Nepal, Team Momo Goes to Kathmandu & Pokhara 11/15-11/20/2013

November 15
After final goodbyes were issued and remaining stray items were packed, we were in route to DIA discussing the various things we were both looking forward to and dreading; the days of walking, the weight of our packs, the lack of hygiene, and of course, the food. "I'm going to eat like a KING!" Eric exclaimed, much to Shirley and Shane's amusement. I sat in back, braiding my hair, thinking to myself that it may be the last time my hair felt clean for a month.We were excited and nervous, but ready to tackle what would be collectively the most "burly," "hardcore," thing we had ever done.
We grabbed our packs from the trunk, Shirley said goodbye to Shane, and we headed towards the WORLD TRAVELER sign at British Airways. We stopped for a quick photo, ran the security gauntlet, ate a burrito, then arrived at our gate to find that we would be forced to check our backpacks. We hurriedly fumbled to tuck in trekking poles and loose items and boarded the plane. Upon sitting down, we realized that the tickets to the cathedral we were going to in London were in my backpack, along with travel itineraries, spare passport photos (important for visas) and other important paperwork--a minor setback that would cause us a morning visit to an internet cafe in London. We were nervous that our long London layover would cause our bags to get lost, but remained hopeful that all would be well.
Unfortunately, the one thing that I had wished was stuck in my backpack -the game, CatchPhrase (I had brought it fearing we would be stranded in Kathmandu for the first couple days during the political turmoil)- was in my purse uncontrollably beeping away while we hurried down the line to security. BEEP BEEP BEEP faster and faster BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEP. There was no way to silence it, no way to take the batteries out of it, no way to throw it into some random trash can and run away without arousing anymore suspicion than wandering through an airport line with a beeping device was already causing. I frantically crammed it down into the bottom of Eric's London stuff sack and hoped that the NSA would leave me alone. It was the dumbest possible thing I could've tossed into my bag last minute.
The flight to London was uneventful, sleepless, and long. We deplaned and trudged sleepily through British customs and grabbed the Heathrow Express train to Paddington Station, desperately trying to stay awake.15 minutes later, we found ourselves in a chilly train station, surrounded by the smell of exhaust, coffee, and pastries. The awful airplane breakfast I had an hour prior turned in my stomach as we briskly walked towards the Paddington Hilton, hoping to find an internet cafe or somewhere that we could print out our travel documents and tickets to St. John's Cathedral where we hoped to view the London skyline and have lunch.
We struck out at the Hilton, but were able to find an Internet cafe in what seemed to be a former dungeon. In order to get down to the computers, you had to descend a mind-boggling, gravity-defying, tiny spiral staircase (potentially made for hobbit children) into a neat brick basement where the, "mind your head" sign was posted just a tad too late for someone as delirious as I was. We magically got down the stairs without much incident and went to sign onto the computer, only to discover that in order to pay by credit card, you had to go upstairs, outside, and next door. Eric volunteered for this task as Shirley and I tried various means of holding up the wall. After documents were printed, we walked up to check out and found that we had overpaid upstairs, outside, and next door. We could remedy this by again going upstairs, outside, and next door--but I was able to buy some coffee and get Eric a water and we called it a deal.
We hopped in a true London cab and sped off through the narrow, windy streets. We got to the cathedral, relished in the beautiful architecture, explored the crypt, and ate a ridiculously expensive and delicious lunch (feast) that would be our last western meal for a month. We lingered at lunch for so long that by the time we went back upstairs, the stairs to the top of the dome were closed--defying the purpose for our visit there. Oh well.

