Nepal didn’t start so well for me. And part of the time I was there I didn’t feel that Nepal was going so well for me; I got really concerned that I’d lost all my travelling spirit, spent 3 days in serious pain regretting not doing any post-trek stretching and ate so much bread and so many croissants I’m actually looking forward to white rice. So overall, I’m struggling to find a way to explain Nepal that paints the appropriate picture of my impression of it. Because I don’t feel anything negative about it, I just don’t think I ever really clicked with it properly the way other travellers seem to. I’m reluctant to say that I felt indifferent about it because that seems unfair but then it’s not going down as one of my favourite destinations. I’d recommend it to others though, and I wouldn’t rule out going there again myself so really this is becoming quite confusing for me but, with the benefit of hindsight, I’ll summarise my time there and see if I come out the other end with a bit more clarity. (This post could get long and probably very rambly so maybe grab a drink if you are interested in getting to the end of it without starting to want to smack me across the face to get on with it)

I think a big part of why I’m struggling with Nepal is that I came at it with completely the wrong approach. It’s the kind of place that lends itself perfectly to the carefully planned 2-3 week trip or the 1-2 month non-planned approach. Not the 2-week no-plan-except-a-bunch-of-post-its-in-my-guidebook approach. Or at least not when you realise it’s pretty sacrilege to arrive there with plans not to do any trekking at all and end up changing your mind/getting bullied into doing it.

Across the border at Kakarbhitta, some US dollars changed and my last 2 bananas consumed for lunch, I was soon approached by a few agents pitching bus tickets for Kathmandu. I wasn’t sure how long the bus ride would take (the Lonely Planet stating 17 hours but the traveller grapevine time-scale ranging from 12 to 14 hours) so I decided to go on one of the late-PM ones to avoid arriving into Kathmandu in the middle of the night. Unfortunately, the queasiness I’d been feeling on the jeep ride down the mountain from Darjeeling, and dismissed as some freak occurrence of carsickness, didn’t get better. It actually got worse after those last 2 bananas for lunch so I managed be sick quite a few times just in time for our 16.30 departure. Clearly Darjeeling bananas are bad for you on travel days.

The bus ride was bumpy and I only made it through the first two hours before our first planned stop because I was chatting to an awesome Aussie guy, sharing mutual South America travel stories. He also made sure the bus didn’t actually take off without me after our stop because apparently Nepali buses do not wait for passengers that are throwing up in the unpleasant rest-stop drop toilets. After that, I decided I would only survive the bus ride by keeping food consumption to the absolute minimum and hope that the roads would even themselves out a little bit (or the bus’ suspension miraculously start working). But the roads didn’t change and our deluxe AC bus did not miraculously become an actual deluxe AC bus and my seat wouldn’t quite stop in the reclined position and would inch its way upright at its own will and I unsurprisingly had the most rubbish overnight-bus-sleep since I had the crappy seat at the front of the bus on one of my Ecuador journeys. But this trip was so much longer and 12 hours gave way to 14 hours which gave way to 16 1/2 hours before we actually arrived in Kathmandu. So on this occasion, the LP turned out to be the most accurate source of information.

We shared a taxi to Thamel, the tourist ghetto, where I was insanely thankful that I’d decided last minute to pre-book a hostel because that took all hassle out of trying to find a place to stay. So I dumped my stuff and went to a German bakery to enjoy nearly-proper coffee and nearly-proper bread in a distinctly non-Nepali setting, far away from Nepali buses and out of reach of Nepali rickshaw wallahs who were already testing my patience.

My first impression of Kathmandu wasn’t good but I was totally aware of the fact that I was not in the mood to be patient with the persistent rickshaw wallahs, souvenir salesmen, travel agency touts or indeed the drug dealers. One particular guy pushing hashish even apologised to me after he got a particular stern ‘For fuck’s sake, NO I do not want ANYTHING!’ so I probably wasn’t Kathmandu’s favourite person either.

