Loving You till the End of the World

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Arriving in Pokhara after Kathmandu feels like a trip from hell to heaven, a Nepalese version. In Pokhara we are greeted by a calm lake with lavishly green hills at the background. Familiar to some? Yes, a scenery similar to the one we enjoy in Lausanne. Unfortunately the weather is crying, and we do not see any mountain peaks at the horizon, but there are lot of promising post cards in the bookshops along the lake. Lake's name is Fewa, it is the second largest lake in Nepal, lying at an altitude of 784m, it is not very deep though, just 9m in average. We have a few things to go through with.

First, yoga. No, actually, not, we will have our most important date here, the date of our wedding. Here, in Pokhara on 11.11.11 we shall be blessed as a wedded couple in the Buddhist traditions. So we better organise the event before starting our spiritual and physical purification. This looked quite a challenge given the uncomprehensibility of the Nepalese language. Even at school, kids first learn English writing and only after, the Nepalese alphabeth. Not easy. Asking our hotel stuff seemed like an appropriate first attempt, after all, there is a honeymoon suite among their rooms, so they should know about weddings. We imagined a programme we would like to have for our day, and met an easy positive answer, everything is possible! A ceremony in a Buddhist temple, a car to go there, a photographer, a lunch for the organisers, a boat trip and the honemoon suite! We hit the aim from the fist shoot, so to speak. That is a good start for our stay in Pokhara.

To forget all the worries of the world, we check-in to one of the yoga retreats near the town. We did not know what to expect from such a place, but we grew to like it very quickly. The day at Sadhana retreat is organised in a way to allow one free one's mind of all the daily concern. Every detail is well thought of and rolls smoothly from 5:30 in the morning to 7:30 in the evening. It is not that we suddenly did not have any needs, i.e. becoming yogis, but all our needs were satisfied. The sleep was quiet, the vegetarian food was excellent, people interesting, the internet absent and the physical activities challenging. Starting a day at 5:30 with a morning meditation gives a day an unexpected lenght, when by breakfast time at 9:30 we have already done many healthy activities including a walk in a waking up countryside and a profound cleansing of our nasal paths. We did take the calmliness of the nature inside our bodies, and into our thoughts. When our stay was finished we were quite reluctant to go back to the 'normal' life filled with noise and all those artificial needs the modern society invents for us.

Back just a day before our wedding, we had to be very efficient not to miss a thing from our to-do list. First things first, we needed wedding dresses, which were miracuosly made in one day! Starting from a scratch, from the measures taken from us. It was an example of an extreme performance for an otherwise quite laid back and non organised nation. From choosing the materials to getting a two piece suite for the groom, hours could be counted within the fingers of one hand. For the bride it was easier, since the bride garnment is a 6 meter of red chiffon wrapped in a very specific way, a way local women wear their sarees. Flowers, fruits, donation for the monastery are all bought and packed and we can give ourselves to the local beauticians for the last touch.

The next day comes, the day of 11th of November 2011, the day we chose to be our very special one. After a morning spent in putting the folds of the red saree in a particular way and arranging correctly the white suite, we got a luxury, by local standards, car that is ready to bring us to our fortune. Well, before leaving we had to wait for our photographer who turned out to be a camera man, no photos but a movie to be made. We will realise only later that his belatedness was a good sign for us, in the current moment we are trying to recite mantras of patience. At the monastery, we realize that we are not aware of what exactly is going to happen to us, and we try our best to interpret the instructions given by the sister who is guiding our ceremony. All in all it happend in a amusing way with monks smiling and chanting, and people around us laughing (mostly at us). We have to do a certan number of rituals, starting by inhaling a suspiciously smelling fumes, and finishing by the bride praying at the feet of the groom (the part most liked by the latter!). The event of our wedding was so unusual that a reporter from the national newspaper is attending it and taking an interview, we are going be on the pages of tomorrow news ! The non-punctuality of our team makes us to be blessed later than agreed, and that is at 11 in the morning, which adds one more lucky 11 number to the date of our wedding. We are married now, and our names are inscribed in the book of Dhe Chhen Ling monastery in Pokhara, the official part is completed. Our cortege is going back to hotel where we are going to have lunch with all people who helped us to organise this day, our camera man is with us filming us eating, which look a wee too much for us, but quite undisturbing to the locals. The boat trip around the beautiful lake is the must for the occasion, and we enjoy the calm waters of the Fewa and watch people rowing by and greeting us, our clothes giving out the fact that we are just married. We did not expect much from the Nepalee cuisine, and we will have another wedding dinner somewhere where the pleasure of eating takes a larger part in nation's priorities. As red is the color of wedding in Nepal, red is our honeymoon suite, from floor to ceilling, till the last detail, which is a bottle of red wine! 'Happy marred' as a big red heart says over our door, we are !

Next morning we see that we are known to the town, the reason being a big photo of us in the national newspaper, we did not make it to the first page though, but the second is not bad either! We have only one day to enjoy our celebrity status, not because people will forget our faces, but because we are leaving for Himalayas, for a honeymoon trek to the sacred Annapurna. It does sound romantic, but in reality, we are going to spend a couple of hard weeks in very basic conditions, such as no hot water, a cold room for a night, a sleeping bag on a narrow bench instead of silky sheets on a kingsize bed... That's our idea of perfect honeymoon. We shall see how our love will blossom above 4000 meters!

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Comments

[Andy]

Celestial. Is all I can say.