Indescribable

Cave Collage


Prajwal’s cousins last day of work was Monday and now we are a trio of unemployed people in Katmandu. What to do but celebrate! We went to the Garden of Dreams, a beautiful garden in the middle of a very polluted city. It is quiet, clean and green. It is a nice break from the big city where 1 in 8 people wear masks so they can breathe.

At 6pm we decided that we wanted to go to Pokhara, a city 7 hours to the west with two lakes and a popular vacation spot. One of their friends Samrat was already there, so we called another friend Anjil, who has a car and asked him if he wanted to go with us. He told us he would go if we waited until the morning. Praj and Bunu were set on going immediately and being spontaneous so we checked into taking a bus, but they don’t run that late and we made plans to leave the next morning.

We woke up at 4:20 AM, I haven’t woken up at that time in forever and all I wanted to do was sleep. We took a cab across town to meet Anjil, but he wasn’t there so we started walking and he finally showed up 20 minutes later. Nothing like waking up early and then having the person you are supposed to meet not being there on time. The sky had very few clouds and as soon as we pulled out of town I could see some Himalayan mountain peaks. Breathtaking, spectacular, wonderful, amazing!

I finally finished Shantaram, a book based mostly in Bombay, India. The book is over 900 pages and was very interesting. I don’t think I have ever read a book that big before, I was proud of myself and I am glad to get rid of the extra weight of the book. Especially since Prajwal has read 4 books during that time and I have all of his in my bag to read.

A truck broke down and we had to wait in line for an hour and a half while cars from each side took their turn on the now one lane road. There are so often traffic problems that you cannot base your timing on anything when you are driving on these roads.

In Pokhara we went to Devi’s Falls, a waterfall that goes underground and you cannot see the bottom. Then if you go across the street there is an entrance to a cave that you can walk through and get to the bottom of the waterfall and see the underground river. The view inside the cave was spectacular with light and water pouring through the opening.

Then we went to a fancy hotel with a pool and went swimming. Praj cannot swim and always tries to learn but he thinks he’s going to drown and give up. Praj asked me to show him how to swim and I tried but gave up. Samrat also tried and eventually gave up as well. Then Praj started shouting “Who wants to teach me to swim? I’ll pay you $100” A girl and her two friends volunteered, I’m not sure if it’s volunteering if you want to get paid for it, but they tried as well. They worked hard and the two friends even held Praj as he tried to swim, but Praj got tired from the vigorous workout and gave up.

We took a paddle boat out on the lake, the views are spectacular and the lake was wonderful. It was lots of fun and we were able to keep Praj from flipping the boat, that in itself was a miracle. Our hotel has hot showers, really hot showers and it was my first hot shower in what feels like forever. It was incredible.

We woke up early to head back to Katmandu and visit some sites on the way. We got to the edge of town and were informed that there had been an accident and the road was closed. We went down a back road to try and get around the accident, we would drive around a corner, see a fork and have to ask a local which way to take. The locals kept pointing for us to turn around because they said that was the easiest way. We kept asking people and finally made it through to the main road. Unfortunately we hadn’t made it past the accident and weren’t allowed to go any further. Looks like we will have to spend another day in Pokhara, should be fun!


Garden of Dreams

The clouds are coming

Goddess

I saw someone else take this pic and it looked cool

Pond, I know my captions are lame

Sitting at the pond with the sun in my eyes

Teeter Totter

I win!

Praj Kong

Aren't my legs sexy?!?!

Wow

Amazing

Spectacular

The falls

Inside the cave

I'm so tan

Paddle boats on the lake

So pretty

Don't rock the boat

Nice language

Inside the house restaurant

Friends

Baby Rice

Stuck in the mud