After a tiring week in Tibet we all just wanted to relax when we got to Kathmandu. After leaving Flav at the border to make his long way back to Lhasa and then Chengdu, the rest of us got a 4wd along the bumpy road to Kathmandu and in some points the road had been washed away by the monsoon. After 5 hours in the 4wd we booked into the first hotel we came across hoping to get a warm shower and relaxation, but Kathmandu is a difficult place in which to relax. While walking around Thamel you are constantly being asked if you want a rickshaw ride, taxi, souvenirs, guides, drugs or “clean” girls. The streets are narrow and you are constantly jumping out of the way of rickshaws, motorbikes and cars, all giving a loud blast of their horns to get the crowds out of the way.
The first thing that I planned to do was some trekking, having seen Everest from Tibet, I really wanted to see it from Nepal as well. However upon looking into it, the cost including permits, flights, and guides and needing at least 7 – 10 days, the price was just too expensive. Instead I decided to see the 2 main sites in Kathmandu and to do some smaller treks at another time.
The first of the main attractions was Durbar Square, which is full of temples, stupas and markets all around the edge and the royal palace. In the 60s the Beatles and other musicians had smoked copious amounts of hashish in some of the temples as well as in the bars and restaurants on the nearby “Freak Street”. It was also in the royal palace that one of the princes went on a crazed rampage killing most of the royal family before attempting to kill himself. He was actually named as the king until he also died a few days later from his injuries. One of the temples in the square contains a living goddess, a young Buddhist girl is chosen as the living goddess and remains living in the temple until she menstruates and then she rejoins her family and a new goddess is chosen. The current goddess is just 4 years old and looked terrified as she looked out of the window of the temple at the on looking crowd.
The second main attraction is the monkey temple, which is so called because of it’s cheeky residents. The monkeys share their home with wild dogs, but they don’t appear to live that harmoniously. While I was there are saw a dog chasing one of the monkeys with a hungry look in its eye, the monkey was too quick and agile and easily managed to escape. The monkeys also managed to team up against me, I was holding my drink as a monkey advanced towards me with his eye on the bottle. As I backed away, I hid the bottle behind my back, as soon as I did this I felt the bottle being tugged from my hand and turned around quickly to see that another monkey had crept up behind me to snatch my bottle away. I got some revenge though, because as he bit into the bottle he was coated in fizzy drink as it sprayed out all over him.
After Kathmandu I took the 4 hour bus ride to Bandipur with Marcus, a journey which was made worse by the hangover I had due to drinking too much vodka the night before. We were finally dropped off on the main road and had to make our way to the top of the hill. I’d heard from somewhere that it was only 2km to the top of the hill, so we set off walking, after we had covered about 2km it had got dark and we then saw a sign that said that it was still another 7 km to go. So instead we had to pay 300 rupees (about 3 pounds) to get to the top on the roof of a jeep where we had to cling on for dear life so as not to get thrown off on the corners. Fortunately the driver was better than the one in Tibet, if he had been driving a guarantee that we would not have survived this particular adventure
When we arrived the whole town was in darkness due to a power cut and we walked along the street trying to find a guest house. After trying several which were full, we found a small guest house above a shop for just 100 rupees each (1 pound). The room was very basic, but there was a roof terrace and the number of stars visible in the sky was incredible. The town was a huge contrast to Kathmandu, it was so calm and quiet, the main street was pedestrianized, so there were none of the sounds of car and bike horns, the whole town seemed to close at 10pm each night.
When we got up the next day we went up to the roof terrace to discover spectacular views of hills, valleys and the distant snowy peaks of the Himalayas. The plan had been to only spend 1 night, but in the end Marcus was there for 3nights and I was there for 5 nights just reading, relaxing, trying to catch up with my blog and enjoying the stunning scenery during the day and starlit sky at night.
Having fallen in love with the place, I finally managed to drag myself away and caught up with Marcus in Pokhara and initially the place came as a shock. Although it was not a noisy as Kathmandu, the Lakeside area in which we were staying was very touristy, again there were lots of people offering tours, souvenirs and drugs on the street and it didn’t really feel like the real Nepal.
To try and find the real Nepal I decided to walk to the old town as well as visiting the regional museum and the Ghurkha museum along the way. Old Pokhara is a bustling little town with cars, trucks, buses and motorbikes beeping their horns, wild dogs and cows walking the street, lots of shops and stalls selling fruit, veg, meat, electricals and lots of ornate jewellery.
The regional museum was disappointing, there were a few pieces of useful information about the traditional lives of the Pokhara area, but on the whole it was just a load of random stuff in glass cases with very little information. The Ghurkha museum was a lot better when I eventually managed to find it. It described battles that the British had with the Nepalese, where they had been so impressed that as part of the peace treaty they agreed to leave Nepal independent and in return they would be allowed to enlist Nepalese into the British army. There were also many stories of heroism from individual Ghurkhas dating from the Indian rebellion, through the 2 world wars and right up to the present conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Having not yet done any trekking, I decided that the next 2 days I would do a couple of mini treks. I started with a trek up to the viewing point at Sarankot. It took quite a while to find the path from the road and the steep route was extremely exhausting. Eventually I made it to the top, but sadly the Anna Purna Mountains were not visible as it was too cloudy, I did however have the best Dahl Baht in Nepal at a little restaurant I found.
