Playing in the Himalayas, Part Deux

Now it’s time to pick up where we left preparing to leave for Pokhara.

Wednesday

This was the part of the trip I had been waiting for. Finally, we were going to get up close and personal with the tallest mountains on the planet.

I wasn’t mentally prepared for what it would take to get there, however. I thought the International terminal of the Kathmandu airport was bad. But I’m pretty sure the Wright Brothers had a better terminal for their inaugural flight at Kitty Hawk than what we found at the Domestic Terminal in Kathmandu. First of all, you have to have your ticket confirmation in hand to even get into the parking lot of the airport. Why? Because the man at the front gate with the AK-47 says so. As soon as we walk in, it’s total chaos. Before I knew what happened, I had handed over our bags to two men with official looking badges on. It took about 10 seconds to realize that they don’t work for the airport, but work for tips as they help you get through the “system”. They sit at the entrances and prey on ignorant white people like me. The “system” includes finding your airline desk (which looks like a small information booth at the state fair) and giving them your confirmation. But they tell you that first you need to go to the other desk to pay the airport tax. It’s all a very inefficient and preposterous process that I’m pretty sure is designed specifically to confuse foreigners. Before I knew it they had our tickets there for us waiting for a tip. They asked which country we were from, and I mistakenly said the United States. To them this meant that we could afford a bigger tip than the 100 rupees we gave them. Finally they got frustrated and moved onto their next fair skinned victim. That meant we were off to our Buddha Airlines flight. There was also a Yeti Airlines, but we didn’t get to fly on that one.



View of the mountains from our Buddha Air flight.

25 minutes after takeoff, we landed in Pokhara where we would be spending the day. Pokhara is a lovely little holiday town on a lake in the foothills of the Himalayas. It’s pretty much the gateway for anyone who is going to trek the Annapurna Range, which accounts for about 60% of the Himalaya visitor traffic.  The vibe of the town couldn’t have been more different than that of Kathmandu. The main drag that curled around the lake was still lined with shops, hotels, and restaurants, but all had a much more laid back feel to them, which was very welcome after two days in Kathmandu. There was even a ping pong table set up near the side of the lake! I wanted to ask them if I could play, but I’m pretty sure they were a little beyond my skill level.

The guy on the left is known as the Forest Gump of the Himalayas.

We met our guide for the next two days got a quick tour of some of the sights around the city, like a waterfall and a cave at the bottom of the falls. Then we were paddled around the lake and visited a temple that was built on an island in the middle of the lake. It was a much needed relaxing afternoon after the hustle and bustle from the first couple days of our trip.

Later that afternoon/early evening we walked the main drag along the lake, doing some window shopping at some of the shops. These shops seemed more legit than the Kathmandu shops, and they felt much more “local”. After reaching the end of the strip, we decided to stop at one of the local restaurants for happy hour. (We also saw signs for “happiness hour” and “joy hour”. Some things just get lost in translation I guess!) The ice cold Ghorka (a local Nepalese beer) tasted awesome, so we had another. We worked our way back down the strip, occasionally stopping at random shops and other random “joy hours”. That’s when something shocking happened.

I think I’ve described Emily as being frugal before, which is a good quality. I just don’t understand her methodology fully. I can’t count the number of times that we will be somewhere and she’ll see something she really likes. Then she’ll look at the price tag and say, “Wow, that’s a really good price. I really like this.” Then she looks at it for a couple more seconds, puts it back, and walks away…leaving me wondering why she didn’t make the purchase. Maybe it’s a guy thing, because when I shop, I shop with a purpose. I usually don’t just go shopping to walk around and look at stuff. If I’m out shopping and I see what I want at a good price, I buy it. Sometimes it’s not even at a good price because it’s worth it to me to pay a couple extra bucks to not have to walk around for another hour looking for it cheaper somewhere else.


Temple on an Island.

Anyway, back to my story. We walk into a shop that has all of these neat handmade quilts with elephants and other animals and markings that make them distinctively southwest Asian. So Emily wants to stop in and I assume it will be the same old thing. We’ll look for 2 minutes and walk out, leaving behind a very disappointed street vendor. But this time was different. Emily showed her usual interest, and asked the price, which I thought was pretty reasonable. She asked about a couple specific blankets, letting the nice young man know which ones she liked. Just like that, he sprinted out of his shop saying he’d be right back. 3 minutes later, he returns breathing heavily, his arms full with 20 others that he thought she might like. At this point I was a little worried. They had shown her probably 30 already that they unfolded and then just threw into the corner. The floor was covered with them. I felt really badly because I knew how it would end. She would find one she really likes, haggle a decent price, and then walk out of the store, effectively crushing the hopes and dreams of the shop workers who probably only make a sale or two per day, if that. This time was different however! I don’t know if it was the few beers we had at joy hour, or if she felt badly that they went to so much trouble to show her 50 different quilts, but she actually made a purchase. I was shocked.

