50 Shades of Tie-Dye

Well, hello there Americanos, Hillary here to bring you an update from the lovely lakeside village of Pokhara.  But to catch you up, I'm going to back up for a minute and re-cap Kathmandu for you.  As Jordan has already described in the last post, Nepal's capital city smacked us in the face with smog, hellish traffic, diesel fumes, tons of people everywhere, and mangy dogs at every corner.  I must say my first half day in Kathmandu as a bleary-eyed, jet-lagged hot mess was not a great experience.  Turns out, its not my favorite thing to get hip-checked by a Nepali taxi's side-view mirror, whilst trying to avoid stepping in cow shit and politely declining a passer-by's offer to "smoke hash?".  But now after about a week of acclimating and desensitizing myself to the organized chaos, I'm really starting to enjoy the peculiarity of my new life. Its helps that Pokhara so much smaller,quieter, cleaner.

Anyways, Kathmandu was delightful in its own way.  Our 2nd day there (only full day mind you), we met up with our new friend Matt, who we met on the plane ride from Kunming, to do a walking tour of several temples or stupas ending up in Durbar Square.  It was quite the experience, getting out of Thamel, the tourist district, into neighborhoods where NOTHING is written in English, and you just kind of hope you're going in the right direction.  Long story short (and I know I'm not doing them justice) saw some really cool temples of both Hindu and Buddhist origin,but mostly the cool part was seeing daily life so dramatically different than my own (or at least how it used to be).

Later that evening, the three of us piled into a taxi and went up to Swayambhunath Stupa, a temple on a hill overlooking the city.  Holy site for both the Hindus and Buddhists, also home to an absurd amount of monkeys.  The view was beautiful, but also kind of sad.  Such beautiful land and topography but sort of covered up by people living in squalor.  

The next day we headed to Pokhara, where we've been ever since.  We've shuffled around hotels a bit, settling now on the northern end of the lakeside area in a quiet, spacious room with a beautiful view.  There are tons of Westerners here, and yet its been difficult to really "meet" people.  I figured people would tend to say hello to a fellow non-Nepali at a restaurant, maybe pull up a chair and have a conversation, but it hasn't quite happened like that.  My theory is that I (we) look too touristy still, too fresh off the boat, here for three weeks and then back to busy American lives.  This morning I found myself, for a minute, wishing I had dreadlocks, a macrame tank top and some kind of god-awful tribal tramp stamp so the hippie yogis at the table next to me would think I'm cool enough to talk to.  Jordan and I both sat there silent eating our breakfast, eavesdropping on their conversation, hoping for an 'in'.  Then I snapped out of it and thought "hey what do I care if this tie-dye wearing douchebag with a man-purse talks to me or not"? Why should I change who I am touristy-clothes wearing, arm cast and all for somebody I don't even know? And then I felt a lot cooler because hey at least i don't have a dreadlock mullet (business in the front, dirty in the back), and at least i don't pretend to have a European accent when I'm from Southern California.

That being said, Pohkara otherwise has been absolutely delightful.  The first day we were here, we rented a little boat and paddled around the lake.  The best day so far was renting a motorcycle for the day and exploring the hills around the city.  We started out by going up to the World Peace Pagoda, a beautiful temple on a hill overlooking Pokhara and the lake, with a great view of the Annapurnas peaking here and there behind the clouds.  After that we took the bike up north of town, on a pot-holed, some-times paved, sometimes gravel, a lot of times dirt road, until it ran out at the river.  It was truly a moment I'll never forget riding down a winding path, with vistas of terraced hills to my right, dzos (cows) mulling about in the river cooling off, and vibrantly dressed women hauling in loads of harvested grass (to be honest i don't know what it was, but it looked like long blades of grass) in handmade baskets strapped to their foreheads.  I felt like i was in freakin national geographic.

 Jordan walking the streets of Kathmandu

Me, pulling the Asian tourist move, at Monkey temple

Oh I probably forgot to mention that our first night here, I rolled my ankle stepping off the curb.  So I've been gimping around with an arm cast and an ace-wrapped swollen ankle.  God, I'm such a clutz.  Anyways, flimsy ankles be damned we are going to start trekking the Annapurna Circuit on Monday.

Sincerely, your very bug-bitten friend,

Hillary

PS more photos later when the internet isn't from 1999

Aaaaaand It Begins!!

Well.. It is safe to say that we have gotten in way over our heads (in a good way). We realized that our travel credentials are pretty weak: I have only traveled in Europe, and Hill has only been to the Bahamas and Mexico. Nepal is an entirely different world! There is so much going on, it’s dizzying. People everywhere, cows/goats/dogs in traffic, on the sidewalk, in your hotel garden… but it works. It is a pretty steep learning curve, but we’ve had a great time so far! Our first night was spent at a hotel frequented by climbers of the tallest peaks in Nepal, so it was a treat for me to see pictures signed by climbing legends all over the walls. However, our room was right above a bar that featured a local cover band that blared Dave Matthews, Bon Jovi, and Cold Play. We didn’t get much sleep that night. We switched over to a great little oasis of a spot a bit further out of the Thamel district. It was a great place to relax on the lawn after a day of running around town. Simply walking for an hour or two is an adventure in Kathmandu, since we don’t have a detailed map of the town. (Our only Nepal book is based around trekking, with only a 5page section on Kathmandu) There is absolutely no order in which the roads are laid out, and many of them are about 8feet wide and twist and wind their way into each other. Needless to say, we got lost plenty.. But we had a blast doing so. Fortunately, the local folks are so friendly that I never worried about having real issues if we wandered into the wrong part of town. We got lost in a district that seemed to specialize in goat butchers and dog poo, so we just hopped on the rickshaw we saw. Now the driver insisted he could take us, but he looked like he was born in the 1800s and he weighed less than my left leg. He was the little driver that could. He got us home, but it was not pretty.

