They say the Himalayan mountain range is a sight to behold, an awesome thing. You spend months training to get to the peak of your fitness, hundreds on the proper equipment, travels thousands of miles and finally when you climb the range, you are humbled by what you are see. This is truly the only way to witness the Himalayas
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Air India flight AI-9747 Kolkata to Kathmandu flies over the range for a good 20 minutes, leaving plenty of time for oohs and aahs without all the pesky climbing. This should give you an idea of what our 15 day trip to Nepal is going to be about - key word: relaxing. Or laziness. But who can blame us, 4 months working in Kolkata we deserve a lie in.
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| Katmandu Street |
But not to discount the Himalayas, they are a spectacular sight and even more so looking down at them. It's quite an experience when your up so high and those snow capped peaks are still as clear as day nestled in the clouds.
We stayed in Thamel - a really chilled out section of Kathmandu where the emphasis was on beef steaks, cold beer and BEING offered hash on a twice hourly basis. But the most curious experience was walking around this brightly lit city full of shops and restaurants only for it to plunge into darkness and everyone to continue as normal lighting torches, candles AND gas powered lamps (Nepal is in the middle of an energy crisis and 14 hour rolling blackouts plague the country).
So after gorging ourselves on every edible section of the cow (India revers the cow so scoffing a bacon beef burger is a big no no) we took a 7 hour bus to Pokhara which was an exhilarating experience down miles of winding roads along the edge of the Kathmandu Valley, Elaine wasn't too impressed when I kept pointing out how high up and near the edge we were.
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| Average sight |
Our arrival in Pokhara was not without some drama as when we got off the bus I realised my backpack was nowhere to be found. Thankfully the rep from our hostel was at the bus station and he took control of the situation - which meant telling everyone within earshot what had happened to us and then surrounding the man that was responsible for our bag theft for a group interrogation. The bag guy decided to get cocky and told the crowd "it's not my problem" HE quickly received a right hook in the face by our rep and a number of bystanders. With no satisfaction to be had the rep brought us back to the hostel and asked us to let him make some enquiries while we rest up, an hour later after putting together a very expensive list for our travel insurance we had a knock on our door, the bag was recovered! I didn't care where it went or how it got there but it was back and untouched. One hour later we bought a bike lock.
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| Road to Pokhara |
Pokhara was a beautiful lakeside town below the Annapurna range and was famous for its treks and views of the Fishtail Peak. We chilled out here for a number of days enjoying the clean air and peaceful surroundings. We'd like to say that we did more during our stay but we were just wrecked from the last few months and did little other than eat steaks and nap. Rock and roll huh?
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| Fewa Lake |
Getting back from Pokhara to Kathmandu was a bit of an experience though. As with the last bus journey, it was a 7hr trip over 160km, which shouldn't take so long but the roads are narrow and winding so the drivers HAVE TO go slowly to make it to their destination safely. Case in point: on this particular bus trip back to Kathmandu we saw, a) one small bus turned on its side down a metre drop on to some ride paddies - no one appeared hurt, b) one lorry who didn't make a turn in time and had one wheel and a quarter of his cargo hanging of a good hundred feet VERTICAL drop and c) one 4x4 private jeep, wheels up body down in the river after going over the edge of hundred foot drop. We didn't hear if there were any survivors. Buses in Nepal are scary!
Thankfully our trip didn't require any more bus rides as we were leaving the next day and headed for the beaches of Goa, India.
Patrick (15th of February 2011)
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| Relaxing Nepal |
On a side note, people mainly visit Nepal to trek. We had no interest in such a thing (well at this time anyway) and were really out of place with the bearded adrenaline junkies who had just scaled such and such a mountain. We were considered right weirdos to relax in Nepal when there were all these adventures to be had. Lets just say we got many strange looks. Oh well - next time!
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