This seemed to open the flood gates. We kept bar hopping and street vendor hopping back to our hotel, buying gifts for other people and an occasional trinket for ourselves. It was clear that all of our new purchases wouldn’t fit in our luggage, so I even bought a fake North Face backpack from one of the dozens of shops selling knockoff trekking gear. After another delicious pizza dinner (making that three nights in a row), a few more Ghorkas and a couple of last minute impulse buys consisting of an elephant carved out of a yak horn and a bronze door knocker shaped like a lion (I still don’t know what drove me to buy that. actually yes I do.) we called it a night and headed back to the hotel to rest up for our big hike the next day.

Thursday

The day started with the alarm clock going off at 5 AM. We had decided the previous day to take our guide up on his offer to take us to a popular viewing spot to watch the sunrise over the Himalayas. In hindsight I’m really glad we did it, because it’s really a once in a lifetime opportunity. At the time I was not happy about our decision. My head was letting me know that it wasn’t pleased with the amount of beer I had consumed the previous night, and staying in bed sounded a lot more appealing to me than taking a bumpy 45 minute car ride. Luckily we drug ourselves out of bed, because the scenery was breathtaking. Unfortunately March isn’t the best time to visit Nepal because it is very hazy (which is unfortunate for picture taking) but when you can see it in real life, it’s tough to describe the beauty of it. Just trying to wrap your head around the fact that the peaks you are looking at are FIVE MILES above sea level is mind boggling.



Pretty badass experience. I felt like I was living in a Bob Ross painting.

 We also purchased some pashminas (cashmere scarves) from local women who were making them on the spot with their looms. This was my best haggling job yet, as I only had a little bit of money on me. She started at $90 and I had like $30. Apparently she thought I wasn’t being serious when I said I only had $30. It went like this. 90?- All I have is 30. -These are hand made by my family right here. -They are beautiful, but unfortunately all I have is 30. -80 then? -30. -Ok, 50 and we have a deal. -All I have is 30 (as I walk away). -Ok, your price sir, your price. BINGO!



I really wanted to learn how to do this. Something tells me it would take more than a 10 minute lesson however.

 After descending down the hill where we watched the sunrise, we had a few hours to kill before we left for our trek, so we decided to get a good breakfast. We found the place we had noted on one of our walks that advertised “American Breakfast” and free WiFi. We sat down and were soon greeted by 7 or 8 year old girl who brought us menus. I thought it was quite cute to have her as kind of a greeter person who sat people and gave them menus. I was even more surprised when she came back to take our orders. Being a little leery of her getting my order correct I was very specific and pointed to everything on the menu that I wanted. She of course didn’t need my extra help. After helping me log onto their WiFi on my iPad, I decided that she was about the most capable little girl that I had ever encountered. In Nepal, school doesn’t start until 10 AM, so she just works for her family’s restaurant in the mornings before school. Hell, she gets in some good math practice, as she totaled our bill by hand. She even drew us flowers! It was so cool to meet her.

Finally we were off to our trek! Our driver dropped us two and our guide off on the side of the road about a 45 minutes away from our hotel and we were off. Now Emily and I are in pretty good shape, but it didn’t take long for us to get fatigued. Basically it’s like doing a stair master for a few hours straight carrying a heavy backpack in the sweltering heat. The website said it would be about a 4 hour hike to where we were going. But since we were keeping up with Deepak (our guide) pretty well he just kept going! Basically the path we were hiking was paved with stones. The people in the villages that we hiked through built them to be able to carry supplies more efficiently from one place to another. The little villages we hiked through were amazing. Most of the buildings were stone walls and either tin or grass roofs. As we kept climbing, we got incredible views of the terraces that the farmers had cut out of the mountains in order to farm maize, wheat, and rice. The incredible amount of work they have to go through to farm an area that might be 10 meters wide by 50 meters long is mind boggling. All along the hike we were greeted by adorable little village children who always say “Namaste!” and then motion to their mouths and say “sweets!?” wanting us to give them candy. Our guide warns us not to give them anything though, because he says they will start thinking that they will be given everything in life and won’t have to work for it.



View of the the farming terrain from our hiking path.

