I never thought 7 hrs on a bus would be so enjoyable

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I'm in Pokhara now, which is a 7 hour bus ride from Kathmandu. Remember when I said I had seen the beauty of Nepal? I was wrong...NOW I've seen the beauty! I swear, it just keeps getting better and better. We drove down winding road through the foothills of the Himalayas...amazing. I could see snow covered mountains that were so beautiful. The clouds settled about 1/3 of the way from the tops of them. I didn't once get bored during the entire 7 hours. Again, I was mesmorized. We passed many poor villages. It seems as though it is perfectly acceptable to lie around and do nothing. Quite different from the workaholic place where we are from. Many people were actually doing labor work, but at a very leisurely pace.

The driving is interesting. These drivers fly around the mountains...they just honk when they are going around a curve and hope that no one is there to meet them (us) head on!

The best thing I saw was a "gondola", which was a basket hanging from a wire from one side of a river about as wide as a football field to the other side. It was about 100 feet in the air. You could hardly see the 2 people in it because there were so many crops in it with them. The people were manually hand-over-hand pulling themselves across. It looked frightening! The children entertain themselves with rocks, sticks, and each other--seeing as there is no TV or Nintendo! There were all tourists on the bus and I met a brother and sister from Oregon. Someone tell Grampa that they have many uses for burlap sack including cradles for babies! They hang in them like a hammock. Cattle were grazing on cliffs so steep that they looked like they shoud tumble over.

It's 98 degrees today. It is seriously hot. I began a trek to Sarangkot yesterday. I hiked for about 4 hours up to the small village. Very hard work! I should have hired a porter to carry my backpack. I didn't realize that it is very common and many locals make a living carrying bags for tourists. Anyway, I hope my pics do justice to what my eyes were seeing! There were many families that live all the way up. Every once in a while I would see a hut and the children would ask me for "sweets" and "school pens". They would fly right past me like the broken stone steps and mountain side are so easy to climb! When I got up to Sarangkot I talked for a while with a girl my age who wanted to practice her English. She had a baby girl that is David's age--made me miss him! I was very disappointed because I had to go back down. My shoulder injury that has been haunting me for years started acting up. Not to mention, I've been feeling the effects of the altitude, so it's better to take it easy. I don't think I drank enough water on the trek...I was drenched in sweat the entire time. I was a little weary of the bottle of water I bought along the way because it wasn't sealed, so I didn't drink much. Will someone drink a glass of tap water for me? And not the Britta stuff.

A local gave me some bengay type stuff for my shoulder today. He also helped me find some ice to put on it. That was quite a challenge! We finally found a guy with a freezer and he chipped away a chunk of ice for me. It had raw meat stuck to it. I just held open my plastic baggy and he dropped it in and I sealed it up. I'm feeling much better now!

more later...

love,
nikki

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Photos

mother and child in Sarankat
I met her on my hike

top of the trek
hiking in this altitude was not easy, but it was gorgeous up there