Pokhara and Chitwan

May 18th, 2009 by Elizabeth Kruithof

Namaste!

Well, today (May 12) was seven weeks in Nepal and my first full day on the relaxed lakeside dwelling of Pokhara, teeming with hippies. I didn’t have a good sleep at the hotel because my whole body ached, but especially my arms for some unknown reason. I wandered outside in my pajamas (all clothes, including underwear and bra still in the hotel laundry service…they say they have a washer and dryer but I’m certain my clothes are up drying on the roof in the sun because no washer and dryer takes nearly 24 hours to do it’s cycle). Had a delicious banana muffin at a German bakery and went to a beautiful tropical looking garden by the lakefront where I swung for a while on a huge bamboo swing (made me think of my swings at home). I finished my book in the garden (called “Sold”, a true story of a Nepali girl sold in to the Indian sex trade by her step father) and headed back out to the main street. Over the next few hours I probably stopped in every tourist trap there was, searching for just the right pair of loose fitting hippy shorts (everyone here is essentially dressed the same, in these pants that are made of enough fabric to sew at least three pairs of normal pants). I spent tonnes of time in a shop called Perfect Books, searching for a new novel and eventually deciding on The Princess Bride. Then I spent much time shopping around for gifts to bring home (can’t give anything away…but Mom’s was a pain in the butt to find…haha!). Went to the same restaurant as last night, still sitting alone reading my book, eating the same grilled chicken salad (only this time accompanied by a steaming hot brownie). Spent way too many rupees today.

After another achey sleep (not sure what’s going on with my body), I stayed in bed and read the Princess Bride. I can’t remember the last time I stayed in bed reading, and in case you can’t remember the last time you did it either, it’s wonderful. I went for a walk up the road which eventually starting running next to Lake Phewa, but even by mid-morning it was getting baking hot. Half of me wanted to jump in the lake to cool down, the other half didn’t want to deal with the myriad diseases that I’d probably get as a result. There were lines of wooden boats, painted blue and red along the green shore; some heading out to the floating temple in the lake, some hauling loads of grass as a person stood at the back, steering with a long paddle. I went back to the beautiful garden and hung in a wicker basket swing reading my book for quite a while, drinking mango juice. So nice to finally feel like I was relaxing. I ran in to the boys (from the trek) on the street. They’d arrived back one day early (remember, they finished the trek after I left from Tatopani) and were clean shaven. I went to a local tea shop and chatted with the very friendly owners in a broken Nepali-English mixture. They seem to really appreciate it when you try to take a stab at their language, and they sent me off with a banana and some sort of rock hard festival sweet made of rice and sugar (almost cracked my teeth on it). We all met for dinner and treated Hari (our Annapurna guide) to dinner, as well as giving him our tip. Played a couple games of pool with the boys (and a girl who I chatted with about climbing in Squamish…small world) and ate a bag of wine gums. Good day.

Didn’t sleep much again because of the pain in my joints (knees, hips, elbows, shoulders and wrists)…I’ve never felt this kind of pain before and when I got up I couldn’t even come close to touching my toes. I headed out and got some juice, a sandwich, and a chocolate croissant to go, and then went over to Ultimate Descents Nepal to rent a kayak. It was a little red river kayak, sort of like Brandin’s, and thank god I saw Mike across the street so he could help me lift it down to the lake because it was way too heavy for me. I squelched through the disgusting garbage-mud shoreline and pushed off. I paddled around the dam-end of Phewa lake for about an hour and a half before finding a spot to stop for a snack and read. The kayak was very tempermental and either didn’t respond at all or swiftly over-responding to the paddle strokes…and the second I stopped paddling the boat would swing around in a half circle and have me facing the opposite direction. Suddenly I saw the boys paddling up to the shore in three kayaks, seemingly having the same difficulties (Mike even managed to flip his). But, as soon as they reached me they decided to go back and rent a sail boat instead. A while later they appeared in a small sailboat with red and white sails, and we hauled my kayak on to the bow and heading off up the lake. However, the wind soon disappeared and we spent the next 3 and a half hours floating, “sailing”, and paddling to get back to shore. WAY too long in the sun, despite any amount of sunscreen. It took all my muscle to get the kayak up on my shoulder and back to the shop I’d rented it from (probably took me 15 minutes to walk less than 100m), and by the end I had a nice purple bruise on the hip the boat was resting on. When I finally got back to the hotel after dinner, I got in the shower to wash off a long day outside only to discover the longest black leech I’ve ever seen, slinking across the bathroom wall and poking it’s head in the air to try and figure out where the smell of human was coming from. Almost as disgusting as the massive cockroach speeding across the bathroom floor last night (Laurel smushed that one though).

Alex, Mike and I left Pokhara the next day and caught a “tourist” bus going to Chitwan, a National Park Reserve in the south of Nepal. I say “tourist” because I’m fairly certain it was just a local bus with a sign saying “tourist” hanging from the front window. Just as small, just as packed, with seats just as comfortable (ie. my tailbone took a serious beating by the end of the ride). It took over an hour just to get out of Pokhara, with the bus stopping once to put air in the tires, and once to get filled with hand-cranked gas (obviously it wouldn’t have been logical to do these things before the bus left the bus park). I shifted in my seat beside Mike probably a hundred times trying to ease the pressure off my tailbone on the five and a half hour long ride. We stepped off the bus in to the blistering heat of Chitwan and jumped in to the back of a burning hot Jeep to the Jungle Safari Lodge. I’ve never felt heat like this before…as soon as the sun touched my skin it feels like it’s scorching it, and there’s no escaping it since there’s no air conditioning (you’re lucky if you can even find refridgeration). I suppose we are only 50km or so from the Indian border, so I should have expected the heat. I wandered around the village a bit and again, spent too many rupees at a shop buying gifts. The shop was stocked with things made by women, with the money going back to a women’s development project in their village, so I didn’t feel bad spending the rupees at all. We had a ‘cultural tour’ of the local Tharu village by our guide and then sat with some happy hour drinks to watch a sunless sunset. Dinner was fantastic (proper chicken, veggies, and potatoes…man, I miss food from home!). I had a cold shower and went to bed with the fan on. Even at night it was hotter than most Canadian summer days and I got eaten alive by very itchy mosquitos (they must have found a flaw in the big mosquito net surrounding my bed). Thank god for doxycycline.

