Nepal

My Australian mate Lisa had to renew her visa, and a person must leave India to do this. Well, what a great excuse to visit Nepal. All the trains were booked due to the festival Diwali, which meant we had to sit on a bus for three days. First leg of the trip was 14 hours back to Delhi and three hours into our ride I realized that I had forgotten my passport….. “quite a mean tool for the traveler.” (Quote from my Tibetan friend) Well, at that point there was not much that could be done so we must stay in awful Delhi an extra day. Fortunately a friend knew someone who was travelling down to Delhi the next day, who was able to bring my passport to me. My guesthouse owner couldn’t break the lock on my door, which meant they had to break the latch off my metal door. They had to call someone to weld the latch back onto the door, however, that wait was 24 hours. Since my door couldn’t lock, they had to have their staff take shifts sitting in my room. Took a bit of leg work, but 24 hours later, I had my passport in hand and was off to Nepal. What an eventful start to this trip.
Okay only 40 hours on the bus and we will be in Nepal. The lady sitting in front of me had a broken chair, which pretty much meant the back of her chair was resting on my lap. Only 40 hours with no leg room, excellent!
We have a friend that left McLeod Ganj a few months ago to attempt to go back to Tibet. But in the meantime, he was living in Kathmandu. He spent the first few days giving us a tour of the city. We went to various temples and stayed in Bouddah, a beautiful Tibetan community surrounding the famous ‘stupa’ or temple. After a few days, it was time to move on, to Pokhara.
There are many options for transportation on this 6 hour journey, we opted for the microbus. Essentially it is a van that properly seats 16, but we managed to ‘comfortably’ seat 27 people. Nepal and India seem to be void of all traffic regulations, so it was Hawaiian 5-0 through the mountains. Sleeping out, reading out, thank you iPod. As soon as I start to relax, the little girl sitting right next to us starts throwing up, all on the ground by our feet. Just a short pit stop to clean up and we were off. Not even an hour later, it was her brothers’ turn, fortunately he made it into a bag, but the stench of vomit lingered in the air for the remainder of the trip.
Pokhara was great! A beautiful, little, tourist town nestled next to a lake, with magnificent views of the Himalayas. One afternoon we rode our bikes to a waterfall and around town, most of it was basking in the glorious sun, reading books, oh so relaxing. Lisa had to head back to Kathmandu to pick up her visa, so I decided to spend the last few days in Pokhara on my own. We had made a friend and he had invited me to come celebrate “Tihar” with him and his family. “Tihar” is the second greatest festival of Nepal, which celebrates the goddess of money, Laxmi. Nepali’s celebrate this festival with dancing, if you dance, then you are blessed with a year of good finances. We drove to a small village, Fedi, so the kids (ages 11-19) can dance for their family. We stopped at 6 different houses, and each time, they would dance for about 30 minutes, to popular Hindi, Nepali and English songs. When they finish, the family will present a platter with money and selroti, (a chapatti bread). The first two houses I just sat enjoying the festivities, but by the third, the kids told me it was mandatory that I get up and dance with them. Well if you know me, you don’t have to aske me twice! I had a blast; I was up there dancing for their family just as much as the kids were. They were so nice they let me continue dancing with them for the last 3 performances.
The first week of teaching in McLeod Ganj, I began meeting with a Tibetan girl, Sonam Yangzoom. We would meet every day for an hour and she became quite a good friend. While I was in Nepal, Sonam had left to attempt to go back to Tibet. The morning after Tihar, she called to tell me she was in Kathmandu. Well, then I must leave Pokhara, but I couldn’t ask for a better way to spend my last two days, quality time with my girls.
Since the bus ride to Nepal was brutal, no sleep and our bodies sore for a couple of days, we decided to get some sleep aid for this trip back. This time around, Lisa and I had the broken chairs. The second we would put our back against the seat, we would fall onto the lap of the men behind us. We decided we would sit straight as long as possible, but with the help of the sleep aid, it wasn’t too long. Every 5 hours we would wake up the men trying to push us off their lap. Man oh man, I knew how they felt… 40 miserable hours for them, 40 easy, blissful, dreamy hours for us.