later…..
After 6 hours of death defying roads and a leech incident we were ready to stop again and I faced the less than appealing squat loo. In preparation for my inevitable lack of balance I fortunately had the foresight to give Isaac my sunglasses to hold. However, (initially at least) my phone remained in my pocket. Hindsight is a wonderful thing and I can’t help but question why I knew to give Isaac my sunglasses and not my phone which now lurks somewhere down a hole, covered in poo. But there we go.
So after 8 hours of near death experiences, a leech incident and a phone dropped down the loo we arrived, at 4pm at Jungle Sunset Camp, Chitwan ready for a shower and a large gin and tonic.
We stayed and
Jungle Sunset Camp for 3 nights and my feelings about the whole place remain very mixed. After our 8 hour journey, I didn’t need a great deal to make me happy: a bed, a shower, some daal baht. However, a lack of hot water, very limited water pressure and no soap in the bathroom was not a good start and we headed down to for the evening feeling just a little bit grumpy. We sat on a terrace overlooking the river with g&t and some vegetable pakoda and at this point my disappointment at the bathroom facilities abated. But then supper time arrived and our impression turned around once again: they had made an effort (and I suppose credit to them for trying) to create English food. Overcooked chicken and chips for the meat eaters and I had a bean burger; it’s often suggested that vegetarian food looks and tastes like cardboard and in this particular instance I’m inclined to agree!
The next morning we were up for breakfast a 6 which was a grumpy affair due to undercooked eggs after a night on a less than comfortable beds but by 7:30 we were on the back of an
elephant for a jungle safari. Amusingly, once on the elephant we had to pass a ticket “booth” in order for our safari to continue, no money changed hands but our driver had to get a ticket. Now, you can’t ask for much more of any morning than an elephant ride but for those looking to see some wild animals in the jungle, their hopes were shattered when a phone rang on the elephant in front of us. “Poor man must be mortified,” we were all thinking but no, not quite….he answered the call! We did at least see a big red bug and some butterflies but seeing as I could also (due to sitting on it) always see an elephant, I was happy. Our journey back to the hotel was more successful in terms of seeing wildlife and we stopped to see a rhino just hanging out not far from the side of the road, a little further on we also saw a baby rhino that had been rescued by the army after it was orphaned. Back at the hotel and straight into the river for elephant bath-time which if you’ve not done that sort of thing before I’m sure
was great but didn’t compare to the elephants we swam with in Thailand as it was overcrowded. At lunchtime we were allowed to choose what we ate and all chose Nepali food which was excellent so after a long morning we were more than happy to be in Chitwan.
For the afternoon we were taken on a canoe trip where we saw two different species of crocodile. After we parked (better word?) our canoe we were taken for a jungle walk. I can conclude that the jungle in a scary place. One poor girl in our group kept finding herself covered in leeches and was not happy, trying her best to scream quietly and not scare away the other animals. At this point I found a leech burrowing through my trousers and I retract all my earlier lack of understanding of Isaac’s fear in the car. Watching it work its way through my trousers was a slow motion attack and not being able to get it off was terrifying. Leeches are gross. We then saw (apparently) a Rhino off in the distance, I’m still not sure if it was just a big rock but everyone else seemed satisfied. A
Traffic
As you can clearly see, there was no way on Earth that we were going to get passed this bus. Neither driver seemed prepared to drive and somehow we got through. How did that happen? There clearly isn't the space!herd of bambi deer (technical name) ran past us which was pretty cool and we found a massive pile of Rhino poo. Rhinos only like to poo in one place and they come back to the same spot each day – who knew? Our walk ended at an elephant breeding center where there was a 16 day old elephant. I love elephants.
To get back to the hotel we needed to cross the river and to do this there was a fleet of rowing boats shuttling people across. While waiting for a boat to take us across we saw one man’s punting stick snap and he fell into the water and swam the boat to shore, reassuringly safe! When our boat arrived and we all pilled in, it was so deep in the water that it looked more than likely to sink but we made it across and back to the hotel for some more delicious English food!
Our second day in Chitwan began with fully cooked eggs – hooray a good breakfast! We were taken by horse and cart to a museum about the indigenous people in the Terai, most of the museum was a
bit of a let down but it ended with stories and pictures of individual people and how the establishment of the national park had impacted on them – most people were relocated by the government out of the area where the park was created.
After lunch we went on a jeep safari (by this stage the “safari” activities were overkill for me) where we saw a monkey, a wild pig, an eagle, lots of birds and some hilarious American girls. While sitting at the picturesque lake 20,000 with binoculars out, looking at birds, a group of young American girls appeared having a conversation about how very very “hot” and “dirty” they were all feeling.
After a final sleep at Jungle Sunset Camp (in rooms that hadn’t been cleaned since we arrived) we set off for Pokhara. An incredibly beautiful drive with views of the Annapurnas ended at the delightful Hotel Dreams. If I’m brutally honest with myself it’s probably just a good travel lodge standard but it was clean, had comfy beds and great views and compared to where we’d stayed in Chitwan it was heaven and I will go there again.
We explored the lake side of Pokhara and found a Tibetan “Mini Mart” where we had lunch and did some shopping with some really friendly Tibetans. For the afternoon we hired a boat and rowed out into the lake. While on the lake we encountered a pair of boys wanting their photo taken on their boat so we rowed together to take their camera, then apart again to “take many” photos at their request as they rowed in a complete circle around us then back together again to return the camera.
Back at the hotel we had a small problem as they didn’t have any tonic. However, they did ask us which size of carafe we wanted for our gin which I’m going to find endearing. We explained about gin and tonic to them so perhaps in future it will be there, we were served our gin and juice with a grin of “here’s your malaria medicine” – clearly he thought we were mad and slightly misunderstood but I’m going to remain a fan. As the sun set we had views of three mountain peeks coming through the tops of the clouds.
Our final morning in Pokhara,
Isaac and I got a taxi as close as possible and walked the final 10 mins to get to the world peace stupa. It’s not a particularly good road and it made for quite a stressful drive but we were pushed for time and wanted to get there as quickly as possible. In future, I would take a whole day and walk to the top but even in our fly-by visit we could appreciate it. The views across the lake, the valley and the mountains were awesome.
Our final night was spent in Bandipur. This is the perfect balance of old style Nepali town, on a steep hill growing rice with just enough experience of tourists to have western loos and ice cubes! We stayed in the old inn, which was just lovely and I highly recommend it. We arrived at 2pm and were given a welcome drink of a jug of cold lemon squash, followed by a lunch of fresh bread, cheese and salad: one if the best things I’ve had to eat in Nepal as on a hot afternoon it was just what we wanted. Tables have Tibetan singing bowls on the to
attract attention from secluded parts of the balconies. We took a short walk up a hill to find the best views yet of the Annapurnas. I’m realising now that I’m running out of adjectives to describe “stuff that was nice to look at” so I won’t try to come up with one now but needless to say it was good. Back down the hill for a buffet style supper of daal baht followed by banana split (not kidding) which was all delicious. By 8pm the “lads” of the town had hooked up their music to a speaker and were dancing in the street. I don’t think this is a nightly occurrence but was highly amusing to watch and they were very welcoming when we went to join them.
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