We were up at 5:30am the next morning for a 6am breakfast, and by 6:30am we saw our jungle safari vehicle lumbering down the path next to the hotel – a large gray elephant with pink spotted ears. She backed in to a wooden tower where we climbed up and boarded on to the basket on her back. Our driver sat on her back with this feet tucked behind her ears, for steering. We started off, slowly swaying side to side as the giant moved along, peaceful and silent. We picked up another passenger, making the basket quite cozy, and headed toward the community forest buffer zone area of the jungle (I guess it makes sense that we wouldn’t be allowed directly in to a national animal conservation park). We were joined by a few other elephants with their own baskets of people, but our elephant was the biggest. We swayed slowly in the jungle with her wirey tail flicking side to side and her ears flapping about. I really didn’t expect to see much; I was just enjoying the ride. Suddenly some deer came in to view, letting the elephant come right up next to them, as if we weren’t riding on top at all. Then we turned a corner to see a big mud hole full of 6 or 7 rhinos! The rhinos also let the elephants come right up close, so we got pictures and watched them move around in their ancient, dinosaur-esque armoured bodies. By the time our 2.5 hours on the elephant was up, we’d also seen some monkeys, birds, wild boars, and spotted deer (no Bengal tigers, unfortunately). Very cool experience. I went down to the river after (SO hot by 9am) and watched the Canadian couple we’d met in Tatopani (Cam and Kristin from the Island/Vancouver) have elephants baths. How could I pass up the opportunity? I rode the elephant, with it’s Nepali master standing behind me, in to the river and got splashed by her trunk over and over in a wonderfully refreshing shower, and dunked in to the river when she rolled her body below the surface. Such an awesome experience! I paid the elephant my 100 rupees (she took it in her trunk and passed it up to her trainer) and walked back soaked to the hotel. After lunch (first time eating buffalo), we took a ride in the back of a truck to a spot on the Rapti river where we climbed in to a long dug-out canoe. Our guide sat up front and pointed out birds along the way, while the boatsman stood at the back and steered with a long pole (the river was quite shallow). The ride was very peaceful down the river (and luckily mostly in the shade…not that that didn’t stop me from sweating like no tomorrow), but unfortunately we didn’t see any crocodiles. We got out of the canoe on the opposite bank and took a nature walk through the very hot, dry jungle, catching glimpses of deer, peacocks, and huge termite mounds. We came out of the jungle at the Government’s Elephant Breeding Center, where there was a line of elephants chained to poles under large huts. The babies weren’t chained, and we saw a set of 7 month old twins, a one year old who was happy to charge at people who might be holding treats, and in the last hut, a baby only 3 days old suckling at his mom. I was disgustingly sweaty and dirty by the time the truck dropped us off at the river to have a drink and watch the sunset (with actual sun this time!). After dinner we went to the Tharu (the people of Chitwan and the Terai region) Cultural Program. I thought it was awesome – traditional dances and songs done by young Nepali men with long sticks that are cracked together at high speed in a sort of battle-mimic, making an exciting rhythm at the same time.

The fan in my room stopped working a few moments after I crawled under the mosquito net in to bed, and soon I was lying there sweating hot on top of the sheets. I knew I could never fall asleep in that heat (the next day the Canadian couple said they’d recorded the temperature in their room at night to be 35 degree celsius)…but finally the generator loudly came to life and the fan started working again. The truck dropped us off after breakfast the next morning to the bus station, where we got on a bus that actually seemed to be a tourist bus (still far worse than any Evans Lake school bus…just don’t want you to picture a Greyhound or anything). Our seats were at the very back which made for 3 hours of gut-rearranging bumpiness until we pulled over for a lunch break. I had an icecream cone that actually had the consistency and taste of ice cream, and loved it. As I went to get a second cone, we suddenly realized that our bus had disappeared without us (and with all our backpacks). We quickly hopped on to Cam and Kristen’s bus as it pulled out and wondered how we’d ever get our stuff back. However, we soon pulled behind our original bus, which had stopped on the side of the road. We got back on, assuming they’d stopped because they’d realized we’d been left behind. But of course, the truth was that our bus had broken down, so we decided to move our bags and hop back on to Cam and Kristen’s bus before it left us there to fry in the sun (only now there were no seats on their bus because other people had the same idea…so we spent the last 3.5 hours of the ride on the roof, crunched between a group of Brits and piles of backpacks. Luckily the Brits had good music playing and the sun didn’t scorch too much, and no one fell off, so the roof ride was OK. In Kathmandu, we walked our stuff back to Hotel Tradition, and I realized I didn’t miss Kathmandu or Thamel at all after beign away from it (people, pollution, and honking everywhere).

Today I’m heading back to volunteer…but I’ll save that for the next journal as I’m sure this is beyond long enough already. Does anyone even still have the patience to read these? Haha!