We hopped back in the cab, got back to the airport, went back through check-in, got through security, and waited for our AirIndia flight to Delhi, hoping desperately that our bags would make it to India and that we would have enough time to claim them during our brief 90 minute layover. After another 11 hour flight, we arrived at Delhi and were shuffled through a bizarre line that eventually led us to a desk where people were frantically yelling back and forth in Hindi, shuffling papers, gesticulating, slamming down phone receivers, and pointing at people in lines and telling them to move to other lines. When it was our turn, we were asked for our information by several people in several different ways, and told to sit and wait. We nervously sat on the floor, conscious of the narrow window of time elapsing until our Kathmandu flight. We were eventually grabbed by a woman with about 20 barrettes in the back of her hair who briskly asked us question after question. Thankfully, she was able to get our baggage checked through all the way to Kathmandu, and we would make it to our flight after all.
We were shuffled back into a balmy security line that smelled like B.O. and damp mildew, where security staff were were yelling, "JAMAICA...WHO IS GOING TO JAMAICA? SINGAPORE...WHO IS GOING TO SINGAPORE, you sir! HURRY HURRY." They kept pulling people who were obviously late for their flights out of the security line and putting them on planes; it was a sort of organized chaos that worked somehow. How every flight departing Delhi wasn't late all the time was a mystery. After Shirley and I were moved into a 'ladies only' line, which was a sort of sub-line, and hustled through security (spared no grope by the unsmiling security woman), we ran to our gate and arrived just in time to board after waiting for Eric.
We boarded our final flight 40 hours after leaving Denver and arrived in Kathmandu dazed, sleepy, and slightly dehydrated. After having to retake our passport photos at the airport, we got into the visa line. Eric and I were approached by a Dutchman who was stranded in the airport and facing deportation if he did not find the $40 for his Nepalese visa. For whatever reason, his bank had frozen his funds and he was desperately offering various things to get us to lend him the money so he could get through the line. Eric and I wordlessly agreed that we would just pay for the guy's visa and so it was. After being questioned repeatedly and promising that the person in my passport was ME, really ME, the officer processing my visa gave a nod and we were let into the country.
We shuffled into a very small cab, sandwiching our backpacks in the middle of the back seat between Shirley and I. We drove past a variety of double-decker storefronts, colorful vendor carts, parked rickshaws, small fires, buses, Pashtupati Paints billboards, water buffalo, and what seemed like millions of people. We caught our first glimpse of monkeys as they ran hurriedly in front of our car, weaving back and forth through the alley.
We arrived at the Kathmandu Tourist Home in Thamel, the tourist district which is marked by a dizzying array of pashmina shops, trekking stores, restaurants, souvenir carts, and tourist hotels. We checked in to our neat, cold rooms and marveled at the sketchy shower/toilet combo bathroom. In Nepal, there was not one shower curtain, and the bathroom would often be a small tiled room with a sink, toilet, and shower all on one wall and a drain in the middle of the floor. We each took the opportunity to shower, as none of us smelled too great after 40 hours of airport hopscotch. We planned on an early bedtime, but were starving, so we made our way over to a charming little restaurant called the Electric Pagoda where we sat outside under patio lights and colorful lanterns and sampled momos for the first time. We quickly found out how easy it was to over-order in Nepal, as plate after plate of food grazed our table; we did the best we could to pick through it, but were ready for bed and an early morning bus ride to Pokhara.

After sending out an email to inform our loved ones that we were alive and safe despite the political turmoil and transportation strikes, we headed off to sleep in our hard beds. We awoke, went downstairs to enjoy a breakfast of eggs and toast, and our first "milk coffee," unsure as to how much it would cost and who we should pay for it. We confusedly asked our cab driver whether we should pay and he said, "no problem," and accepted a 100 rupee note that he offered to the preteen who had cooked our 6am breakfast. At that point, we still didn't understand the conversion rate very well, so no one really understood what had just taken place. We later discovered that breakfast was typically included in the room cost, and that tipping was a nice way to say thank you, but wasn't at all expected.
Our cab driver took us to the bus stop, filing past bus after bus, we still have no idea how he managed to find the actual bus that we had tickets to. After waiting in a brief line, we went to board and were asked for tickets. "Three Sisters should've taken care of it," I replied. The attendant asked, "Three Sister?" "Yes," I replied. "Oh, okay. You sit here," he said, pulling people out of the seats he had pointed to and directing them to the back of the bus in an arrangement that made no sense to us. Shirley and Eric sat in front of me, we all watched as they 'securely' tied our backpacks to the top of the bus. Outside the window, there was a kid running back and forth trying to sell water and oranges to the passengers. Another group of people was huddled around an open burner sipping hot milk coffee and masala tea.

The bus started moving, we exchanged an excited glance and a grin, looking forward to the actual beginning of our adventure. We pulled out water bottles and cosied in, ready for our 7 hour bus ride. The upcoming election had caused the Maoist party to call for a transportation strike, and they had set fire to a bus a few days earlier for defying the strike. The tourist buses and cabs were still functioning, but there were no other cars on the road. As we neared the end of town, we were stuck in a huge cluster of buses trying to get out of Kathmandu. The buses were all stopped in order to be inspected by men in blue cammo military uniforms to evidently make sure that they truly were tourist, not local buses. We nervously held our breath, knowing that there was a possibility that we may not even make it out of Kathmandu. As we crept along, we snapped a few photos of morning life in Kathmandu.

We finally made it out of Kathmandu and crept down the windy 'highway,' towards Pokhara. We snacked on the remainder of our momos from the night before, which were somehow just as delicious the next day. We drove through jungle colored white from the road dust, fields of rice and grain where we watched as the people harvested their fall crop, and stopped at our first eastern toilet for a potty break. Yikes. We also caught a glimpse of the Marshyangdi river for the first time.

