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Published: October 1st 2007
In the words of Eddie Murphy in the Golden Child 'Viva Nepal!' This place is fantastic and I wish I had given myself more time to spend here. First was the job of getting out of India thigh!
On my last day in Varanasi I met a really cool couple with a fascinating story. She was an English Girl that worked in Venture Capital and he was a Peruvian mountain guide and one of the funniest blokes I have met in a while! They met in Peru but not romantically and then the girl had a mountain bike accident in Bolivia and did'nt know who else to call. Six months later they have travelled through Asia and are in love... very romantic.
Anyway, this guy was telling me about how funny South American TV is and taught me the phrase 'Santa Cachucha Batman' which mean 'Holy Moley Batman' and I have been saying it since. And apparantly in the A-Team (or Los Magnificos as it is called there) BA is called Mario!?
Anyway, the night train towards the border was 3 hours late and held its own little dramas. To start with I managed to tear the gusset of my fisherman pants bending down to lift my rucksack.... while going commando. My 'wardrobe malfunction' left me needing to be very careful how I sat! The AC carriage was full so I was stuck on a standard sleeper and had to evict 2 Indian blokes from my birth and finally got to sleep.
I woke up to find a ladyboy (In India?!) stroking my arm and when I shoved him/her/it away it retaliated by tring to punch me in the cock! fortunately I had my hand covering the area due to Wardrobe malfunction (every cloud eh!) and chased it away!
On reaching the border, myself, 2 Aussie girls I met in Varanasi and a Peruvian couple I met at the station the night before negotiated a fee for a taxi to the border. I lost the plot for the first time on my trip when the guy kept tring to load people into a 6 seat vehicle which he insisted sat ten. Suitably chastised the driver headed for the border and after 3 weeks I escaped India.
Nepal was like the holy land. As soon as we got to the border the Visa took ten minutes, then we grabbed beers and liquor for the journey to Kathmandu and had a five hour sing song through beutiful countryside. An hour after arriving at the guesthouse I had a large steak and a glass of french red in my hand and felt better than I had since the trip began.
The following day I hooked up with my mate Lucy that I met in Shimla and her friend and we hit the town after a days sightseeing. I had another steak and then we found a quality live band - the singer was superb. Later that night the streets went wild as a Nepali won the final of Indian Idol and the night finished at six am when I nicked a rickshaw of a hash dealer and peddled home :-)
Since Kathmandu I have moved on to Pokhra and from here did a 3 day white water rafting trip down the Kali Gandaki river and its grade 4 rapids. Our team was 3 dutch people, myself, Lucy's mate from Cornwall, a big Croatian bloke and a yank guy who came in a canoe. We had a guide, a gear raft and 3 safety kayakers (including the Yank who used to do it for a living). The trip was superb inspite of the near constant rain. Fortunately 5 steaks in 4 days had sorted my dietry issues as the hole in the sand toilet at our camp sites was less than inspiring!
On the second day we hit the best of the rapids and over the course of the day pulled 10 Isreali's out of the river! they had 4 boats heading through at the same time as us. We decided to call ourselves International rescue and briefly all considered a career change! Since the rafting I have taken out a boat on the Fewa Tal lake, had a massage and taught a gang of 15 Nepali's how to play killer pool, tomorrow I am jumping off a mountian for a spot of Paragliding and the day after starting a 5 day trek to Poona Hill for a good look at the Annapurna mountain range.
I leave Nepal in a week but am already confident its going to take its place at the top of the Chunk Tetley travel Index leader board!
Until then..... Chakmati!
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Andrew Supple
non-member comment
Hmmm, steak
Nice. Please keep the steak count and rating going for us meat eaters. Looking to hear your thoughts on the steak when you get to Argentina. Good to also see that it has been correctly combined with some red.