Kathmandu to Pokhara: March 2015
Kathmandu Airport
After we gathered our luggage, we went to get our visas. We all thought this was going to be a chaotic endeavor, but it was actually quite organized. We took a taxi to our guesthouse, and we were very pleased. The original plan was to buy bus tickets to Pokhara once we arrived in Kathmandu. From Pokhara, we would meet with our guide and start our trek of the Annapurna circuit the following day. I told Javier and Annette that there was no way I was going to be able to sit on a bus for 8 hours. I emailed Narayan, our contact person in Pokhara, told him our situation, and that we would be coming a day late. The guesthouse didn’t have room service, but when we checked in, they saw I was sick, and offered to bring me soup, which was delicious, while Javier and Annette had dinner downstairs in the restaurant. The two of them tried to book us another night at our guesthouse, but they were completely booked. Instead, they offered to shuttle us to their sister guesthouse a few blocks away. Not ideal, but it worked out.
Short stay in Kathmandu.
In the morning, I was already feeling better. My bowels were cooperating, but I was still feeling sickly. We transferred to the new guesthouse and I stayed back to sleep while Javier and Annette went shopping, and bought our bus tickets for the following day. They both needed some gear, and we all needed some medicine for the hike. They came back a few hours later looking quite accomplished. They had trekking poles, rain pants, rope, tape…all very MacGyver. We had planned to meet at the room for lunch, but when they came back, they said they didn’t make it to the pharmacy yet because Annette needed to use the bathroom and couldn’t wait. Thus starting Annette’s turn of fevers and explosive diarrhea. Nothing will bond (or break) friendships like having explosive diarrhea while traveling. Annette went downhill quickly. After the three of us went to the pharmacy to buy all of our drugs, Annette decided to forego lunch and returned to the hotel to sleep. Javier and I headed out to find some grub and run a few more errands. I had slept for most of the past 24 hours, plus I was packed full of medicines, so I was feeling much better. Javier was maintaining, and when we returned to the guesthouse, Annette was in a bad way. We talked about staying one more day so Annette could rest, but she insisted that she would be fine if she just kept sleeping, so that’s just what she did.
Bus to Pokhara
We were up bright and early the next morning. We ate some bananas, said a prayer, and got on the bus. Javier and Annette slept for most of the bumpy bus ride to Pokhara. I was wide awake. We drove through the Nepal countryside. It was beautiful. We stopped twice; once for breakfast, and again for lunch. At this point, I am the healthiest in our group. Javier is on the decline again, and Annette is trying to hang in there. We arrived in Pokhara without incidence, but I was fearing the return trip when our bus would be on the outside lane of the mountain roads.
Our hotel in Pokhara.
Narayan’s brother met us at the bus station and took us to our hotel. We settled ourselves and agreed to meet with our guide a little bit later. Narayan’s brother and Prem (our guide) met us at our hotel and together walked to a nearby restaurant to have tea and talk about the trek. My first impression of Prem was that he was very knowledgeable and experienced. When I spoke to him, he had a somewhat intense look on his face like he was studying me. He wasn’t very friendly, and we asked a lot of questions. At the end, I wasn’t sure if he liked us or not, and if we were going to be spending this much time with someone, we needed to like each other. I was a little bit apprehensive, but in the end, his experience is what I valued most, more than his friendliness, or lack thereof. We had been planning on leaving the next day, but at the last minute decided to stay one more day in Pokhara so we could take part in the Holi celebrations (an ancient Hindu spring celebration of color and love) We agreed to leave the day after.
Dinner in Pokhara.
During our meeting, Prem mentioned crampons. We told him we didn’t have any, and were kind of surprised he even suggested them. He said that they are sometimes necessary on the day we go over the pass, so it’s better to be safe than sorry. Prem picked up the crampons and brought them to our hotel. We spent the rest of the evening walking around the town, had dinner overlooking the lake, bought some Holi clothes, and went to bed early.
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Happy Holi!
We all slept in the next morning, and after a late breakfast, we geared up for Holi. We looked outside on the street and saw people with colored powder and water, so we filled up a water bottle each and walked down to the street. We saw kids running around splattered with colors, smearing powder over each other’s faces. We all had white shirts on, which made us stand out. I thought for sure that someone was going to run up and throw powder all over us, but they didn’t. They all looked at us, but didn’t attack. Finally, a little boy walked up with powder in his hands, held them out to us and said, “Happy Holi?” We said yes and bent towards him. He put his hands on each side of our faces, smeared powder all over and said, “Happy Holi!!!” Once the people saw we were game, it was on.
The colored powder. Happy Holi!
Before we knew it, we had powder everywhere. There was a parade moving down the street, and once we joined, there were hands all over our faces with people smiling, “Happy Holi!” When I say “we” I mean me and Annette. Javier was busy taking pictures, and the people were really respectful of his camera. He had a little bit of powder on him, but nothing like me and Annette. When I saw him, I told the people standing around to get him, and they did.
We quickly realized that we needed powder, so we stopped alongside the road and bought several packets. There was powder everywhere, the music was blasting, and people were standing on the roofs of buildings throwing water on the people below. We too were throwing water, which caused Annette to have her water bottle taken and dumped all over her, and some guy coming back to find me later on to douse me in water…all in good fun.
Happy Holi!
We followed the music and the crowd. Everyone was happy. We were all jumping and dancing and greeting each other with a “Happy Holi” and handfuls of powder. Everyone was so incredibly kind and respectful. I thought, if this were America, people would probably be smacking each other on the face, throwing powder in each other’s eyes, and somehow turning this into an unpleasant experience. But it was nothing but fun in Pokhara.
Once the parade was over, we decided to have lunch. We were surprised that the restaurant was willing to serve us when we were so dirty. We had heard that there was a concert somewhere, but after walking around for a while, our group decided to go back to relax and pack for our adventure.
Happy Holi!
We had originally decided on sharing one porter. This would mean we could each have 5kg worth of stuff to be carried by the porter. While everyone was packing, we realized that this was not going to work. Both Javier and Annette were not feeling well, so I opted to give the porter a sleeping mat (that I didn’t even need!) and leave the rest of my share to them until they started to feel better. Annette had a little more than 5kg to give the porter and still had a very heavy pack. After much back and forth, Javier made the decision to hire another porter- he was still too sick to carry such a heavy load, plus…he flat out brought too much stuff 🙂 So at 9pm the night before we are leaving, I emailed Narayan and asked if we could have another porter. He responded right away and said no problem.
Happy Holi!
We decided that Annette would have her own porter and Javier and I would share the other. In the morning our team arrived at the hotel to pick us up. We dropped the rest of our luggage at Narayan’s guesthouse and took a Jeep to Besi-sahar where we started our trek. Annapurna Circuit here we come!!!
To see more pictures of Kathmandu and Holi in Pokhara, click HERE.