 It was only about 2 hours later that we had reached the village of Dhampus, which was our destination for the day. Our guide informed us we had climbed nearly a quarter of a mile in altitude, so we were really moving. So much of the hike made me feel like we were in the 1700s. From the stone paths and walls to the crude structures to the technology we saw (except for an occasional cell phone and a few power lines). It was so cool to experience. Dhampus is about as charming of a village as you’ll ever see, and our lodging was no exception. We stayed in what they call a tea house, which had probably 12 or so different rooms in two different buildings. The floor of our room was concrete and there were two rock-hard single beds for us to sleep on, but it was actually pretty cool. For 8 US dollars a night, you can’t go wrong! Deepak took us on a walking tour of the village’s winding paths up to a hill where we had an amazing sunset view. The 20 minutes we spent on the top of Dhampus Hill was the highlight of the trip for me. On one side you were looking down on an awesome village, on the other side you have the tallest mountains in the world. Incredible.

View of Dhampus from the hill.

The place had a restaurant where everyone staying in the complex huddled around one big table at night for dinner telling stories of their treks. Such a neat experience. The “restaurant” was filled with Australians, Japanese, us crazy Americans, and a mid sixties German man who had been hiking for 30 straight days with his two Sherpas. (A Sherpa is a local guide who also carries all of your stuff for you. Like a tour guide/pack mule). We had a delicious meal of traditional Nepalese food accompanied with a cup of their own special tea, which was also exquisite. It was an amazing end to my favorite day in Nepal.

Friday

We awoke on Friday early again to watch the sunrise. Luckily this time all we had to do was walk out our door to the amazing views. Luckily this was the clearest day out of any we were there. It was one of those times where you wish you could just press pause and stop time so we could sit there and drink tea and look at the mountains all day. But alas we had a flight to catch back in Pokhara, so we had to leave.



Hotel sign with Himalayas in background.

 We went back down the mountain on a different route, and although we were walking downhill, it wasn’t a whole lot easier. But it was nice to see different views and different scenery.


 On the way down, I saw something that actually stopped me in my tracks. I guess it never really occurred to me how they farmed those little terraces, until I saw some farmers in action. Sure enough, there were two water buffalo pulling a wooden plow tilling up the soil. Closely following behind the farmer and his water buffalo was the wife, dropping the maize seeds into the trench left behind the plow. I’m sure my jaw just dropped. I guess it never occurred to me that people still farmed like that, or maybe I just thought I’d never actually see it with my own eyes. It was so cool to see. Makes me feel bad for complaining about some of the farm equipment I grew up using. (I still hate that stupid swather. Quick show of hands, who knows what at swather is? Merriam Webster doesn’t even know, because I’m getting a red squiggly line under it when I type it.)

Nepalese farming. Looks like fun.

I felt a little sad when our trek was over, even though I was exhausted. That meant that we had to fly back to Kathmandu for another night there, and then our Nepal vacation was over. But Pohkara didn’t stop giving me material for my blog just yet! While sitting in the airport restaurant, the nice gentleman handed us a menu that had three headings. All three were either misspelled or misinterpreted. My favorite was “Sand Witches”. I’m not sure what a sand witch is, but I’m glad we didn’t encounter one on our travels. Here’s a question. Do you think sand witches ride magic carpets as opposed to brooms? (Crickets….crickets….)

Another lovely lost in translation moment brought to you by Southwest Asia.

We got back to Kathmandu, but had to wait at the baggage claim (because they wouldn’t let Emily carry on a 2 foot long wooden sign), which consisted of them pulling their tractor with cart full of luggage up to a table and throwing everyone’s bags up, which just causes a melee. Luckily I was able to elbow my way up front to grab our belongings. Then we were off to the same hotel we were at earlier for one more night. We bought some last minute gifts for people back home and called it an early night, after another pizza dinner. (I make fun of how much Emily wanted to eat pizza, but I understand. You can’t really trust the food at many of those places with our weak American stomachs. Plus, the pizza was pretty damn good.)

Saturday

We awoke early to head to the airport to catch our early flight. Part of me was sad to be leaving Nepal, because we saw a lot cool things that I’ll never forget. The other part of me was glad to be leaving the chaos of Kathmandu. All of me was excited to fly to Delhi for our next adventure, and to see my visiting friends from Australia.

If I ever go back, I’ll do a couple of things different. First of all I’ll go in December when it’s less hazy. I would also want to spend more time in the mountains. Both of those things come with drawbacks however. December is peak tourist time, so there are a lot of people. And to really get up into the mountains themselves you need to devote a minimum of 10 days to it, as it takes 4-5 more days of hiking just to get to the Annapurna base camp, which is the most popular trekking point. But I’m more than happy with the trip we had. It was the perfect mixture of history, culture, and nature.

Well, that was Nepal! I’m interested to see how many I scared away from going over my last 2 blogs, and how many people want to experience it for themselves. Next up will be our adventures in Delhi and Agra at the Taj Mahal!