Solo

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This entry has now been restored in its entirety thanks to my awesome sister-in-law (now to be known as my Saraster). So the last few paragraphs will be news to most.
M

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very quick as the power just cut and bacup battery likely to die, but I made it safely to Lumbini. Am staying overnight here and tomorrow bus and walking across the Indian border and rickshaw or whatever onwards to Gorakhpur where I catch my overnight train. the bus ride was interesting and I have pics and stories to share, but from the looks of it I'm not going to be able to do so from here. Have been waiting hours for the power to come back on and it died again after 15 min - and of course as I write this, it's on again. so maybe I can afford to slow down...

We drove back from Pokhara on Sunday, and through experimentation I confirmed that the way for my nerves to survive these mountainous roads full of insane drivers and oblivious human and animal obstacles, is for me to be oblivious myself. So my iPod put in a lot of miles and I tried to only open my eyes when the gasps (amused or horrified) of my fellow passengers indicated there was something worth looking at. And there was plenty - fantastic vistas despite the monsoon clouds, several vehicles which had crashed, baby goats trying to keep up with their herd, large garishly painted busses passing on blind curves about to crash into us but for Dominic's excellent driving (as a pilot he has quick reflexes), waterfalls crashing down sheer rock faces, people inexplicably meandering down the middle of the road despite the loudest horn honks (Lee - they were meanderthals!), and on and on in an endless parade of silliness and beauty.

About halfway there, the traffic ground to a halt. We got out and walked to the front of the line, to witness what I later learned is a common event on Nepal's roads - a "chakka jam", where anyone with a grievance parks their vehicle perpendicular to block the highway. As far as I can tell, the point is to get people out of their cars to participate in an extremely loud mass argument so that they can all learn about this person's complaint. It's difficult to do justice to the scene without the video I took there, so that will have to wait. (This computer is too slow to even upload pics). At any rate, we eventually made it back to the city and met another of Dominic's friends, Sarah, who arrived from Nova Scotia to intern with NDI for a year. It was fun "orienting" her, but by the time I pass through Kathmandu again on my way home, she will be much more at home there than me.

For Mike's and my last day there, Sarah accompanied us to another temple (Mike, you have the guidebook - what was it called?) which is supposed to be the most important Hindu site in the country, but for us the big draw was monkeys fighting with a dog and, for me at least, riverside cremations. We spent the rest of that rainy day packing, doing last-minute free laundry, hogging the internet - all the things you do before leaving the comforts of someone else's home. We topped it off with a sustained campaign by all four of us to provoke Dominic's cats to wrestle for our entertainment.

Everyone got up absurdely early to see me off this morning, and Mike accompanied me all the way across the city, through the astonishingly muddy bus station parking lot, and right onto the bus to help wedge my backpack into a near-impossibly small, and thus virtually theftproof, storage rack. He was on a flight later in the day for Bangkok and, eventually, Tokyo, Toronto and Ottawa. Since we won't see each other for nearly two months, we deemed this goodbye worthy of finally breaking the Asian taboo against public affection - a satisfying piece of defiance to help sooth the fact that I missed him immediately. But the bus finally pulled out and this helped my mind return to India and why I'm doing this leg of the journey.

Predictably, I saw many absurd and interesting things on the long road to Bhairawa (near the Indian border). When we finally got out of the mountains we were in the Terai, the large, formerly malarial region of southern Nepal which we keep hearing about as a political and meteological hotpoint (Maoist attacks and record flooding) - luckily there was little evidence of any trouble along our route, and as far as I saw the Terai is now one giant chessboard of flooded rice paddies, broken up by concrete houses (many unfinished - apparently a sign of eternal Nepali optimism), roadside stalls, and occasional billboards for "DUM whiskey: Face the Challenge!"

Off the bus in Bhairawa, I took a cycle rickshaw to the local bus stand and was surprised - the guidebook dismissed this place with a "if you HAVE to stay here" entry, but to me it looked like how a city would look after the age of the auto. Cycles ruled. The main street was a rairity in Asia - a quiet, orderly procession. Not only the taxis were all cycles, but the commuters were on bikes, the roadside stalls were bikes, and even an older man in what appeared to be a modified wheelchair was peddaling it with hand-pedals near his ears. In contrast, the occasional motorbike honking at everyone else for going too slowly - so ubiquitous everywhere else in Asia - seemed like uncivil intruders. It was great.

Lumbini was even better. After checking into my room (essentially sight unseen because again, the power was out) and showering, I rented a bike and had a great cycle around the place. It's far from the tourist prefab city you might expect of the Buddha's birthplace - it's still very much a village. And apparently they don't see enough tourists to not be completely overwhelmed by funny-looking hair.

More later when pics allow.

PS Mike, do you have my shoes?

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