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Kathmandu
Young monkSo hungover and hungry we touched down in Kathmandu airport from Lukla. The plan was simple: get to hotel, dump our stuff and go and grab breakfast, and spend the afternoon snoozing. The pre-arranged airport pickup man wasn't there, so we had the joy of haggling for our taxi. Oh we took the serenity of the mountains for granted! Once we threw our stuff into the hotel we dropped back our rental gear, happy to get the hefty deposit back in our greasy mits, we walked to the famous Mike's Breakfast in the scorching heat and chaos that is Kathmandu traffic. Now you might be thinking "oh yeah, bad traffic, how annoying that can be sometimes...". Wrong. Being a pedestrian in Kathmandu is a nightmare. Your premium would double if you hinted to your life insurer that you were ever planning an afternoon there. You are below the roaming cattle on the highway pecking order. Bicycles, rickshaws, motorbikes, and cars thrash like schools of fish intersecting; what is considered a very near miss at home is just normal driving here. Apparently overtaking in the face of oncoming traffic (while beeping your horn at them for their insolence as they dare to
Kathmandu
Bodhnath Stupa use the road too) is standard. Consideration is never considered, you will never be let out, have a space left for you, or slowed down behind. It is like a teenage boy pizza buffet, go for it or you will be left behind. Manners don't even enter into the equation. Other hilarious sights in Kathmandu traffic include a taxi speeding past with the only apparent passenger being a goat in the back seat, awesome! Wonder where he was headed? There are also frequent sightings of huge UN jeeps that consume all available space on the road, which is a bit weird.
With frayed nerves we finally found Mike's, and entered through the guarded arch into a peaceful garden. The anoraks (thats you Gregory) will have heard of Mike's as it is a favourite of those who survive an Everest expedition and the Kathmandu traffic also (surely the chosen ones?...). At once we were in our element, as an elderly Nepali waiter (with a hairdo that could best be described as looking like he had a wig comprising of a dead fox plonked on his scalp; going for the Donald Trump look perhaps) poured endless cups of freshly brewed coffee.
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Bodhnath Stupa Kate ordered a fried breakfast and I opted for a breakfast burrito. So good was it all that we ordered another burrito between us and more toast besides, the oooohing and ahhhing was relentless. I have never had such a good breakfast. If you ever survive long enough in Kathmandu to get there, we both insist that you go to Mike's - compulsory!
Into bed we flopped, appreciating sheets and a duvet after weeks of restrictive sleeping bags. The afternoon was a haze of slumber, until we got hungry again! We headed for Fire & Ice, the favourite dinner destination of the Nepali prince who went on to slay his entire family in a hail of machine gun bullets before killing himself. At least he had taste, because good God, what a restaurant! The Italian owner imported her own computerised pizza oven from Italy, and what a business decision that was, inspired! After a daal bhat too many up the hill, we were both crying out for some proper pizza and that is what we got! Expensive by Nepali standards, we decided after consulting the funds manager (me) that 3 Euro a pizza was within the budget, and gorged
ourselves to bursting point. Thin crispy delicious pizza that could hold it's own beside the Trevi fountain, right there in Thamel. We bumped into Ian, the Irish travelling companion of Emily, the nice Irish girl we shared a hotel with in Namche. As he was dining solo, he joined us to polish off his bottle of wine. The man had us in stitches all night as he described his tribulations trying to collect a Western Union money transfer in Namche, encountering typical Nepali slow service (at the top of his voice I might add). Some great stories of his trek also, where he went to Gokyo. As I sipped my Italian double espresso, I wondered how I lived without such creature comforts! The next few days followed a similar theme of gorging ourselves to bursting point in various amazing restaurants like Kilroy's (owned by an Irish chef) and 1905 (the swankiest place in the capital, favourite of ambassadors and the likes); our bodies were crying out for nutrition.
Having had a mediocre experience in Delhi during our stopover there, and seeing as we were enjoying Nepal so much we decided to delay our flights to India by a week.
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Prayer Wheels SpiceJet let us change for free (wouldn't happen on Ryanair!) so we were delighted. If we had stuck to our original plans we would have been in Jaipur around the time of the recent bombings, which would have been fairly unpleasant.
We managed to put down the cutlery for long enough to visit Kathmandu's largest Stupa, a ten minute drive from Thamel. It was great to get out of little Thamel for a bit and see more of Kathmandu and how people here live. We found surburbs that were even poorer than what we've encountered already, with shoddy buildings and dreadful infrastructure. The conditions that the majority of people in Kathmandu live in are quite shocking, without waste collection, proper running water or sanitary facilities. There is no such thing as a public litter bin here. Despite the city being so poor, Kate and I never felt afraid of being robbed or confronted, as the atmosphere here is really friendly. A contrast to other places we've been such as Rio de Janeiro, which are riddled with drugs and prostitution, which may be more to do with it's shocking crime record than poverty alone. The Stupa was fascinating, about 5
Kathmandu
Altar at Bodhnath Stupa stories high. Needless to say we walked around it and then agreed that the best view of it would be from a rooftop restaurant, with lunch in the foreground! That evening we had dinner in Rum Doodle, another mountaineer's haunt, where every Everest summiteer gets free food for life. They all come and sign boards mounted on the walls, and we saw alot of famous names like Ed Visteurs, Chris Bonnington, Rob Hall, Anatoli Boukreev and others. It was quite shocking to see the names of those who have lived to get down the mountain, only for them to attempt another summit and die in the process. I think I would never try twice...
