Pokhara

Pokhara

Although Pokhara is only 206km from Kathmandu the bus trip takes 7 hours – the first two of which are spent negotiating traffic jams and getting out of Kathmandu. There are genuine ‘tourist’ buses that are air-conditioned and have all the trimmings, and there are the cheaper standard buses used by the locals and us budget travellers, at about a third the price, and which are perfectly fine. At least we had one seat each and didn’t have to share with any livestock. In Phutung I once arrived at the ‘micro-bus’ stop to find the driver of the minivan attempting to corral 5 goats and get them aboard. It reminded me of a joke about fitting elephants in a mini (apparently you cram them under the seats and try not to let them eat your shoes).

A monsoon-swollen river, between Kathmandu and Pokhara.

A young boy fishing out driftwood to sell.

I was seated next to a middle-aged man who was sporting his young son on his knee. We exchanged pleasantries and I taught the young fella my patented wink-double-cluck-and-grin technique, which is dearly loved by all children under 6. Children older than that just tend to think I’m retarded.

While we crawled through the traffic I produced my mobile ‘phone and played a few mp3s. I had loaded some well-known Nepali folk songs on for the kids at the orphanage – who would then promptly disappear with it for the night. It would be returned to me the next morning with a request for the battery to be charged and some more Rhianna songs added, please? – so the little boy and I had a singalong in Nepali about water and chewing paan leaves and water and how pretty the village girls are and water (water seems to figure quite prominently in Nepali folk songs), until the battery went, but by then we had hit the outskirts of Kathmandu and there was some scenery to distract him.

The first stop was for a toilet break and was announced by the driver as he pulled over, seemingly at random, and gestured at the roadside bushes. I had resigned myself to a long and uncomfortable trip, but we subsequently stopped twice at roadside restaurants, which were pleasant spots and provided a welcome chance to stretch the legs, eat and escape the swelter of the bus.

We arrived in Pokhara at about 3pm and were met at the bus stop by a fleet of taxis and men carrying cardboard signs bearing the names of various hotels and lodges. All the buses from Kathmandu arrive at about the same time, so this was a feeding frenzy for the local taxi operators and touts. I spotted the name of my hotel and made my way through the shouted offers and suggestions and made myself known. (As an aside, my favourite hotel name here in Lakeside is ‘The Lovely Mount’. I imagine it being popular with newly-weds. The one next door proudly declares itself to be: ‘A budget hotel since 1965!’)

The main street of Lakeside, Pokhara, and its unique traffic hazards.

The hotel chefs whipping up some delicacy in the back yard.

It was immediately obvious – and this perception has been strengthened since – that there is fierce competition for the tourist dollar in Pokhara at the moment. The industry here has not yet recovered from the down-turn caused by the civil unrest, and it is also the off-season for tourism. The restaurants, cafés and shops around Lakeside – the tourist district – are embarrassingly empty and shopkeepers sit forlornly outside their premises, greeting any passer-by with hopeful invitations. This is most apparent with the numerous barbers. In my unshaven state for the first few days I was walking around looking like a barber’s — dream, and they were falling over themselves to offer me their services. Every time I walked past one they would leap to their feet, “Namaste, Sir! Shave?” I would tease them by rubbing my hairy jaw and saying, “maybe in a day or two, mate”. Eventually I succumbed to the imploring stares and had another cut-throat shave. He also shaved my head, so I was pretty much looking like Kojak when I walked past the next barber down the road. On espying me this one jumped up and started in on his spiel, “Namaste Sir!” His eager gaze then took in my denuded skull and baby-bum face and without missing a beat he enquired, “Massage?”.

Lakeside is less crowded and far more relaxed than it’s counterpart in Kathmandu, Thamel. Even the drug dealers and beggars are less insistent. My local pusher – a permanently stoned teenager by the name of Dipak – has the short term memory of a gold fish and can never remember talking to me. Consequently, on each of the half-dozen times we have met he begins the conversation the same way: “Where you from?”

I tell him that I come from New Zealand and he promptly informs me that the capital of New Zealand is Wellington. (He’s right, I checked). He then goes on to challenge me to name a country, and he will name the capital. This is a game played by the street kids in Thamel too, as a sort of ice-breaker. Sooner or later will come a request for money, or an offer of drugs or something else. Poor Dipak is so drug-addled that he follows this routine even after I have greeted him by name, with a loud, “Dipak! How’s it going?!”

The first time I met him he asked me to name a country.

“Burkina Faso”

“Ouagadougou”, he replied. Bloody hell!

“The Togolese Republic” (It’s amazing how an Olympic opening ceremony can rekindle an interest in geography).

This one stumped him. He then assured me that he didn’t want any money.

“No? What do you want, Dipak?”

“Just some milk”. He meant milk powder.

“What for?”

“I go to my room and make milk and drink it”. Yeah right. Despite the innocent plausibility of his story, I knew full well that he actually uses the milk powder to cut cocaine with.

