Donnerstag, 1. März 2012

 March 1 - Travel Day
We got up at 4 a.m. in the morning after turning around in bed from one side to the other one for about 5 hours. My morning started "wonderful" because I had to vomit first (not because of the food - plain rice is no problem for me:-) - but because of exhaustion. This was my 3rd night in a row with hardly any sleep and around that early time in the morning I was just exhausted and tired).
For breakfast we used the in-room-dinning-service at 5:30 a.m., check out was at 6:15 a.m. and then we took a taxi to our bus station. Of course many people were awating us and our luggage was carried to the trunk of the bus by 3 people again (and "as usual" we had to pay tip for 3 guys). Our bus "Baba Adventure Line" was already waiting for the passengers but we were the first one's who boarded.


I thought I was lucky and we chose some seats in the front of the bus. But then the driver came and said, that we were seated and Christoph and I got the very last seats on the back seat. I asked if it might be possible to get some seats in the front of the bus because I get bus-sick very easily and the driver answered "I'll see what I can do for you". Later on we were seated on seat in front of the very last backseats.....

Facts to the ride on the bus:
departure time: 7 a.m.
arrival time: 2:15 p.m.
stops: 3 (one short for toilet-use, one for breakfast and one for lunch (lunch was included in the price))

The journey on the bus was a real adventure for me. When we got on the bus, the driver had just lit some incencse sticks (strange smell:-). Our bus was blue with pink seats, pretty old and the spring system of the bus unique. When we departed Christoph and I started jumping on our seats:
The streets in Nepal were full of road holes, and the rear of the bus was moving up and down like hell. It got hotter from minute to minute and through the open windows only heat and dust came in. After one hour I was so bussick that I took a pill (thanks to my sister who presented me these pills on X-mas:-) And after taking the pill I started feeling "high", not being part of this world anymore and somehow like being part of "Hippi-movie": the pill made me feel tired but I tried to stay awake to look out of the window. It was still hot and dusty, the smell of the incense sticks filled up the whole bus and one guy started playing some oriental music.
Fortunately I didn't need to pee at our first stop (there were only some plastic blinds next to the road and we could pee behind them:-) At our 2nd stop Christoph was wondering about my strange behaviour but I just said "feeling good, enjoying the trip" and smiled. Our 3rd stop made me feel worried again because we had lunch over there and from the whole buffet I could only eat the plain rice again (everything else was too hot and spicy again). Christoph tried to convince me softly that I should start getting used to these meals again but I didn't feel like it and I postphoned it to another day.....

Here I took a movie of Christoph sleeping on the back seat. All the moving up and down were caused by the bus, I were only holding the camera and didn't move at all:


The other funny thing about the ride on the bus was the "elephant race". When we left Kathmandu the road was steep and winding (first up, later down), before it got flatter at the end. On the steep and winding part our bus tried to pass hundreds of trucks like this: stepping out of line and honking the horn like hell, full braking if we had oncoming traffic and going back in line again or if we had no oncoming traffic passing while honking the horn.


Some impressions from our journey from Kathmandu to Pokhara:





Hey guys from Saarland: they even have a swinging grill (right side of the picture:-)

When we finally arrived in Pokhara a passenger of the bus offered us his help to get a taxi to the 3 sisters guesthouse, where we wanted to stay.  But even though we hadn't received a confirmation letter yet we were picked up at the bus stop, checked in at the 3 sisters guesthouse and slept til 4 p.m. Then we went out to explore Pokhara:

our room at the 3 Sisters guesthouse
an attached bathroom is luxury

 Phewa Lake

walking along the promenade at Phewa Lake

Pokhara

hiring boots at Phewa Lake

restaurant tables

hiring boots, small island to pray on it and Stupa on the peak of the hill in the background
I spent my first money buying 2 necklaces from a Tibetian refugee and later on I bought folding walking sticks and a diary (the paper of the diary was made of Nepalese paper). When we found a noble Italien pizzeria I convinced Christoph to have our dinner over there and the first time since our arrival I enjoyed my meal and wasn't hungry anymore:-)
When we walked back to our guesthouse we learned, that it is necessary to carry a torch after sunset because it is really dark and there were no street lamps to light our way:-)
Back at our room I took some notes of our trip and wanted to read in my tour guide book but at 10 p.m. we had a power cut that lasted the whole night:-)

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