On to Katmandu - Jim -12/18/08

Once again we are a week behind on this blog, so I'll take a stab at catching up as much as I can before we head off for dinner. I'm sure you have read Adam's blog about his trip to Annapurna Base Camp, I don't know about you but it makes me jealous. I guess I'll just have to work a little bit harder to get this old body working better. On with the story. After I wrote my last entry I walked back to our hotel and went around the side where our room was and to my surprise, and shock, the door was open. My first thought was, "how could I be so stupid as to forget to lock the door when I left." I hurried to the room to see what was missing only to find Adam already back and showered, it was about 3PM. Not only did he make the trek in the four days that people said was impossible but he was back early, he had gotten back about 2 PM. We had fun talking about his trip and my adventures while he was gone and then I went up to the bathroom to take a shower. On my way, as usual, I greeted the family that ran the lodge especially the 6 or 7 year old daughter. While I was attempting to communicate with her, her father came over and told me that it was her birthday and that Adam and I were invited to the party. We weren't entirely sure what this meant but around 5:30 we went up to the terrace where the restaurant was located and sat down, nothing happening yet. We had some tea and over the next half hour or so dozens of people, adults and kids, arrived, they had closed down the restaurant for the evening. We weren't always sure what was going on, except that they played the same recording about 50 times, maybe more. Some gifts were given to the birthday girl which was followed by placing more and more red dot paste on her forehead, by the end of the evening most of her forehead was covered with paste. We were given pieces of cake and then group by group we were given a very good Nepali dinner. After the food the dancing began and everyone including Adam and I were pulled into it, lots of fun and pretty wild. The men danced together and then the women danced together. Slowly the party wound down with some of the guests and hosts a bit tipsy, one of the tipsy ones was the owner who we still had to settle our bill with, we were leaving early in the morning. It took a while to get the bill straight, all in good spirit, and we were off for a short nights sleep.

We had to be at the bus stand to catch our bus to Katmandu by 7 AM and we made it with the help of a taxi that just happened to be going by, rare at 6:30 AM, the owner had forgotten to call us a taxi. While we were waiting to board the bus we saw the best morning view of the mountains that we had seen our entire stay in Pokhara. The bus ride to Katmandu was fairly uneventful, we had opted for the tourist bus which wasn't particularly fancier than the regular bus, but didn't make stops along the road to pick up customers. Most of the riders were Nepali's who wanted to get to Katmandu in six or seven hours instead of 10 or 11 hours. Adam and I had a plan to handle the taxi drivers and touts who we knew would besiege us when we got off the bus, I would round up our luggage from the top of the bus while he tried out his bargaining skills on the taxi drivers who we needed to get to our guest house. He was very successful and had a bargaining war going on when I got there. We got a rate a little below what we were aiming for and piled our luggage and ourselves into the cab, which pretty much filled it up. As we started up the taxi driver told us that he couldn't do it for what he said and raised the price, we bailed out, not so much because of the price, but because he had lied to get our business. We easily got another cab for the new price and were on our way.

We had made a reservation for our time in the Katmandu Valley at a guest house, run by a local Tibetan Buddhist Monastery, in the town of Buddhanath, a bit NE of Katmandu, but not really separate from it. We made the reservation on the recommendation of another backpacker we had met in Pokhara who spoke very highly of it. The town of Buddhanath was largely populated by Tibetan refugees and had at its center a large Stupa, Shrine, which is famous in the area.

That's it for now, it's dinner time but I may have time to get back later and get a little more done. jim