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Pokhara

Friday, December 1st, 2006

My few days in Pokhara have been lovely, staying with Hom, his wife and their gorgeous 3 year old daughter. Being looked after very well with my own room (with on suit), great food and rides around town on their motorbike! Basically they do a lot of stuff similar to the youth work we do at home so has been good to meet them and hang out. Got to go to one of their English classes they run…interesting as they decided I should be the one to run the first part of it, decided without telling me. “Ummmm…so I’m Arnika and I’m from New Zealand….” Thankfully the real teacher turned up and saved me from a potentially very bad situation.
Had dinner one night with their brother and his family where I spent the evening entertaining the kids with my amazing origami skills…well I can make one thing but they were pretty impressed!
Then the kids all danced and sang for me..for a long long time. But was pretty funny and it was just such a typical buck of kids. The older 6 year old girl who wanted to be the star and made a point of knowing all the words and action, the little 3 year old boy who had no idea but was just trying to copy a few moments behind, the other 2 just kind of half going along and then the 7 year old boy who clearly hated it and refused to join in. Very entertaining, well for the first 10 minutes anyway.

Also spent a couple of evenings watching some hilarious Nepali television. I mean do you really think its even worth attempting out of space programmes with space ship battles when you don’t quite have the technology to make it look even half realistic?….think hallowean style bad guys and plastic models of spaceships with a riducolously predictable story line, I’m sure you can imagine. But must be popular as its on constantly. As well as the always entertaining Indian music channel…..what I watched tonight was probab;y the best show ever. like Amereican Idol but with kids dancing their hearts out to Bollywood songs, everyone asked if people in NZ danced liked that…ummmm no, they’d probably be locked away if they danced with that much enthusiasm with those dance moves.

Also checked out some caves with bats on the roof and went up a bill hill that overlooked all the amazing mountains that surround the valley and watched all the paragliders floating around the air. If I had spare cash I would definitely do it but not this time.

And tonight I even ran games at the youth group, (for those SYC related, evolution paper scissors rock wasn’t so good as they didnt know paper scissors rock to begin with but BANG went down well!)
So I’m all ready for my 10 day trek tomorrow to Annapurna base camp, should be interesting, I’ve got the full gear the makes me look like a space man. I’ll be out of touch for the next wee while so don’t expect any emails/blogs/any sort of contact, but hopefully I’ll be alright wandering around the Himalayas.
Hopefully the weather stays nice although it will be cold!
Bye for now…

Kathmandu is a shop isn’t it?

Friday, December 1st, 2006

Probably what most kiwis/aussies think. In fact most of us are compleately kitted out in Kathmandu branded gear, I used to think it was just the name of a shop but no it is in fact the capital of Nepal.

I headed straight for Thamel, the major tourist area in Kathmandu and Nepal. Described quite accurately as a ‘tourist circus’ Thamel is a mess of internet cafes, trekking agencies, hotels, restaurants and rip off North face Gear. The tourists all seem a bit different, less hippies and more hardcore trekkers wearing the flashiest gear around. Almost everyone is wearing North Face which seems to be the brand of choice for all the shops around and pretty soon I have my Kathmandu style “North Face’ puffy jacket, ironically brought in the real Kathmandu. But at $40 NZ for a goose-down jacket, I’m not complaining. It’s hard to resist stocking up on Gortex jackets, which cost around $600 at home, but thinking of Philippines beaches in less than a month, I just stick with the essential items. Essential because it’s COLD here, OK so not freezing but pretty damn cold, and in the mountains to which I will soon be heading it will be very, very cold.

The bonus thing about this crazy tourist area is that it has amazing food. Not just lame imitations of pasta like India but amazing bakeries and nice restaurants that all serve wine (OK so its more than the cost of your meal), its great! So I spend a lot of time eating cinnamon rolls and drinking chai latte’s. Nepal does seem a lot different from India, hard to describe but just a bit more…cooler and relaxed. Like although I get harassed by shop owners I don’t get stared at constantly, there’s funky bands playing, more women around, women shop keepers and taxi drivers, there’s even alcohol and condom advertisements which you would never see in India and I saw an ad for ‘The Vagina Monologues’.

So Nepal is quickly becoming one of my favourite destinations. My 3 days in Kathmandu I saw a lot of temples, there’s a pretty amazing square full of all these old temples and holy men wandering around trying to get money by posing for photos. I also walked up this hill to a Buddhist temple, which was over run with angry monkeys fighting. Despite getting freaked out by the monkeys it was really beautiful, all these prayer flags were hanging everywhere and it had a great view of the valley. There’s definitely a Tibetan feel to lots of places, lots of Tibetan restaurants, and shops. And I guess because lots of the city is Buddhist it makes me think of Tibet. There are these huge 10 day tours you can go on and drive over to Tibet and back, it sounded amazing so was the first thing I looked into doing when I arrived. However after a lot of though I realized I would end up rushing everything else and its also very expensive, so unfortunately not this time but definitely am keen to head there on another trip. Had dinner on my last night with some nice kiwi guys one while watching a band which played a lot of Bob Marley, Ben Harper and Pink Floyd which was a bit of fun and filled my bag again with tea, fabric and photocopied lonely planets. Then it was time to move on to Pokhara where I was going to be staying with a friend of Duane’s from church who he had meet in the Philippines at a youth workers conference. So I splashed out on a tourist bus for the 7 hour windy road journey westwards, the base for the most popular trekking routes and where I would chill out before going to do some of Nepal’s famous trekking…which I’m looking forward to but also a bit worried about!

Finally up-to-date

Sunday, November 26th, 2006
Ok so I'm finally up to date with my blogs....in Kathmandu now and its great!...happy reading for those who can be bothered!

The loooong way round

Sunday, November 26th, 2006
Started my trip with a 17 hour train ride, no fun travelers to hang with this time, just me, and the only female in the entire carrige! There is far too many men in India! So the usual being stared ... [Continue reading this entry]

Kiwi community in the heart of Kolkata

Sunday, November 26th, 2006
Getting to Kolkata turned out to be not so bad, meet a cool Canadian guy who was in the bunk above me so we had a good night chatting away to all the other passengers and sharing food. Ended up ... [Continue reading this entry]

Muscle beach and celebrity spotting on the Ganga

Sunday, November 26th, 2006
I was off to Varanasi that night but couldn’t get a direct train so first had to get about 3/4 of the way to Allahbad. A long night despite having a sleeper as most people around me weren’t too interesting ... [Continue reading this entry]

Who’s heard of Agra?

Sunday, November 26th, 2006
No-one really but everyone knows whats there, the sole reason tourists visit the city and probably part of the reason most of us visit India; The Taj Mahal. Again one of those things your not so sure why its famous and ... [Continue reading this entry]

Spiritual tourism

Wednesday, November 22nd, 2006
Finally arriving in Pushkar after a long day of multiple buses which all seemed very complicated and confusing. Somehow made it to the small city of Pushkar after teaming up with some Dutch ladies. A guy on the last bus ... [Continue reading this entry]

Camel safari

Wednesday, November 22nd, 2006
After my first camel riding experience in Morocco, I wasn’t keen to get back on one in hurray. However guide books tales of desert safaris, endless sand dunes under star filled skies somehow convinced me to not only get back ... [Continue reading this entry]

angry monkeys and long train rides

Monday, November 13th, 2006
Surely thats not my train.....there were more people packed inside the 15 or so carriges that are in my entire country. Literally people hangin out the windows, sitting on luggae racks and over flowing out of the bathrooms. I'm sure ... [Continue reading this entry]