After breakfast that involved the hired cooks being woken up to feed us, we walked to the bus stop with Mr Chandra, who is the travel agent who has helped us out so far in Kathmandu. After imposing on the cooks for our early breakfast, I felt a strong return of some of the uncomfortable feelings that I often felt in India, of putting others out significantly, just because I'm white and I'm wealthy. However, at least on the surface, there seems to be no animosity, just warm hospitality and willingness to please. Something I dont know that I'd be too good at after being woken up at 5.30am to cook some foreigner breakfast!
The first half of the bus trip was on a tourist bus, and we wound our way up the Hills out of Kathmandu. It was great to see the sunrise over the haze (although the haze wasnt that positive!) and watch the little settlements start the day as we joined the throng of buses and trucks heading towards Pokhara. The roads are so windy and narrow in parts, that they make the Great Ocean Road and the Black Spur seem like multilane freeways. Every now and then we turned towards amazing glimpses of the himilayas, presiding over the surrounding area. The hilly country is almost comletely terraced to provide more productive agricultural land that captures the water and is easier to work. Comprehending the work invoved in building all these terraces is almost impossible.
After several hours of winding through the Hills we were deposited on the side of the road with two Korean travellers, ready for our next stretch of the journey via white water raft!
We met our guide Krishna, who proudly informed me that his name meant God, and then waited for another member of the group arrived. The place where we waited was a school building slash tourism office, and we got a great snapshot of everyday life in this tiny roadside settlement, as children finished exams on little wooden clipboards, played together in the dusty school ground, women washed clothes at the communal tap, and men gathered...(and didnt seem to do much!!) This photo is taken where were sitting.
Eventually we were ready to go, and headed off to raft the Trisuli River, along with the two Koreans, and a very cheery man from Beijing, whose family would meet us at the end.
The rafting began quite smoothly, and Krishna had glimpses of an over the top Australian adventure tour guide, with lame jokes (life jacket save your life, helmet save your head) and hi fives with the paddles after fast rapids.
There is an amazing contrast between gently floating along the river in a big inflatable blue raft, to suddenly swirling around a rapid with a face full of water. Neither of us had done anything like this before, but we had a great time. We did up to a class 5 rapid (supposedly!?!) and saw some amazing country as we floated down stream. There were a few scary moments, particularly when our guide got us stuck in a whirlpool / rip that was bigger than he anticipated. We were pounded by rapids for over 10 minutes, we all got thrown about, lost sandals and water bottles, and at one point Ginge got thrown out. We pulled her back in the raft, and eventually got out of the rip and relaxed a bit. Krishna was a bit apologetic, but upbeat when the man from Beijing asked "why so dangerous." Repeating back Krishnas response, the man laughed and exclaimed "It's not Danger, It's excitement!" Fair enough!! Our accompanying kayaker then suddenly appeared with Virginia's thongs, and both our water bottles that he'd fished from the river downstream!When we realised that the traveller from Beijing had lost one shoe he laughed nervously and said "it no matter...I have my life!!
We rafted for 3 hours or so, and after drying off at another roadside shack, we had a packaged sandwich lunch, and then hailed a local bus to Pokhara. This took 3-4 hours, but was great to be amongst locals as they got on and off, from work, school, visiting and even weddings! We met some friendly people who guided us where to get off, and had several conversations in broken english, which was fun! It should be noted that public buses aren't designed for western men with long legs, and I could only just move when we finally got off in Pokhara, in the dark on the side of the road, and suddenly surrounded by touts and taxi drivers.
We made it safely to our Hotel in Lakeside Pokhara, although we were accompanied by a man who would have liked to convince us to stay at another hotel. Alas, it was a wasted trip for him!
After settling in, we had a surreal dinner of fantastic pan crust pizza, gnocchi and tasty tomato bruscetta overlooking the lake, and then headed back to the hotel for a much needed sleep!
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