We are now in Pokhara, Nepal, a lakeside town of 250,000 folks. Although Pokhara is only 200km west of Kathmandu, the “highway” is such narrow, twisting pig path that it took us 7 hours to get here on the bus. You ever crossed a creek in a bus? Us neither. Now I am not sure if the drivers in Nepal are the absolute worst or the most amazing drivers I could imagine..  On one hand, the traffic is absolute chaos, but on the other.. It’s wonderful how well all the vehicles and people intertwine into an insurance adjuster’s worst nightmare. After 30 hours of flights and airports, which presented us with very little stimulation, we get our 90day visas and walk out into the blazing sunlight and are bombarded by taxis drivers. Luckily, Hotel Garuda sent a driver for us.. This guy was Nepali Richard Petty. Within seconds of leaving the airport parking lot, we were in a jumble of cars, trucks, mopeds, motorcycles, bicycles, tractors, steamrollers, pedestrians, people in wheelchairs.. I desperately wanted to see a fella in rollerblades in the mix. I dared not put my arm out the window because it came clear that I wouldn’t get it back! We were inches from the trucks and tractors on either side of us, and if traffic coming the other direction got clogged up.. They just merged into oncoming traffic and swept right between cars in our lane. Our driver assured us that the conditions were due to rush hour, but that must last all day. Our ride to Pokhara was more of the same: We were passing other vehicles on hairpin turns with no guardrails without a hint of slowing down.. All on a two lane road.. No brakes,  Just a lot of honking. I forgot to mention that the drivers were performing these bus stunts while texting.. Sketchy.   There are no traffic signals here, so you just kinda walk across the street and trust that people will swerve around you. Our first crosswalk was a near death experience.. We got halfway across a 9 lane road (6one way, 3 the other way), only to be trapped on the centerline. I had to suck in my gut, so to not get hit. Luckily Hillary is a tiny person, so she only had to make sure her arm cast was not sticking out into traffic. Now when we cross streets, we just keep moving and don’t think too much about the thud of getting smacked by a truck.. They are pretty good at swerving.

We plan on hanging out in Pokhara for maybe a week, then set out trekking in the Annapurnas.

Come to find out Jordan's a craigslist freak

The past several weeks have absolutely blown by.  My last day of work seems like ages ago.  I already feel so removed from medicine and hospitals.  Its lovely.  A brief synopsis you ask?  Lets see....parents have visited, we've done our best to convince them we aren't unprepared idiots who will surely need medical evacuation or a third world jail bail out at some point.  Jury's still out.  Goodbye parties have been held, "parties", with an 's'. as in multiple.  I didn't know my friends loved me enough to have more than one hangover in my honor.  I'm touched.  Wrists have been dislocated.....wha wha wha what????? Yep, its true. Just one wrist though, mine. My left one, the same one I write with.  Its very annoying.  As we speak I'm typing with one hand palm up in a purple arm cast.  Everyone who reads this has already heard the story, but I'll indulge you again. Took a spill on my bike, wrist was wonky, rode bike 4 miles home, commenced beer drinking, wrist felt better until the morning when it felt very, very wonky and painful and I couldn't turn my hand palm up.  After 2 doctors, an unneeded MRI and some x-rays, my dislocated ulna was reduced (re-located) after a giant needle of lidocaine was stuck in my joint.  That hurt too. Now I get to hang out with this cast for 6 weeks (almost 2 weeks down! just 4 more to go).  So the first 3 weeks of our adventure in Nepal will be +1 casted arm.  Don't worry though, I'm still planning to do the Annapurna Circuit trek cast and all, then go back to Kathmandu to get the thing cut off and more x-rays done.  An then move on to Everest base camp.  Should make for a good story right?  I  thought so too.

This week we've been packing up our house.  Jordan is selling anything he can on craigslist.  Like, anything.  No boundaries.  But honestly, it feels kinda good to know our life fits into 4 bags and 5 boxes.  The only furniture I still have to my name is a $75 green thrift store chair that I refuse to part with.  Stuff is just stuff, and almost everything I had is replaceable.  Which makes it really easy to get up and leave.  

Gonna try to get one more backpack in before we leave.  Kind of a swan song to the PNW for awhile.  Its weird, this is the first time I've had truly bittersweet feelings about leaving a place.  I just wish my backpack was big enough to fit all my friends so they could come to.

OK i'm rambling, bye now

H