We caught the bus to Pokhara this morning, travelling light, leaving one hefty plastic bag-full of stuff behind in storage. I even tipped the doorman, an amazing old character in a sort of uniform who had saluted us coming + going ever since we arrived. Obviously, servility brings its own reward. The bus journey I didn’t find too arduous (tho’ Val, as usual, suffered) since I was able to lose myself in my book. There was, moreover, a lunch stop, at which Val + I shared a dhal bhat, the most common Nepali dish, white rice with split pea soup, plus a few curried vegetables. We reckoned we should start to accustom ourselves to the dish, since, by all accounts, it is the only thing on offer higher up in the mountains. Actually, we found it both tasty + filling – one of the advantages of the dish is that they re-fill your dish at least once – in the better places, it is as much as you can eat.
We finally arrived in Pokhara mid-afternoon. Annoying in so far as we had paid extra on the understanding of a fast ride, + it had been just as long as any of the others. Not that we had made a conscious decision to pay the extra. Val had picked up the tickets yesterday afternoon, when she had been in a tearing hurry, had handed over R100 + had not received any change. And since every other company was charging R35 for the same service, it was a right rip-off. The moral is, don’t travel with the Swiss Bus Company. As soon as we descended from the bus + had retrieved our bags from the roof, we were besieged by the young touts of the town, each of them trying to solicit our custom for one particular guest-house. In hindsight, our best policy would have been to reject them all + do our own searching, but by trying to be fair to all, and looking at various places they had on offer, we pleased neither ourselves – Val preferred a place we had passed over – nor all of the touts bar one. Still, it was done, + the place really wasn’t too bad, but it was difficult to shake off the depression we both felt. So often one gets caught up in the certainty that a particular guest-house or restaurant, or even town, is where it’s all happening. + that by choosing a different one, one is somehow missing out.
We wandered around Pokhara a little, or at least the travellers’ part, down by Lake Fewa, + stopped for coffee in one of the numerous restaurants. Before going out again, we had another small joint, after which our evening meal, not to mention the chocolate… or was it coffee?… + banana cake was positively wondrous. I must beware that this diary does not become nothing more than a hymn of praise to drug-enhanced foods. But it’s so easy in Nepal.
Yes indeed. Except that the supply of narcotics is pretty much reserved to the capital, so we were not tempted for the majority of our time there. And onwards to Pokhara, gateway to the Himalayas. FOmo has become a thing bnow, I discover, but we were certainly early devotees.
You look like you’re gaining back a little weight. Whew. You were beginning to look like those POWs that were forced by the Japanese to build a railroad and bridge over the River Kwai.