Day 18: Pokhara

Gnats and mosquitoes chewed us mercilessly last night and I didn’t get much sleep.  No lurking cockroaches made themselves known, however, so that was a small blessing: the random on and off blinking of the bathroom light must have kept them at bay.  At 7:15am I couldn’t stand to be in the hard bed any longer, so I roused Sam from across the room and headed to the bathroom to change into the same outfit I was wearing yesterday: it is too hot here to wear my only other set of clothes – thank goodness my stuff is antimicrobial and doesn’t stink.  We set out for a breakfast of cinnamon rolls and hot cocoa, but couldn’t find a place that served both, so we bought the rolls from a little family bakery that was mostly dirt free, but had a heavy dusting of flour over everything and already felt like an oven at 7:30am; then we headed down the street to the pizza place and sat at an outside table for two and ordered hot cocoa.  It was weak tasting, but the presentation was artful and rivaled the fanciest specialty coffee shop back home.  We think there are only one or two bakeries in the area and all the other shops and street sellers buy their products and resell them.  I tried to not imagine how many hands touched those pastries before they were bought and consumed. 

Teeka Resort, I wouldn't recommend it. Maybe it's a bug resort.

The place where we slept last night was not acceptable for another night, so on our way back from breakfast we toured another hotel and booked a room with them; then we came back to our place to waste time, since it was only 8:00am.  We had tried to ask our hotel for directions to the bus park, so we could walk there and know where it is for tomorrow, but no one would tell us.  Another reason to change hotels - that, and the dead cockroach right outside our room door.  Shops were just opening, the entire town had a sleepy feel to it, as if nobody really had anywhere they needed to go, and a general indolence pervaded the neighborhood.  Sam read and I went up to the roof to take photos and write.  The weather was shaping up to be glorious.

 At 10:30am we were hungry again, so we wandered over to a nearby restaurant called “Chilly” and sat upstairs on the balcony under the shade of a sun-bleached umbrella.  I had fries and another variation of a milkshake: this one consisted of milk with chocolate syrup and ice cubes.  Discovering everyone’s idea of what a milkshake was had become a hobby of mine; it is always different, like the fries, or the macaroni and cheese fiasco, because the people making such food have never actually eaten the “real thing” and cook according to their best guess.  We talked about opening up a cooking school as we slowly ate our second breakfast and watched two cows saunter down the middle of the road.

Set breakfast titles!  Heavy Set, anyone?

After a short sightseeing walk at noon, we returned to our first hotel to pack and then, with an air of haughtiness, moved down the street to our new hotel.  On the second floor, we paused, not remembering which room number we were supposed to be in, so we just chose an empty room, an end room in keeping with our usual teahouse placement, and called it ours.  I took a nice, long, hot shower and then joined Sam on the balcony and watched people and cows passing on the street below us.

New hotel

Helping ourselves to a room.

Our room even had a tiny balcony in the back - super cute.

We decided we’d walk and find the place that sells and rents Royal Enfield motorcycles, so we strolled down the main street until we found the bike place, but were unimpressed with its display.  Right next door to this place was a popular restaurant overlooking the lake called the Busy Bee; I liked its atmosphere, it reminded me of an old-school lounge club that is “members only,” so we decided to eat lunch there.  I ordered fries and another shake, but they couldn’t make the shake because the electricity was out, so we had fries and cokes from glass bottles – the coke had a different taste than what I am used to and was more fizzy, but it was tasty and the first carbonated drink I’d had in three weeks.

These bikes were excessively loud and easy to distinguish from all the puttering scooters.

Once we had eaten and rested in the shade, we decided to explore a bit and see where the main road led, so we walked and walked until we grew dusty, weary, and hot.  By 3:00pm we were back at our hotel and eagerly talked to the man at the front desk about the bus.  He sold us tickets, saying it was a “very good and fast” bus and that he got us seats at the very front of the bus so we could see out the windows and not have people crushing us with their seat-backs.  He then told us how to get to the bus station: it turned out to be the exact path we had just walked, only further, so we were elated that we finally knew what to expect tomorrow morning.

Shanti Stupa (Peace Pagoda) on top of Ananda hill.

Turning around from our exploratory walk.

Machhapuchhre and a paraglider.

Super popular tourist activity in the afternoons.

My iPod and Sam’s reader needed charging, so we sat on the balcony with our little solar charger and enjoyed the scenery and the hippie vibes of the trekker village.  Hippie, because it definitely had an aura of bohemian/free-love/come-what-may/ colorfulness to it and pedestrians with dreadlocks, long flowing hair and beards, bellbottom and harlequin pants, ponchos, etc. could be found wherever we looked.  I told Sam he had found his community.  Next door to our new hotel is my favorite restaurant, Silk Road, and incense wafted up to us from their back garden.  Lakeside Pokhara felt exotic and we were giddy with relaxation and elation at our trekking accomplishments.

Trekkers get crazy when there isn't any trekking to be done.

Sam caught me talking to myself about how the patio could be used for entertaining guests.

Total relaxation mode. 

I was just about to tell Sam that I was hungry again when I looked down at the street and spotted, who else, Johnathan walking along and looking up at all the buildings.  Sam and I waved and called to him from our balcony perch and he quickly came up and spent the rest of the afternoon with us, sharing trail stories.  It was an exciting reunion and I forgot all about being hungry until my stomach rumbled at 6:00pm and our friend said he still needed to find a hotel – ours was too expensive for him at $10 a night.  We said goodbye to him and slipped down to Silk Road for more fries and chocolate milkshakes and to listen to the band that was jamming on the little stage inside the main room.  While Sam was paying, I chatted with the band: they were practicing for a competition that was starting the next day to kick off the beginning of an event called Potato Festival – I was told this festival had its roots back to when farmers would bring their crops in from harvest, mostly potatoes, and sell them.  The guys said I should come tomorrow, but I sadly informed them that Sam and I needed to be on a bus, so they changed the invitation and said I should come back next year.  We all laughed and joked, until our hotel manager came over and complained about the music being too loud.  After he left, the general consensus was that he was just upset because Sam and I kept going over to Silk for meals instead of eating at the hotel, but we were under no obligation to buy our meals from his place - that only applied to teahouses.  So, the jam session finished for the evening, I wished the guys luck and Sam and I climbed to our rooftop to watch the 6:30pm weak sunset – apparently, colorless sunsets are not just limited to the mountain region – and we rested until 8:00pm, then walked down to our favorite pizza joint to get dinner for later and tomorrow’s lunch on the bus.

You've had how many milkshakes?! 

Ok, so there's some color.

The pizza joint was packed full of people, the music was blaring, and it was a very exciting place.  I confidently strutted past some confused tourist guys, clean and obviously newbies, and went to the correct counter, ordered our pizzas, and asked for boxes, just like a local would have done it; Sam paid at the correct counter and then we navigated our way through the crowd to wait at an empty table.  The observant tourist boys followed my lead and timidly placed their order, but were called back because they didn’t understand the pre-pay procedure.  Five quick minutes later, our wonderful pizzas were pulled from the open fire pizza ovens and I cruised past the wide eyed boys with boxes of pizza in my arms, like a grand prize winner.  Now, we are giddy with our pizza loot and are going to bed at 8:30pm, but the atmosphere down on the street is so festive it is difficult to settle down and get to sleep.

Words cannot convey how much this pizza makes me happy.