From Nepal to Pai for a Breath of Fresh Air

I recently looked at my blog and realized that entire month has passed since the last post. I have also received several complaints from concerned readers who have demanded that the frequency of the updates be increased. While those complaints have been forwarded to my complaints department, it must be said they are however, severely understaffed and malnourished. After the standard 42 week waiting period for handling complaints, they would probably have reluctantly divulged to you that this part of my journey has been funded by an organization who, although wishes to remain anonymous, does wish that I would stop posting my blogs. This last month has been for you, guys!

So now, where to pick it up again...so we ended up leaving Varanasi behind for a two week "vacation" within a vacation from India by heading north to the border with Nepal. We had booked our journey through only to the border, as we were already familiar with the commissioned bus ride scams from other trips. We were still more or less hustled off of the bus in Sonauli to get our passports stamped with the rest of the travelers who were going to Kathmandu the following morning with the same bus. The commissioned touters also pressed everyone to exchange their Indian rupees before entering Nepal, since 'you won't be able to use them over there', which was set on their mouths on repeat.

Crossing the border, we found a separate place to stay before joining the rest of the group for dinner - where I found myself at the ghosts of America's war past table - seated next to a guy from Nagisaki and across from another from Vietnam. The next day we visited Lumbini (Siddhartha's birthplace) and toured the town by bike. Back at the hotel, Jojanneke was enticed by a picture of elephants in a brochure on the wall to book a 4-day stay at Chitwan National Park. It's located in the south of the country and offers much more than just elephants to look at.

We departed the following day by public bus and witnessed the multi-faceted uses of public transport in Nepal. It was a 6 hour journey in total, but that did include a detour to a residential neighborhood to load a family's possessions on to the roof (including a brand new fridge) to be transported to their new home. I tried to imagine a similar situation happening in Holland. I couldn't, but it was fun trying. Once at our destination, we discovered that there was only one other couple staying there. This meant that we had our own personal guide to show us around the park. Whilst there, we went for a jungle trek, attended a local dance show, took a slow boat ride down the river, went on an elephant ride where we saw rhinos in the wild, and did some more biking. After an enjoyable and relaxing 4 days we took the bus to Kathmandu, where we were to spend the next two days.

Kathmandu is no where near the "armpit" status level that Delhi has achieved. It's still a bustling city with plenty to do and see, but it's full of mostly non-aggressive people that make the city more enjoyable to experience. We stayed in the trendy tourist area, which was surprisingly much more western culturally than we had expected. It's a great city to go shopping in, if you are so inclined to like that sort of thing. We took a walking tour of the city and were able to see most of what we wanted to see in about a day's time, including the big market at Dunbar Square. Our time was very limited in Nepal, so before we knew it we were off to Pokhara and the Himalayas.

We hired a guide and went on a 4-day trek through the mountains and witnessed a beautiful sunrise on Poon Hill. Our guide was a young man named Mukunda, who liked to randomly utter one-liners such as, "This is Nepal", "Sorry, I feel guilty", and "Crazy Nepali wine." Needless to say, this provided us with plenty of enjoyment during our trek.

Unfortunately, our stay in Nepal was coming to an end, and we needed to make our way back to Delhi to catch our flight to Bangkok. We traveled by bus from Pokhara to Sonauli, and then on to Gorakhpur - a place you wouldn't want to be caught dead or alive in. The heat was so sweltering here that you couldn't do much more than lie in your bed, thinking about how hot it was. We went in the evening to the railway station to purchase train tickets and found around 400 people sleeping outside, as if they were waiting in line for the Indian Britney Spears tickets to go on sale. We found out later that it was the coolest place to sleep while waiting for your train.

After a night train ride, we arrived in Delhi early in the morning and were picked up by a friend of our driver (Aamir) from the first two weeks, who brought us to Aamir's place. We spent the whole day hanging out with him and his family, but made sure to make time for a visit to the Toilet Museum, which we could recommend to anyone who comes to Delhi. The evening was capped off with a little whiskey on the rooftop of a friend of Aamir's. It was really the best way to end our trip through India -

I'm writing this now in Pai - which means that we've survived Bangkok and Chiang Mai. My first impressions of Thailand were that it was very clean compared to India, and full of friendly and helpful people. The other thing I noticed is that as a result, there are not so many interesting things happening to us to report. Well, that's not entirely true. We were recently informed that both Jojanneke and I have been accepted to our master's programs in Sweden this fall at Dalarna University! Jojanneke is going to be studying tourism destination development, and I'm pursuing a sociology degree. The only downside to this is that although we are attending the same school, all of her lessons are at the Borlange campus and mine are in Falun. We are looking into our lodging options and hope that we can find a middle laying location to live. If all goes well we'll be in Sweden as of the 15th of August - visits are welcome.

We're leaving in a couple of hours for the Thailand-Laos border, where we'll be taking a slow boat ride down the river to Luang Prabang. Laos is said to be a lot less touristy - but because of that don't know exactly what to expect. You'll find out what happens to us though in the following blog - which if you go by the frequency of the first four, might be in a month or two's time.

Hopefully before then - greetings from Pai!!

Mark