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A Trip to Pokhara
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Once again I'm back in Kathmandu. So far I've been spared the Christmas build up - no carols and very few decorations - it's quite refreshing.
Got up early on Monday to catch the bus to Pokhara. After breakfast and saying farewell to Steve, Peter and I walked to where the Lonely Planet claimed we could catch a bus. After standing for a while and all the buses passing us by we went to a nearby travel agent who informed us we would need to go to the New Bus Station on the other side of town. We eventually got the bus and we were off. It was quite a scary journey in that all along the road were overturned buses and lorries. Thankfully we made it in one piece to Pokhara where we were greeted by a spectacular mountain range and a sea of touts all trying to grab our bags! We managed to escape the touts and ended up at the Diamond Hotel. We wanted a room with a TV so we could watch our TV debut, but they only had one in Reception. Peter couldn't get his video camera to work, which didn't really matter as we weren't on anyway. (We'd gone for breakfast at Mike's Place in Kathmandu last week, which is a famous climbers hangout. We didn't meet any climbers but we did meet a film crew for Nepal TV who wanted to interview us about our home countries - it was very embarassing - especially the singing). We ended up showing a group of Nepali kids the video Peter had taken at Everest. I also got a Nepalese dancing lesson from one of the little boys! We eventually managed to escape and check out the town. It was like a ghost town, there was no one about, thanks to the Maoists. There were army bunkers on the street corners with gun toting soldiers inside - I'm not sure if this was reassuring or worrying! We were warned by everyone we spoke to not to go trekking, which was okay as we only had 2 days anyway. We did manage to find a pub with live music and what seemed to be every tourist in Pokhara. The following day we hired a moped and went up to Sagarakot to watch the sunset over the Annupurna Mountain Range. It was quite a laugh as the poor moped really didn't have what it takes to get up the hill - with some local kids pushing us we did finally make it. The sunset was amazing and the view incredibly scenic. Our last day in Pokhara was fairly non eventful - lunch overlooking the lake and browsing some bookshops before watching a very bad copy of Mystic River. A lot of places were shut as the Maoists had called a strike - no transport today. I said farewell to Peter on Thursday morning. I had to get up at the crack of dawn to catch my bus back to Kathmandu, Peter was catching a later bus so the lucky devil got a long lie. It was worth getting up early though as the sun rising over the mountains was a pretty amazing sight. Once again there were buses and lorries crashed all along the road. We nearly joined the statistics, when as we were overtaking a lorry we had to break to avoid a guy on a bike, the bus went into a sideways skid and my heart went into my mouth. Luckily the driver was able to correct the skid before we hit anything or left the road.
Back in Kathmandu I found a hotel and to my distress realised that the lock on my bag was jammed - it must have been when it fell off the roof of the bus. I tried different combinations and trying to break it off with my room key without much luck. I took it down to Reception and after half an hour of faffing around with it they told me there was nothing they could do. I gave up and went for a walk and then had a sleep. When I woke up I tried to break the lock with my boot and with the leg of the bed but to no avail, beginning to get a bit annoyed, I once again tried some different combinations and one of them worked - yippee!
I don't know what it is when I'm travelling on my own but I seem to attract all the weirdos. On the way back to my hotel last night a Nepali man started following me, claiming to be my friend and wanting to come back to my room with me. I managed to get rid of him, but today I was hit on by another Nepali man in the street, not to mention the hoardes of beggars grabbing at me - LEAVE ME ALONE!!!!
Anyway, now I've got that off my chest I'll say farewell. I'm off for an early night tonight as I have to get up at 5.00am tomorrow morning to start my journey to the roof of the world!
Hils
xxx
Where I stayed:
The Diamond Hotel
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