The second was the day long trek around Phewa Lake. I set off at 7:30 am and stopped in a little restaurant for breakfast at 8 as it started to rain. Half an hour late I set again in the dry and made my way around the lake.
By 1pm I was already ¾s of the way around the lake and with Pokhara seemingly so close was beginning to wonder why the Lonely Planet had suggested a whole day to do the walk. But then the terrain and quality of the path changed, for most of the route the path had been good and I’d managed to skirt around the edge of the lake without having to climb up the hills, but then the paths became steeper and narrower, at some points I was clinging onto the undergrowth and rocks so as to not fall down the sheer drop into the lake or onto the rocks below. Each time I asked the locals for directions they would tell me that it was impossible to get back to Pokhara and would offer to row me back for a price, but I was determined to get around and the Lonely Planet had said that it was possible.
At one point I was approached by a guy who offered to carry my bag. He spoke no English but I tried to explain to him that I wanted to get to the World Peace Stupa and then back to Pokhara and he appeared to understand. He started to take me up a hill and all the time I was becoming more and more suspicious. I’d heard quite a few stories of people being robbed and was sure that he was taking me in the wrong direction. I started to ask people if we were going the right way, but before they could answer he would say something to them in Nepalese and then they would say unconvincingly that we were going the right way. Eventually I asked a boy who pointed at a different hill, so I got my bag from the man and gave him a bit of money and set off back in the opposite direction. He then started following me and asking for more money, to which I swung around shouting and shaking my fist, to which fortunately he backed away. I speedily made my way down the hill and back in the right direction before he could follow.
The path was really bad now, it was leading me up one hill and down before going back up another hill again. At one point when the path was close to the lake the ground was extremely wet and I tried to find some firm ground to stand on, but both feet sank in and lake and water flooded both of my boots, then I was walking through the forest with monkeys swinging above my head screaming angrily, finally at 3.30 I managed to find a restaurant just below the Stupa to have some lunch and again just managed to avoid the rain.
I set off again once the rain had stopped and headed up the steps to the Stupa when the rain started again, by the time I got to the top I was soaked and exhausted.
The clouds had descended so that I no view and only had 1 hour of daylight to make the 2 hour walk back. I spoke to one of the Japanese Buddhist Monks who advised me not to walk the last bit which was through the jungle with a high probability of coming across leeches. So instead I set off back down the precariously slippy steps in order to get a boat back across the lake and back to Pokhara.
The next day was my lazy day in Pokhara spent with a couple of girls from Germany and one from Belgium. We started with a pedal boat on the lake where we peddled out to the middle and let it drift as we relaxed in the sun, this was followed by a banana milkshake and chocolate brownie and finally a blind message. Blind people who are normally shunned in Nepalese society are trained as masseuses and due to their heightened sense of touch give an awesome massage.
The following day I set of to Tansen with Marcus. As with Bandipur we were dropped off on the main road and had to get a jeep up the hill. We’d already heard that the cost was 10 rupees (10p) but the drivers were insisting on 200 rupees each. Eventually with the help of a policeman they agreed to take us for 10 and explained that the original price was for if we wanted the whole jeep to ourselves.
Tansen was the most authentically Nepalese place that I stayed, there were very few tourists, only a few hotels, a few restaurants in which only one served Western food. The people were extremely friendly and never had a hidden agenda of trying to sell you something like they did in Kathmandu and Pokhara. In the streets there were many stray dogs, cows and pigs roaming around. Samosas and onion bhajis could be purchased for 5 rupees each and authentic daal bhat, chicken and mutton curries could be bought in restaurants for 150 rupees or less.
Tansen had formally been the capital of the Magar Kingdom which had come close in the 16th century to conquering Kathmandu and taking over the whole of Nepal. We visited several of the Hindu temples, during one visit animal sacrifices were taking place, the animals were blessed before being beheaded in the courtyard and then taken home by the owners to be cooked as part of the feast for Dashain. In another temple we met a man or should I say guru, who taught us how to meditate and discussed the meaning of life and what part religion played in our lives. He had given up his work and now spent his time meditating and thinking about his role in the world.
Marcus and I also tried to walk to Palpa Runighat, a palace that was built in 1892 by Governor Khadka Sanser in memory of his wife Tej Kumari and is thought of as the Taj Mahal of Nepal. We managed to get close enough to see it across the river, but could not find a good path to actually get to it and had to set off back before it got dark.
The final stop in Nepal was Lumbini, the birthplace of Buddha. The site is surrounded by Buddhist monasteries from all around the world and we had heard that you could stay in dormitories at the Japanese and Korean monasteries. We got off the bus and got a rickshaw to take us to the Korean monastery where we booked in for several nights for 300 rupees a night which included all meals in the canteen. The days started early in the monastery, there was a service in the temple at 5am followed by breakfast at 6. The service was amazing with the chanting, banging of drums and sticks by the monks as they knelt and bowed as the sun rose for the start of the new day.
In the centre of the grounds was the birth place of Buddha, his mother had stopped at the beautiful spot to bath in the pool before she got out and only managed to get several metres before giving birth to Buddha. There is a stone to mark the exact spot and a tree near the pool under which people meditate. It was a peaceful and relaxing place which perhaps made India more of a shock.
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