Days 241-246, 265-279 Urban Nepal
Pokhara, Kathmandu, Patan, Kakarbhitta
After our trek we relaxed for a few days in lovely Pokhara before returning to the chaos of Kathmandu and survived our first car crash of the trip.
We hurried down the mountain on the trek in order to arrive in Pokhara before the end of the Maoists’ unliateral cease-fire, which was set to end December 3rd. We figured not sticking around in Maoist country after the cease-fire ended would be a good idea. Tourists have not been targetted (all sides really want our money), but you never know.
We spent a lot of time luxuritating in Pokhara: hot showering, reading, sleeping, latte-drinking, brownie-eating and hot showering some more.
Of course, seeing Pure Vegetarian is always good for us on a menu. The dripping blood on this one gave us pause though.
The weather in Pokhara was overcast for a couple of days, but we waited it out. We got a goregous day and decided to go flying from Sarangkot Hill. If the paragliding in New Zealand was good, then this was awesome! A 40+ minute flight, spiraling up and up in thermals, views of the Himalayas, and going wing-to-wing with eagles. Incredible!
The drag from Marcus’ beard was causing difficulty for steering. Marcus’ Russian pilot Viktor flew MiG’s in his spare time, and it took all of his skill to keep the paraglider in the air. (There was no sign of the “short bus” on this flight, Jonny.)
Kelly and pilot and the Himalayas. Breathtaking!
Looking down on Pokhara’s tourist ghetto Lakeside.
Unlike her New Zealand flight, Kelly’s pilot gave her such a picture perfect landing that they would have both been awarded a “10” after a gymnastics vault in the Olympics.
Luckily we found out the Maoists extended the cease-fire one month to January, so we were able to take a bus back to Kathmandu and not worry about rushing out of the country. Getting to Kathmandu (both times) was a thrilling experience. On our way in from Tibet we learned to fear the words “horrific bus plunge” after seeing two crumpled buses over the side of the cliffs. One of these we missed by mere hours. We also went through six military checkpoints and one traffic police stop. A checkpoint has a bunch of barriers that you have to weave through and all Nepali males are required to exit the vehicle and walk through the checkpoint to be scrutinized. These can be quite time consuming and are painfully frequent. It took us 7.5 hours to travel the 130 miles from Pokhara to Kathmandu.
Our first trip in Kathmandu was spent mostly doing errands getting ready for the hike, but our second we did get out to some sights. On both sides of the hike we managed to get food poisoning in Kathmandu. Thank goodness for cheap Cipro!
In Kathmandu we stayed in a tourist ghetto called Thamel. Thamel can best be described as a madhouse alley of motorcycles, bikes, tourists, touts, beggars, musicians, rickshaws, taxis, tiger balm sellers, and drug dealers. Walking down the street your ears are beseiged with “tiger balm”, “hash”, “smoke”, “tiger balm”, “pot”, “rickshaw”, “tiger balm”, and all to the constant sound of multiple shops playing the new age chant version of “om mani padme hun”. Surreal.
A really big prayer wheel; super-sized karma.
We walked up to Swayambhunath Temple for the “most famous Buddha Eyes” in all of Nepal. He’s always watching.
Rough day for the Fanta dude.
Upon leaving the temple we were watching some of the local monkeys pick lice off each other when Kelly felt a small child grab the water bottle in her right hand. She turned while yanking the bottle and saw a monkey had lept onto the bottle and her hand. Kelly agreed to pay the monkey tax and surrendered the bottle.
One of the guardians makes sure the tourist souviners are up to snuff.
In the areas surrounding Thamel things are a little less hectic. A garland seller and her strange kids (check out the one in the back) keep Kathmandu pretty.
Kel visits the square named after her.
We visited Kathmandu’s Durbar Square with it’s many old temples and trinket sellers.
While we were there, we visited the home of the living goddess Devi Kumari. We were very lucky and she graced us with her presence by gazing through her window at the assembled tourists collected in her courtyard. She looked like a very bored kid and seemed to be praying for her first period when she would revert to a mere mortal so she could stop pandering to tourists. It’s gotta be tough to return to real life when you’ve been treated like a god for the past 10 years. Sorry, the goddess’ mafia prohibited pictures.