After a good few days of recuperation in Kathmandu it was off on the bus to Pokhara. We had been warned about the buses of Nepal, on which you're 30 times more likely to die than in a developed country. We stumped up the $15 each for a tourist bus to ease the pain, but after 2 &1/2 hours we were still battling the Kathmandu traffic. We feared old age would get us before we had a chance to plunge off a cliff! Kate was
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Bodhnath Stupa actually in tears she needed to go to the bathroom so badly, and doubted her ability to walk if we ever had a toilet stop. I was elbowed into the aisle to ask the driver (twice) when the next stop might be, and decided for my own wellbeing to lie to Kate and reduce the estimate by 10 mins! Anyways, she made it to the rest stop in time. The 200km journey to Pokhara took a lightning quick 8 & 1/2 hours, as we rocketed along at an average speed of 23km/h. When we arrived in Pokhara we were met by the famously forceful touts, each vying to get us into their hotel or taxi. So unpleasant were they all that we decided to walk the 2km to the hotel (after all, after the EBC trek, anything is a short walk). Pokhara is a lovely quiet town situated beside Nepal's second largest lake. With little traffic or overcrowding, it feels serene to wander around the shops. Now, whilst I speak one word of Nepali (Namaste: hello & goodbye) the Nepalis are excellent linguists, able to converse with customers in numerous tongues. However, they are not perfect as this recent conversation
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Budda's Eyes I had at a bakery illustrates:
Mark: Hi, do you have cold mineral water?
Baker: Eh, 6.30 in the morning sir.
Mark: No no, do you have mineral water (pointing to the fridge)?
Baker: Ah, sorry sir. 10 o'clock tonight sir.
Mark: Water! do you have mineral water!?
Baker: Oh, very sorry sir, I understand. No water, sorry sir.
There are plenty of strange characters in Pokhara including a duo who wander around the streets with a snake in a wicker basket, playing a flutelike instrument called a pungi, made from a gourd. One is dressed in colourful clothes of orange and yellow, and looks a bit deranged. Anytime you walk past them they call in a sinister voice, "Cobraaaa". We are the last people who want anything to do with a snake so walk on, but they call after us "No bite! I say no bite!" Hillarious. The local women sit on the footpath with their jewelery laid out in front of them. We approached one and she pleaded with us to look. That we did, but didn't break stride and we could hear her behind us calling out "loook sloooooowly!"
We rented a small rowing
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Young Monk boat on the first day and paddled around the lake for an hour or so, lying back in the sunshine and relaxing. The rest of the day was spent perusing the shops, and having afternoon tea (by far our favourite pastime!). Fortunately Pokhara also has a Mike's Breakfast, situated in another lovely shady courtyard that overlooks the lake. Manys an hour passed here, tucking into breakfast burritos; waffles with fresh fruit, yoghurt and maple syrup; and tea and toast, all for a low low price. On the other side of the lake from Mike's is a stupa called the World Peace Pagoda, on the top of a steep hill. Feeling energetic, we got a boatman to paddle us across the lake and up we started walking, thinking to ourselves we could manage anything after our trek. Well let me tell you, it wasn't as easy as we thought. We were puffing and panting, and in the 30C+ heat the sweat was dripping from our foreheads. We got to the top, and were underwhelmed with the view to say the least! The haze meant that the Annapurna mountain range was invisible, and the stupa was much like the 101 others we
Kathmandu
Political Graffiti have seen already...oh well! Good to get the exercise none the less.
