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Annapurna
Introduction |
Day 0: Pokhara to Besi Sahar (bus) I woke up and met Suk at 3 Sisters Guesthouse and we took a cab to Pokhara's bus depot. The usual hectic scene of too many buses and too little pavement that defines Nepal public transport welcomed us. Although I thought our bus was a tourist bus, it did not differentiate itself in any way from the local buses. This Tata bus looked about 30 years old with bonus "little windows" below my feet such that I could see the pavement rush below. Suk informed me the bus was probably less than 5 years old. So I thought it must have gotten a lot of use.... The upcoming ride would not only confirm this fact but empasize it. People didn't only sit in way-too-closely-spaced rows but also on little thatch stools in the aisle. They stood inside of the door and at least a couple people were mostly outside the door (while at full speed). Another large compliment of people occupied the "roof seats" of the bus. A bus for 20, had at least double that. While I expected this bus to be an express with no intermediate stops (Pokhara to Besi Sahar), it mostly served as a bus ferrying local people along the road from one village to the next (everyone paying, usually a couple rupees). I just happened to be traveling from one really big village to the end of the road and paying the much higher tourist price ($3). Suk and I got to know each other during the 5+ hour bus ride which traveled a surprising short distance on unsurprisingly bumpy roads (although it was not as bad as it used to be). He explained to me he was from the Magar caste, which is one of the castes where the Gurkhas (Nepali soldier for the British) are drawn from. It is one of the higher castes and is widespread throughout Nepal. He grew up in a small village but now lives Lakeside in Pokhara (one of the most expensive places in Nepal) with his wife and two sons. His wife was pregnant with twins due in about 3 months. I also tried to sleep for awhile to no avail. After an interminable amount of time we arrived in Besi Sahar, where the road ends (actually the road goes to Khunde now, but that's where the bus stopped). This town was nothing to write home about. It became pretty clear to me that where there is a road in Nepal, it looked like crap with a manic combination of advertising, dust, and trash all over the place. Nepalis were hanging out everywhere along the road, many just standing around waiting for things (buses, work, money). It was somewhat depressing to see so much poverty and pollution. I bought some flip flops for 5 times the Nepali price and we walked to our simple hotel for the night. I met a cast of characters there who I would see again and again throughout the next 3 weeks. There was Renee (NZ), Marc (South Africa), Wesley (USA) in one group; Morana (Greece), Hada and Fifka (both Dutch), and Qiqi (said chee-chee) from Southwest China which I thought was pretty cool. I ate dal bhat (rice and lentil soup plus potatoes) not realizing there were other things to try. In fact I ate only dal bhat for the first couple days, but all lodges that serve tourists make Western things and most of the time do at least a passable job if not often surprisingly good. Nepalis eat dal bhat for lunch and dinner every day. That was pretty hard to imagine for me, but really it is something that you can eat for every meal. It's good and most places have dal bhat down to a science. But really, how can you mess up the only truly Nepali dish. Suk and I walked down to some housese just outside the main drag of Besi Sahar. People here were quite poor, living in stone huts and breaking big rocks into gravel with a hammer to sell for construction. Besi Sahar had a curfew after 7 pm due to the State of Emergency brought to Nepal by the Maoists. If anybody went out after that, the army would give them trouble
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