Kathmandu is a great place to take care of errands: blogging, shaving, haircuts, trinket shopping, collecting visas, getting extra passport pages and mailing stuff. We’ve mailed ourselves boxes from a few post offices around the world, but this was the first worth writing about. Corrupt customs officials were trying to extract bogus fees from us and eventually refused to allow us to ship anything. After going up a couple levels of (corrupt) managers, we walked out resigned to shipping from India. On the way out of the heavily guarded compound, we saw a help desk. We asked, “who runs this place?” and the fellow pointed up a flight of stairs. At the top we found the office of the Post Master General of Nepal, and knocked. No reply, so we walked in.
Now mind you, it was a couple hours of hassle so we were pretty riled up, but managed to stay calm in his office. As soon as we were in, the Post Master started pressing a button under the desk, and we expected security to barge in any minute. He invited us to sit down and explain, and at the end he said, “those customs people can cause problems sometimes.” One assistant and the manager of customs came in, and eventually the manager of customs took us back to the customs department. After a few gesticulations indicating the order came from “upstairs”, the customs manager helped us get through customs with no “fees”. After this fiasco, we expected our package to end up at the bottom of the nearby Queen’s pond, but by some miracle it arrived in the States. After this, we’ll never complain about the US Post Offices again.
At some point we took a day trip to nearby Patan. It also has a Durbar Square jam packed with temples of varying architectural style. Lots of the wood temples had incredibly detailed roof struts. We selected a PG-13 one for the blog. Let’s just say there were some remarkable feats of flexibility on display.
A neat water spout with a mythical crocodile.
Let this be a lesson to you kids: if you misbehave then Guru Maya will yank you from your mother’s arms and eat you. This brozne plaque was placed above a primary school playground.
Even the Nepalis love Arnold.
We debated between the accident prone busses and hugely expensive flights, but finally ended up hiring a taxi (for a large sum) to take us to the border. It was supposed to be a 10 hour trip, and we left at 6.30am as daylight broke. For some reason we still don’t understand we “had to go” 3 hours out of our way, so the sun set before we made the border town of Kakarbhitta. The roads were crazy in the day with cows, people, rickshaws, carts, busses, cars, trucks, army checkpoints, and everything else on a two lane highway. At night they were insane.
Twenty kilometers short of the border, our driver had briefly turned off his lights as courtesy (at least we think that’s why) to an on-coming bus. When he turned them back on, we were barrelling towards an army blockade and slammed into it. An accident is never good, but one in the dark, in the middle of nowhere, in a foreign country, into an army checkpost is definitely not good. Thankfully, we and the driver were unharmed, but the same couldn’t be said of the taxi or barricade. The army barracks emptied to the sounds of someone screaming bloody murder. While surrounded by army guys with huge weapons trying to extract money from the devastated taxi driver, a bus pulled up. The army stopped the bus, and ushered us hurriedly aboard. We made it safely to the border a bit rattled twenty minutes later.
While safely in India the next day, we read that there were riots after a drunk army guy massacred a bunch of people at a temple near Kathmandu the day we left town. A strike was called that shut down Kathmandu, so we got out just in time.
Tags: Nepal
Kelly & Marcus
December 27th, 2005 at 12:24 pm
Sorry to hear that your adventures are so boring… 😉
Dad
December 27th, 2005 at 2:10 pm
So, Kathmandu is not a oriental religion, it’s a city? Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle! BUT, not in Kathmandu, if I can help it.
December 27th, 2005 at 4:22 pm
Well, not the most reassuring blog to date – I’m glad I’d heard about the car crash prior to this… sounds even worse than I thought from what you say here! Scary stuff!
The post office adventure is a gem – sure glad the package arrived safe and sound, unopened, and in a timely manner – amazing.
Many hugs to you both xoxoxo
December 28th, 2005 at 9:04 am
Hey Guys:
Marcus, lucky for you that you were still wearing that helmet from paragliding the day before so the army knew to put you two aboard the short bus at the checkpoint. Phew!
JR
December 30th, 2005 at 3:05 pm
I am so excited to read about your world-wide adventures. Give me a call when you return to California so I can hear about everything in person.
Matt
(916) 410-8681