We loved Pokhara as it is the chalk to Kathmandu's cheese, so relaxing and peaceful. It was onto another luxury Greenline tourist bus headed for Chitwan National Park. Here we had two nights, where we planned to do a bit of safari on the cheap. When we arrived in the little town of Sauraha on the edge of the park where we were staying, the driver said to the four of us in the minivan "alot of touts now, pick one, and go with him". As soon as the van stopped it was mobbed by 20-30 touts, who slid open the door and proceeded to assault us with accommodation offers and lies. They were shoving and pushing to get to us, shouting at us and each other, pulling at our arms and clothing. At first I got quite annoyed and roared "Noooo" in one's face, which gave us 1.5 seconds of peace. I shouted "I don't need a taxi, I don't need a hotel" (as we had a booking already) to which one of them hilariously replied, "Whatcha gonna do, sleep in the jungle?!". Kate and I
Kathmandu
Young Monk started laughing and seeing the funny side when we had to shout at each other to be heard over the noise. Eventually she picked someone that said they'd take us for 5 rupees (5c) and we were off. The touts will tell you anything they think you might want to hear, and the stream of lies was quite hilarious out of the guys that drove us in. They said that they were from the Greenline bus company, and then that they were from the hotel we had reserved, anyways the lies just kept coming. When they pulled into their hotel courtyard we hopped out, gave them the 5 rupees and walked across the road to Hotel Jungle Lodge where we had booked. The look on their faces was priceless as we refused a look around their hotel, they were fuming! Things were plain sailing from there on in, as we were greeted with a fresh flower each and a dot of red powder on the forehead. We had a lovely little cabin type room with mosquito nets hanging from the ceiling, and en suite bathroom for 400 Rupees a night (4 Euro). We decided to book an elephant safari for
Kathmandu
Amazing choclate cake, 40c! 6am the next morning, as the weather was sweltering and humid, through the hotel. We spent the rest of the day hopping from shade to shade, constantly drinking cold water; we even bought an umbrella to shield us from the sun. It was so funny wandering down the streets passing giant elephants strolling the opposite direction, with passengers aboard. I had forgotten the size (and smell) of these charismatic creatures. We had drinks and dinner at KC's Restaurant (said to be the best in town) where we looked over the river as the sun set, and an impressive lightning storm started in the distance.
We woke up excited, and after a bite of breakfast headed down to the park gate to climb onto our pleasant pachyderm. We were with another young couple, the 4 of us squeezed into a wooden frame on the elephant's back, with the driver straddling it's neck. Off we plodded into the park and it was immediately clear that it wasn't going to be a comfortable morning! We bounced up and down (with wooden frame digging into arse) as we silently made our way through the jungle and within 5 minutes we came to a
Kathmandu
Durbar Square clearing full of monkeys. They didn't seem bothered with our presence, and on we went. Then we came across 2 rhinos bathing up to their necks. It was incredible to see these huge beasts so close up, and it felt like the elephant was our agent in the animal world, vouching for our character and not scaring the other animals away. It was difficult to take photos when we were in motion as everything was moving so much, but thankfully we paused beside the rhinos for some snaps. We went on to see wild boar, a deer chilling out in the undergrowth and a large peacock. It was magical gliding through the jungle on elephant-back, and surprisingly silent. However getting thrashed by branches to the face for 90 minutes did detract from it somewhat! We clambered off at the end ecstatic to have seen great wildlife and to no longer have to sit in such discomfort!
After a powernap, I changed into my swimming trunks for the part of the day I was most excited about, elephant bathtime. We walked to the river in the baking midday heat, to find 3 elephants and trainers awaiting our arrival, and I
Kathmandu
Durbar Square left Kate with the camera as I climbed up a trunk, and took my seat directly on the elephant's back. With the trainer standing behind me, he implores the beast to drink and then shouts chhop! and whoosh, out comes a stream of cold water straight at me! It was so refreshing in the heat of the day, and so much fun. You really feel like the elephant is loving it as another deluge of water floods over you both. We threw handfuls of water over it as it lay on it's side in the water, using the trunk as a snorkel. Then it was back on for some more splashing. Even though Kate forgot to bring her swimwear I convinced her she had to do it, so off she went in shorts and t-shirt. She loved it too, as shrieks of joy could be heard. All that fun for 1 Euro each!
The sure sign of a good day is getting two powernaps in, and after this was achieved, it was off to KC's again to bask in the sun as it set over the river. We were brought beer and popcorn, and sipped as elephants strolled past
Kathmandu
Durbar Square and a man bathed his buffalo in the river. It was magical as you can see from the photos, which probably don't even do it justice. After another great dinner there, we headed to the Tharu Cultural Centre for a show of stick dancing. Being rather keen we got there first, and bagged some front row seats. The musical and dancing performances were fantastic, and Kate was given a flower by a young chap masquerading as a dancing peacock...lucky I didn't deck him on stage! There was an especially noteworthy performance by two young lads dressed (quite convincingly I might add) as women. The ladyboy dance as it was known was surely a highlight of the night! We went to bed happy after a great day in Chitwan, and all that was left to do was stride down to the bus station the next morning with our baggage in the sweltering heat. Thankfully the touts weren't waiting for us this time...
Tune in for our swansong next entry, and just try to hold back those tears. How will you live without the anticipation of a new blog? A dull and lifeless existence, I think you'll agree.
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Vic
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Absolutely hilarious blog guys. How funny are those pictures of the elephants squirting yee? As for that ladyboy, he looks awfully familiar to one we had dancing for us in Turkey a few years ago! Can't wait to see you soon XXX