We stopped again at the equivalent of a Nepalese truck stop (except, there was no petrol station) to eat lunch which was a buffet of what looked like Dal Bhat, lentils, rice, curry, and fried noodles. Eric grabbed a heaping plate while Shirley and I wandered around the gardens below the restaurant and took photos of bizarre flora.

 

 
After another bumpy couple of hours, we arrived at the bus station in Pokhara where we were greeted warmly by one of the Three Sisters' drivers, who we would get to know rather intimately later. We asked that he take us by a money exchanger on the way to our hotel, and he nodded and drove us there. We were told to take approximately $30 per person per day for the trek, which added up to roughly $1400 for Eric and I for the duration that we expected to be trekking. Little did we know, and no one mentioned that due to the exchange rate being so crazy ($1.00=100 rupee), and the lack of large bills (1,000 was the highest), it would appear that we robbed a bank after we exchanged our money (imagine $1,400 in mostly 5 and 10 dollar bills). We exchanged wide-eyed glances and muttered under our breath, wondering how on earth one would stuff that much money into a backpack and keep it safe for a month. The currency exchanger didn't even an envelope large enough, so we nervously stuffed stacks of cash into our money wallets and every pocket we had. It was fairly ridiculous. We decided that Eric should star in his own gangster money photo shoot, which is precisely what we did upon arrival at our hotel.

After our gangster money photo shoot, we walked over to the Three Sisters office to meet with Nicki, who had helped to plan our entire trip. She had been so helpful and wonderful in keeping us updated with the political situation, and planning our adventure, that it was pleasing to finally meet her in person. We also met our tour guides, Bhagwati and Santosh for the first time. We left the office marveling at how old the two of them must've been. Santosh didn't look older than 16, and Bhagwati definitely didn't appear to be 30. We found out that she had done the Annapurna Circuit 26 times; which was quite an accomplishment. We relaxed, knowing we were in good hands.
November 17-19
Hello everyone,
After a bumpy, dusty bus ride, we arrived in Pokhara 2 days ago. We spent the day yesterday walking around the lake, eating unintentional feasts, taking photos, marveling at the colorful city and its huge, majestic peaks tucked behind the clouds, inhaling the sweet scents of curries and incense, watching the interesting politics that take place between water buffalo and the stray dogs that run around town. We were able to rent some fixies and took a bike ride outside of town, where houses are made of small cement huts with metal sheeting for roofs held down by large rocks to keep them from blowing away. We rode on past what we imagined the apocalypse to look like, people washing in irrigation ditches, kids chasing after us with gapped tooth smiles, broken down factories, blocks of building materials, dusty soccer fields, tiny shops filled with color, odd billboards, and broken down buses. To say that people here are friendly would be an understatement; we have been met with nothing but kindness. So far, Nepal is a truly remarkable place.
Today, we're planning on renting a canoe and paddling out to a small island to see one of the primary Buddhist temples in Pokhara. We're going to spend the rest of the afternoon re-packing, and meeting with 3 sisters staff to pin down the remaining details of our trek. We head for Besisahar in the morning, where we will begin our trek and these updates will become less frequent.
Love to all of you,
H, E, & S 

Sunset view of Phewa Lake from our first Dinner in Pokhara. Shirley enjoyed an Everest beer while we waited for fried noodles and momos.

                                                 Sunrise and first morning in Pokhara.

                                                          Our first clear view of the Annapurna range.

Women in line waiting to vote on election day.

                                                                    SK on wheels.

A striking red figure in the distance.

        We had so much fun watching this dog harass his water buffalo friend. He kept desperately barking at him, trying to get him to pay attention and play, to no avail.

The best named "school" ever.

We did end up taking the boat over to the Taal Barahi Temple on the lake. It was shocking that for $4.00 you could rent a boat and a paddler. Our paddler was rather cantankerous and didn't speak hardly any English; only enough to ask us how much we paid to rent the boat. When we told her, she scoffed at us, leaving us with the distinct impression that she thought we were idiots for paying so much. She wordlessly paddled us over to the island, where we spent a few quiet, reflective moments.

We packed and repacked our things, throwing everything that was not absolutely necessary into a duffel that Shirley had the foresight to bring. Hard decisions were made regarding how many pairs of hand warmers, how many pairs of liner socks, and how many pairs of underwear one could REALLY survive on for 24 days.
As we packed up, I left behind my book--I had brought a hardback so that I wouldn't be tempted to sneak it into my backpack. I had made the decision that I wanted to do my best to live fully in each moment without any distractions, no matter how small or 'insignificant'. I wanted to practice consciously owning my thoughts and reflections at night rather than my normal habit of reading right until the moment of sleep. As a crazy insomniac, it was a gamble--but one I was willing to take in order to thoroughly reset, reflect, and take note of the moments that were significant to me.