“I don’t think so, Dipak. I think you want the milk to cut cocaine”. This subtle interviewing technique, honed over years of dealing with criminal geniuses like Dipak, threw him completely and he abandoned his cunning artifice.

“You want cocaine?”

Sigh. “No thanks, Dipak”.

I saw him again today and he launched into the same routine. This time I had him stumped on the capital of Tonga.

“Come on, Dipak. Are you hungry?” I took him to a nearby bakery.

“You want to buy drugs?”

“Nope. You don’t remember me, do you? What do you want to eat? Do you want one of these?”

“Milk is better. You don’t want smoke?”

“Nope. You don’t remember all the other times I haven’t bought drugs from you, do you? Tell the lady what you’d like”.

He asked for milk again, but took what I gave him. I guess it’s a bit hard to cut cocaine with a chicken pastie.

Boats for hire, Lakeside.

View from the lake, towards the cloud-obscured Himalaya.

I’ve mentioned that the restaurants and bars are usually empty, which makes it very hard to decide where to eat. There is a restaurant down the road called ‘The Love Kush’ – I have no idea why – which has become my usual haunt, by default. They offer two for one drinks during happy hour (which runs for 3 hours), have a dilapidated pool table upstairs and a pleasant balcony which offers evening views of the lake front and the drug dealers who congregate there. They also show pirated DVDs of recent Hollywood movies. The other night I was treated to the latest instalment of The Mummy, which was only slightly marred by people talking and moving around in the Bangkok cinema where it was filmed. Actually, I think that may have improved it.

The food is fine – they do a great garlic steak (it has never occurred to me to just smother raw crushed garlic all over my steak before. A stroke of culinary genius, that. Luckily I am traveling alone, or I soon would be), and a lovely rice pudding. Of course, the scarcity of customers engenders a fierce loyalty from the staff, and that’s probably the real reason I go back. I mean, how often do you get hugged by a waiter when you leave a restaurant in New Zealand? As a customer loyalty initiative it could easily backfire, but Keshab is a nice young bloke, married, and we have good chats about the state of affairs in Nepal and, oddly enough, the price of fish.

Lakeside, from the other side of Fewa Tal.

One reason that I am a lousy tourist is that I just don’t have the heart to take advantage of the economic situation here and the bargaining power it affords. I don’t mind haggling a bit, and I certainly don’t like to be ripped off, but I figure most of these people get by on little enough without me trying to take advantage. Consequently, I don’t try to haggle with a waiter in an empty restaurant, as I have seen a fellow traveler doing. This guy decided that the menu was too expensive – after having his happy-hour drinks – and announced he was leaving. The waiter told him he could still stay for the free DVD, if he wanted, and his eyes lit up. Cheap bastard. It also means that the local Tibetan community – whose women sell their handmade handicrafts on the streets of Lakeside – have identified me as a soft-touch (I’m not, honest). They know me by name and hail me as I pass and ask to see the latest bit of jewellery I have bought, and whom I purchased it from. Then they insist I peruse their wares and tell me how long it is since they have seen Tibet, when they came to Nepal, and so on. I have several standing invitations to come to the Tibetan village up the road for tea. Generally I escape after inspecting a few bangles and making up another appointment.

Another reason that I am a lousy tourist is that I am camera shy. Not so much about being in front of one, but about sticking one in people’s faces, or walking around with a camera and a bum-bag and snapping anything that doesn’t run away. I’d much rather sit somewhere and unobtrusively watch the world go by. Maybe with a book. Which is fine and dandy for me, but for you folks at home it means that instead of the fascinatingly candid shots of villagers going about their business of tilling fields, nursing babies or weaving baskets you get the views from my hotel room, or the bugs I find in my shoes. Sorry. I guess a photojournalism career with National Geographic is out.

Bailing out the boats after a heavy monsoon downpour.

A boatful of students on the lake, visiting a temple and interrupting my little picnic. Note the life jackets, loading limit and compulsory teacher-student ratio.

The lake – Fewa Tal – is quite picturesque with waterfalls, temples and nesting egrets dotted around its shores and provides fish for the local restaurants. Small boats can be hired for a few hundred rupees. I took one out the other day and paddled my way to the other side of the lake for some exercise and a wee picnic. I’ve also been for a couple of pleasant runs up around the top end. One morning I was cruising along when I was overtaken by a couple of local lads who must’ve been all of 18 and made me look like I was walking. I caught up with them at the top of the hill (ha!) and asked them what they were training for – police? Army? British army, they explained, with emphasis. Ah – gurkha wannabees! There is a gurkha recruitment post outside Pokhara and a number of local places advertise training programmes run by ex-gurkhas. It is a very competitive selection process and only a few lads are successful each year, but the prestige and financial security of a career with the British army has enormous appeal for young Nepali men. I wished them good luck and then one of them said, “nice jogging”. Jogging! Jogging! I don’t jog, I run! Albeit sometimes quite slowly. I said I would see them in a month and we could have a crack at the hill together. Excuse me – I’d better get running.