Pokhara

April 22-24 2012

Pokhara
(See pictures)

The local busses here are called “micros” and we hopped one taxi and two micros to get to our final “micro” bus which is a 5 hour ride from Kathmandu to pokhara. Saaj was able to reserve the whole back portion of the bus for our family which was myself, his two younger sisters, nephew, saaj and their house help a little girl named anjahna. It was a blast- we all had local “roksie” which is a local made wine with the bang of straight whiskey and some nice loud nepali and hindi jams to keep us entertained. The bus ride was mostly mountainside views, just absolutely beautiful views of the rice terraces and the valley down below. We stopped along local shops for restroom breaks and plenty of merchants came up to the bus selling fresh cucumber, snacks, and cold water which was great because we really didn’t have to leave the bus at all. One stop we actually got to sit down and have some cold beer and fried food snacks- fried fish, pokra (a type of fried dough and potato mixed with spring onions and other delicious spices), and a few other tasty morsels.

At one point towards the end of our ride a man hopped on with a traditional string instrument called “sarundi” and sang a few traditional nepali songs for us- saaj explained to me that that was his job, to hop on and off at certain points and entertain and then get tips whenever. Saaj also informed be that if we had taken a tourist bus we would never get this kind of experience- which again reminded me of how grateful I was that I was visiting this country with saaj.

Upon arrival in pokhara we were quickly hustled into a taxi and taken to our hotel which at first glance didn’t seem like much but I can honestly say I’ve had two of the best showers in my life there. More on that later.

Pokhara is a tourist’s paradise. There are lots of different restaurants ranging from Korean barbeque to Italian food- if you were ever homesick for some American food you could get it here-albeit a little different but still -and at this point in time I could really use a decent slice of pizza or something along those lines.

Anyway, we got to pokhara in the evening time and once unpacking we hit the streets immediately to go look around and of course take photos. We ate a nice meal at our hotel once we got back consisting of the traditionally nepali food dahl baat curry- lentils, rice and curry. Very yummy food, but I suspect we were all just famished as we didn’t order dinner there the rest of the time we stayed.

The next morning saaj arranged for a taxi tour of pokhara which consisted of eight different stops 1. Mountain sunrise view of Annapurna, 2. Famous temple 3. Sethi river 4. Bat cave 5. Another  ( I cant think of the name right now…) cave 6. Davis falls (which was named after a swiss ctizen who fell into the water while bathing **see the pictures to see how dangerous that place is) 7. Pokhara lake and… I’m missing something but I think there was another temple in there somewhere- there are so many temples everywhere it’s hard to keep track of all of them… the tour had a total of eight stops- it started at 5am and we were back at the hotel way after 5pm because we got caught in a frightening wind and sand storm near the lake- nature at it’s scariest- one minute we were walking along the lake taking pictures the next minute we were running shielding our eyes from the wind and sand while dodging scary looking pieces of tin roof flying at dangerous speeds-one step in the wrong direction meant possibly losing an arm or more… that was probably the first time I was really scared, apart from the driving and near misses.  We eventually found shelter in a bamboo restaurant hut that was operated by an European guy- everyone was very gracious and once the storm blew over we went to a local family restaurant to eat a delicious meal of grilled wild pork- and wild pork momo as well as what they call chow chow or hakka noodles (basically a chow mein type dish by with nepali spices soo soo good!) after the meal we headed back to hotel covered in sand and dirt from the days activities- did I forget to mention that I we did rock climbing inside of the cave? All of us navigated through the winding tunnels in the dark to find the little tiny hole that was our exit that we had to do a vertical free form climb up to- no idea how I did it but it was so damn fun- even funny because I got stuck just like Winnie the pooh at least for a little while- thank goodness there were no pictures of me but I got some good ones of saaj, his sister and nephew.  Anyway, back to the hotel which I originally thought had no wi-fi or hot water… turns out it did have hot water! OH boy… I am not exaggerating in the least when I say… that was the best shower in my life. I felt refreshed, happy afterwards. WE all got ready and headed out to lakeside pokhara in search of some grub- remember- I was craving a pizza or something at this point- so we found a nice little joint that served pizza, nepali food and all sorts of things- we ordered tons of food and the best part was that there was live nepali music and dance. The dancers even came to our table and we all went to dance with them- unfortunately the camera battery died though I managed to snap a few pics of saaj and his sisters dancing together. It was an amazing night.

The next day since our lake plans were thwarted by the sudden storm we decided to go back to the lake and try to rent a paddle boat for a half day since were planning to go to Chitwan that same day- the weather ended up being so nice, we went to the temple in the middle of the lake, then went to a local restaurant across the lake to eat fresh tasty fried tiny fish. We were planning to go back to the hotel to get ready to go to Chitwan, but the way everyone was describing, it, it just didn’t seem all that appealing to me- so while we were paddling our way across I decided- “what the hell” I jumped into the lake- it was so refreshing and cool- after that everyone jumped in and we had a full day of swimming and family fun.

We ate at a delicious Thakali style restaurant the next day for our lunch before we hit the road- saaj reserved a bus for us going home where we rode with just our family- this bus had a “tourist only” sign on it- and the driver seemed like he was on a schedule the whole time- we didn’t get to see any local singers or make nearly as many stops as we did when we were riding towards pokhara but it was a good quick ride and we were delivered straight to our front door.

Nepali continues to amazing and delight me- every time I see the rice terraces I tear up- because they are like the photos I’ve seen of the Philippines and I yearn to go and see at least one half of my country land. I feel like this experience is something I can look forward to in years to come. I am and continue to be forever grateful to saaj and his family for opening their hearts and home to me. I love it here.