Pokhara

As it turns out, there is more to Nepal than filthy, insane city and lunatic traffic. Pokhara is truly an outdoorsman's paradise. Famous for it's location by a river and seven lakes and nestled in a lush valley, there are more activities than you can shake a stick at and includes the ancient Nepali art of stick shaking. If you prefer more traditional activities, there is paragliding, ultralight plane flying, kayaking, hiking and trekking etc. We have a small hitch with most of these activities in the shape of our son, he is just too little for most of these, so we did a lot of walking up and down the main street, just shops and restaurants, restaurants and shops. From the main street branch the streets which contain the hotels and guest houses. There are in fact so many of these hotels that we saw one single other guest in the hotel we stayed at. One can't expect too much from a room which costs seven pounds a night, and that is precisely what we got. A ceiling fan, four walls, exactly what you really need. The mattresses are so very thin and hard that you feel crippled for the fist few hours of every day, but when you stretch out you're alright. It's the heat that will get to you. You can only take off so much and then you're in the shower every hour or so to cool down. Good way to keep clean I suppose. The owner of the hotel is nice enough and says all the right things to make you feel secure about letting your family sleep and eat there. The staff is the owner's family, and not one of them can muster a look of job satisfaction. I am not saying the name of the hotel because I don't to jeopardised his chances of making a good go of it, but he has a lot to learn. The food is bad the lesser rooms as significantly lesser, as earlier said the staff genuinely does not want to be there, and then there is the last straw. It was about midnight and We had been discussing finding another place to stay as the deficiencies outweighed the cost savings, and just gone to bed when a something scurried very quickly by the bed. I investigated. I have lived in some pretty budget places in my life, and I am familiar with cockroaches. Living in downtown Vancouver, one learns to make peace with the idea of cockroaches being essential ly everywhere. I have seen several television programmes which show these immense bugs, and I shuddered looking at the screen, so you can imagine my reaction when I realise the whole room is completely infested with these things. I kill what I can, and go find the owner to tell him the situation. He expresses surprise, clearly false as he must have encountered this problem before. This doesn't just suddenly happen. We area moved to another room on the fourth floor, much nicer and cleaner. I am still in the old room shaking out every item of clothing and bag, and finding enough bugs to start an all new infestation. It's around 2am now, and I have just moved all of the bags up the remaining flights of stairs, and I make a statement, "If I see just one more bug, we're gone". Naturally we found more bugs and hurriedly packed up again as Siobhan, with great resourcefulness, uses our tablet to find another hotel in close proximity with 24 hour reception so we can check in immediately. I am carrying four big rucksacks down the stairs, looking for the owner when I realise I have no idea which room is his, so I just head for the door. Amazingly, I find the front door chained and barred, a fire hazard I'd I ever heard of one, so to the back door. It is locked as well, but not difficult to circumvent. I try to be quiet as I carry the luggage through the very small back yard and through the even smaller side passage. The front gate is also bolted, are they trying to keep them out or us in? I carry our several tons of baggage down the dirt lane to an hotel we fortunately found and checked in.
The new hotel, the Crystal Palace, is a very nice, comfortable and friendly place, blissfully bug free, except for the one which stowed away in one of our bags. I all gave the a last phobic shake-out and a little roach skittered away (that's the only word I can use to describe the movement of these bugs), having hidden itself in a shirt. Stomp. Crisis averted. The rest of the stay we relatively uneventful, walks along the main road, lots of little coffee shops and window shopping (prices are much higher here than in Kathmandu), and a quick boat trip to the temple on a little island in the middle of a lake. Being a little boy, my son loved chasing the pidgeons congregated in the middle of the temple square , and ringing all tjebells which circle the small temple. I should mention that our son slept through the entire bug episode. A real trooper and a truely unflappable Englishman. He is still a little boy, and he gets scared, and I will relate a story in which he got scared for a good reason. That is a little later. For now, it's back to Kathmandu, and the joys of Nepali buses. Second verse, same as the first as far as the ride goes. We find breathing a little easier, I can only think that our lungs are getting used to the air. A few days in Bhaktapur, then to Thailand.
A few words about Bhaktapur. One of the original Nepalese centres still standing and the fees charged to get into the old main square are put toward conservation and renovation. A beautiful old city full of old temples and brick paved streets are lined with shops selling tourist tat, and restaurants all selling the same three drinks and suspect food. The are some cafés around the square that offer wonderful views of the whole area, and I highly recommend looking up pictures of Durbar square in Bhaktapur see what I mean. All over a quieter and less hectic (by Nepali standards) city, a little gem. We were going to visit the big Hindu temple between Bhaktapur and Pagan until we realised the smoke rising from the temple was due to the cremation of dead bodies. Again culturally acceptable, but nothing we want to breathe, besides we will see more temples than we thought possible in India. Again, more later.