A Looming Resonance/Convalesence in Pokhara

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Exactly unlike the constitution of my faeces, the past week has been long and hard. Plunging into diarrhea and vomiting a day after arriving at Pratik and Ganga's house, neither E and I were really able to fully enjoy our time in Lalitpur/Kathmandu and felt pretty bad about being a sickly yoke across their household. Arriving into Kathmandu a few days previous had been a journey of growing positivity despite the to-be-expected hair raising mountain road driving of the bus that brought us from the border. A group of men from South India, also on the bus, were very kind and helped us get to and book into a hotel after we arrived at half one in the morning. Two days at a pricey hotel in Thamel, Kathmandu's tourist district, felt a welcome relief after a month in India because PEOPLE DON'T HASSLE YOU (much) and THE STREETS ARE CLEAN (mostly).

On the third day we met with Sareena and Pratik at the infoshop before following Pratik to his house in the adjoining suburb of Lalitpur. There we met Ganga, his partner, and another guy crashing there, a Bolivian going by the name Al Fredo. I learned this is not his real name but one he has adopted for travelling so I will continue calling him that. Not much is to be said for the remaining five days of our stay there. We were in bed a lot. I talked with Pratik about Nepalese politics, and his and Ganga's experience of the civil war ten years ago, and spent several hours sharing ideas and stories with Al Fredo. The house was low - I had to stoop in most rooms - and lacked any proper natural light, whilst the electricity was frequently off due to loadshedding, meaning that it was dark days in ways literal as well as metaphorical.

Somehow we made the bus journey to Pokhara, leaving Kalanki bus station in a crowded microbus and threading our way through villages along mountain roads. I missed the first two hours of this journey: after having to run and jump on the bus at Kalanki, my head was in my hands trying not to throw up. Still it was six hour journey so, cramped into the back corner of the bus, I enjoyed the views for several hours. The Himalayas emerged like fire from behind the hills. Evening was beginning and the reddened light glowed their snow caps. I listened to "A Looming Resonance" by Wolves in the Throne Room. It could have not been a more perfect soundtrack to the sight of snowy mountains, forested hills, fat rivers, and distant waterfalls. For the first time since I left, I was moved by the beauty of a place.

Pokhara is the second largest city in Nepal but we have spent our entire time in Lakeside, a mile long stretch of hotels and restaurants beside Phewa Lake dedicated to tourism. Normally I would hate spending time in places like this but it has been a good place to recover. E and I were sick right up until two days ago, over a week since it first began, but I genuinely think our stay in Pokhara has helped. The air here feels clean and its calmer than Kathmandu, plus a large and airy room at Pushpa Guest House made it comfortable to lay up in even when my guts felt like month old stale bong water. During this time I lost a noticeable amount of weight, my face turning into something from a D&D monsters book, and my energy dwindled to the point that walking up a single flight of stairs was tiring. Eventually though we started eating, first soup, then solids, until one day we had made it. We both felt well again. All in all it was only a week but Christ, what a long week.

We celebrated by paragliding. Jumping from the side of a mountain with an experienced man strapped to your back is very satisfying and not nearly as scary as it might sound. I had the lucky opportunity to glide alongside eagles, which was fucking amazing. Beautiful as they are from the ground, it is totally another thing to glide with them.

We were scheduled to leave Pokhara two days ago but we have enjoyed it so much here that we are now staying until Tuesday. On Monday we will be meeting up again with Sareena, who is in Pokhara for work, and spending a bit of time with her, and until then I guess we'll go for a bit of a row on the lake and maybe drink some alcohol. We can do that now we're both well again.

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