Kathmandu
Laura: After a lovely week in Darjeeling we reluctantly headed back down to Siliguri to make our way to the Nepal/India border town of Kakarbhitta. After getting used to the ‘english’ weather in the mountains, we were soon sweating like beasts on the ground. After Ahmad, Max and I got dropped off in Siliguri a man approached us offering to take us to the border for 60 rupees each. We knew it should cost 30 max but we were all hot so we agreed; after all it was only 85p! It took roughly an hour to get to Kakarbhitta and it was damn hot when we got there; putting suncream onto a sweaty face is my least favourite thing to do in hot countries. We got stamped out of India by a guy who looked like he’d just wandered into the immigration office, smoked constantly and paid more attention to the cows outside the window than us! We got stamped into Nepal very quickly with no hassle and they even changed our Indian rupees for us. Next we had to find a bus to take us to Kathmandu (17 hour overnight bus).
We had heard some horror stories about the quality of the buses and the roads in Nepal but we ignored everyone assuming we were hardcore after doing 24 hour bus rides in Africa. I learned that we are most definitely NOT hardcore and I rank this journey number #2 worst bus ride of my life (the first being in Zambia from Lusaka to Chipata). We were charged 1300 rupees for a ‘deluxe’ bus and promised seats in the middle so we wouldn’t be bouncing all over the shop. In reality we were overcharged by about 500 rupees and discovered on boarding that we were right at the front, on top of the wheel and could not recline the seats because the bus door was behind us. For the first 2 hours we barely said a word to each other and simply fumed. We got no sleep but luckily the bus arrived on time at 8am in Kathmandu. People say that Kathmandu is ‘mental’ and ‘crazy’ but it seemed pretty relaxed to us; probably because we have become desensitised to craziness after Delhi and Mumbai! It isn’t the prettiest city but it has a nice charm to it, as does Nepal in general. We arrived at Hotel Silver Home and checked into the dorm which was pretty bad. The bathroom hadn’t seen a clean in about a month, there were no lockers and the carpet was pretty grim. On the first day we had breakfast and then headed back for a nap as we were exhausted. We also were feeling a bit off and STILL had the shits. You are probably reading this thinking i’m quite disgusting for informing you of my bowel movements but I must stress that bad bowels have been our lives for the last month. We have conversations every day like ‘how’s yours today?’, ‘It’s like dhal’ or ‘smells like Edwin’s poo’.
The following day we headed to the main attraction in Kathmandu, Durbar Square. Somehow we managed to see everything without paying which was a bonus because it wasn’t that amazing to be honest. The temples were beautiful but the rest of Kathmandu is crammed in so close that it takes any atmosphere away from the square. Also we were approached by a smack head who wanted to give us a tour and simply wouldn’t leave us alone! We sat on the top of a temple and watched the scene below (including the glorious cycle rickshaws) which was quite nice but we headed back to the hotel because we both felt pretty sick.
The next few days in Kathmandu involved us going out for western food in the morning, Tibetan food in the evening and trying to recover in the hotel for the rest of the time. Randomly we bumped into a girl we met in Darjeeling and had dinner a few times with her which helped us to feel a bit better but ultimately the bad bowels continued as we left Kathmandu for Pokhara.
Pokhara
The tourist bus to Pokhara was about a million times better than the bus to Kathmandu and the scenery for the entire 6 hour journey was stunning. Once we were out of Kathmandu city the land was full of vibrant green rice paddies, hill terraces, mountains and rivers. Pokhara itself is a nice place to relax although a fair bit hotter and humid than Kathmandu. We stayed at Karma Guesthouse for 10 days and the Nepali family who ran it couldn’t do enough for us (plus they had a great dog called Muno!). I was just excited to have a decent pillow – I hadn’t seen one since Africa! We were very lazy in Pokhara, the plan was to relax for a while and hopefully get back to feeling 100%. Pretty much everyday we went to a cafe called Perky Beans, played a game of chess and had breakfast. Then we chilled out at the guesthouse and went out for dinner at night. The main draw for tourists in Pokhara is Lake Phewa so one day we hired a row boat and had a little go around the lake. This sounds very relaxing and scenic but you have obviously not been in a row boat with Ahmad for two hours minus books or entertainment. He was pretty annoyed for the first hour and complained of being bored. He then proceeded to drench me in water using the oar and then felt bad immediately because I cried. As punishment I made him row us all the way back to land but looking back he would have ended up doing this anyway as my rowing skills are absolute shite. We managed to catch up with Max again on the last day but we mainly kept to ourselves and relaxed. Three days before our flight to China we headed back to Kathmandu to get everything we needed and take it easy. Essentially we did bugger all in Nepal!