Day 10 – 11/29/09 – Kathmandu, Nepal; Delhi, India

That's right.

Our last day in Nepal, and last day together on this trip, saw us finally fully adjust to the time zone and sleep until the comparatively late hour of 7:00 am.  After packing and wondering around Thamel for the last time in search of a bakery we had seen at some point, we went to the National Museum at 11:00 before heading to the airport. 

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Day 9 – 11/27/09 – Kathmandu Valley, Nepal (part 3)

Patan Sacred Cow

During the day’s travels, the Lady unfortunately came down with her own bad stomach.  Fortunately it wasn’t debilitating (or she’s a lot tougher than me – a distinct possibility), but by the time we got back to the hotel she wasn’t feeling too hot, my food poisoning had morphed into a head cold, and my abs were sore as hell from the past 2 days’ puking.  In other words, we weren’t happy campers, the Lady was ready to get home (her return journey began the next day) and your Blogger, who can’t believe he’s saying this, was ready to get back to the relative sanity and modernity of Delhi.  As with all trips, regardless of length, we had hit the “almost done” point  at which we were more interest in wrapping things up than in enjoying where we were.  We did, however, have a few more hours on Friday and Saturday morning before we hit the road, so we decided to make the most of it and wander around Thamel one last time.

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Day 9 – 11/27/09 – Kathmandu Valley, Nepal (part 2)

Pashupatinath

From Buddhism, we turned back to Hinduism with a trip to Pashupatinath, a really large temple complex on both sides of Kathmandu’s river, home to lots of monkeys, Sadhus and Hindu cremations.  As we nearted the entrance, a troop of monkeys was frolicking around generally making pests of themselves but looking extremely cute and photogenic.  Your Blogger did dare to stop for a picutre or two, but since his last close encounter with a monkey resulted in a chunk out of his ankle, a year’s worth of rabies fears, and a tattoo of the little bastard that bit him, he moved along with some haste.

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Day 9 – 11/27/09 – Kathmandu Valley, Nepal (part 1)

That Triangular Peak is Mt. Everest

Friday the 27th turned out to be one of the most full and interesting days since leaving Delhi.  For the first time all trip, we actually arranged for a wake-up call at 5:00 so we could leave at 5:30 for a “Mountain Flight” courtesy of Buddha Airlines.  Of course, we woke up well before the call came into play, but it was nice for it to be an issue for once instead of having to kill 2-3 hours before the day could begin.  As is often the case with 3rd world airports, the international side of Kathmandu Intergalactic Aerodrome actually functions pretty smoothly.  The domestic side is another matter alltogether – especially when the majority of the flights at a particular time are 20 person tourist flights that circle the mountains for an hour and then land back in Kathmandu. 

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Day 8 – 11/26/09 – Pokhara / Kathmandu, Nepal

The Look of Food Poisoning

Today was something of a blur for your Blogger, though it was quite a bit more of a blur for your Blogger’s intestines.  We had an 11:50 flight on the mighty Yeti Airlines from Pokhara to Kathmandu, and your Blogger spent most of the morning either sitting on, or with his head over, one of the local porcelain goddesses, which I’m sure is an incarnation of the goddess Kali who does most of the God Shiva’s dirty work when he’s living up to the “Shiva the Destroyer” title.  I’m sure some of you Hindu experts out there won’t hesitate to tell me how wrong I got the various gods there, so fire away.

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Day 7 – 11/25/09 – Sarangkot / Pokhara, Nepal (part 2)

Nepal: Land of Rejected Martin Lawrence Tag Lines

Once we got our shit together we headed into town for the day’s next adventure – riding Royal Enfield motorcycles around Pokhara to a couple of sights. Now, Royal Enfields are old post-WWII British motorcycles still manufactured at one of the original plants (and using the original manufacturing equipment!) in India without significant changes until the past few years.  Naturally, the few Royal Enfields available for rent on Pokhara were not exactly current models, so this meant a couple of things.  First, just the sight of these beautiful machines is enough to warm the heart of any motorcycle enthusiast, taking you back to the days when bikes were simpler, you didn’t need a year-long specialist class to handle basic repair and maintenance, and motorcycles were a truer expression of what motorcycles were meant to be.  Second, it meant that these bikes are weird, temperamental as hell, guaranteed to break down, and unless perfectly maintained an almost certain safety hazard, and generally a great reminder of why we consider modern bikes an improvement on those simpler, truer designs.

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Day 7 – 11/25/09 – Sarangkot / Pokhara, Nepal (part 1)

Sarangkhot - A Beautiful Sunrise for Food Poisoning

Well, today certainly proved eventful.  It all began with our normal 5 am wakeup and then breakfast outside our guesthouse in Sarangkot.  We decided to keep it light and stick to toast and Nepali bread, but the imp of the perverse must have been on your Blogger’s shoulder as I buttered up my toast with some of the warm butter sitting on the table – a decision that I have had many opportunitites to revisit, and will cover later in these pages.

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Day 6 – 11/24/09 – Pokhara / Sarangkot, Nepal

Sarangkot Locals

Today dawned dark and early, as some confused rooster started crowing a couple of hours before dawn.  No problem for your jetlagged Blogger, but it was still annoying.  Fortunately (or not), the Lady had arranged for us to do a yoga session at 7 am, so we didn’t have too many hours to kill before getting things kicked off.  Now, your Blogger is actually a big believer in, though infrequent practitioner of, yoga, and a nice session of stretches and deep breathing sounded like a good way to kick off the day.  However, we wound up with the “Howling Mad” Murdoch of yogis, so this wasn’t really in the cards.

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Day 5 – 11/23/09 – Kathmandu / Pokhara, Nepal

Wow – this one turned out to be a hell of a day.  We got an early start, hitting the road at 7:00 with Anup and Tanji.  Final Destination:  Pokhara.  Interim Step:  Boating a river called the Trisuli, a big water Class III / III+ run that Anup believes is the perfect intro to Nepali whitewater.  The run is about halfway between Kathmandu and Pokhara, which in Nepali road terms means 3-3 1/2 hours of some serious driving on what is called a highway but would be a closed fire road anywhere in the States.  I won’t bore you, dear reader, waxing lyrical about the river, but let’s just say it is big.  Like 14-15′ waves in which rafts disappear from peak to trough big, which is both scary and freaking awesome  to a Southeastern boater used to banging off rocks on low volume streams.

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Day 4 – 11/22/09 – Delhi, India; Kathmandu, Nepal

Sadhus - Always Good For Filling In An Empty Spot In A Blog

It’s 8:20 am, the Blogger has been up for 4 hours, and he’s just heard his seventh rendition of some sort of awful hammered dulcimer / pan flute / glockenspiel remake of “Right Here Waiting for You”.  Why, you may ask yourself, would the Blogger find himself in this situation?  Sadly, it’s just one of the perils of being an international man of leisure.  Our arrogance in thinking we had slain the jet lag dragon yesterday accounts for waking up at 4:30, and a 7:30 flight to Kathmandu being delayed to 9:15 due to weather explains hanging out in the departure lounge, but nothing on God’s green earth can explain why anyone would have chosen to remake Right Here Waiting for You regardless of instrumentation.   Amazingly, the bad music didn’t end there, as after we finally made it to the plane we were treated to a musak version of George Michael’s homage to movies set on yachts off the Greek islands in 1973 – the immortal Careless Whisper.  Thankfully, this eventually ended and we finally found ourselves landing in Kathmandu.  And just to get it out of the way, because I know you dear reader, here you go.

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