I did day trips out of central Kathmandu, to the monkey temple (where there was a distinct absence of monkeys), Pashupatinath (which I somehow managed to time so I saw no cremations at the ghats), Boudhanath (which is pronounced in a way that is not at all logical based on the spelling so getting directions is a little interesting), and Patan. I also nearly managed to avoid having to pay for Durbar Square but then got hunted down by one of the female guards so ended up getting my permit but then didn’t get stopped any other time I went through (typical). But after 3 days I was very ready to leave, I had had enough, Kathmandu was draining my will to travel in its tourist-focused commercialism. I get that Kathmandu is like that, being the transit stop-over for people as they arrive and set off on their trek or come back from their trek or have to spend their last few hours picking up last minute souvenirs before flying out of there. But man is it an exhausting place for all the wrong reasons if you in your 10th month on the road and looking to get under the skin of a country.

Instead of heading straight to the mini-Kathmandu of Pokhara, I decided to stop for a night at Bandipur, a village up the top of a hill roughly 2/3 of the way. That still entails paying full Kathmandu-Pokhara bus fare (and thus started my dislike of Nepal’s tourist buses) and a lot of attempts at sign language with the bus driver so he knows you want to get off at Dumre and not continue in all the way to Pokhara. He eventually (with some translation help from the Nepali guy in row 3) understood and let me off the bus at the right place. No one else was getting off to make the connection up to Bandipur so I was preparing myself for either a long wait for a shared taxi or the bus to fill up, or an expensive ride to get there. But then I ran into two Belgians who had stopped on the way in the opposite direction who asked if I wanted to split the jeep with them so in the end it was much easier than anticipated and I had nice people to hang out with for the next 24 hours. We got approached by a really lovely guest house owner as soon as we got out the jeep in Bandipur who was so happy to fill two rooms she let me have the nice twin room at their cheapest rate. Travel stories exchanged over lunch (or more accurately, over the wait for lunch because it takes absolutely ages to get your food in Nepal), we decided to head out on the walk to what is supposedly the largest cave in northern Nepal. Once we got there (a pretty long walk down a hill that was a lot less fun on the return) we all decided we’d seen better.

The next morning, I went for a wander with my camera, made sure I had seen all the sights that actually exist in that tiny little, but so lovely, pedestrian-only hilltop Newari village, said goodbye to the Belgians and caught the local bus back down the hill to make a connecting ride to Pokhara.

I ended up catching a minivan for the same price as the bus (they had one seat free and I was happy to hold out for a local bus so for once I had all the negotiating power) and then, once in Pokhara, the local bus from the ‘bus station’ (read: side of the main road) to Lakeside. The nicest elderly German man insisted I take the first free seat, gave me all his intel on accommodation options (we had matching maximum budgets!) and onwards buses and showed me postcards he bought of the rhododendrons in bloom at Ghorepani (he had detoured from his 3 week trip in northern India to do the trek to Poon Hill to see them) so I knew what to look forward to on my trek. He also told me about the trip he did back in the ‘60s when he drove his Ford overland from Germany to India and that pretty much elevated him to total cult status in my eyes – coolest traveller I’ve met, no contest.

I totally lucked out on accommodation in Pokhara as the first guest house I went into to ask about room prices turned out to have a 3-bed dorm for just 200 NRs. That was the cheapest I’d seen in Nepal that far so I didn’t need to check out other places.

The next day I started the 4d/3n Poon Hill trek. I had booked it at my hostel in Kathmandu where the owner, every day, had been asking about what trek I wanted to do and had pitched several options; ‘you in nepal 2 weeks? I think you do 10 day trek’, ‘2 weeks so definitely enough time for 7-day Langtang trek and time to see Kathmandu and Pokhara too!’, ‘we have really good short treks, 5 days would be really good. You book from here even if start in Pokhara’. It was impossible to escape and everything is apparently possible when it comes to treks in Nepal and this guy had probably never seen any tourist arrive and declare that trekking was definitely not in the plans. That kind of mindset is not going to go down for a hostel owner who organises treks every single day and, to be fair to Nepal’s trekking options, it’s also probably not the kind of mindset that should be used as an excuse not to do any trekking at all. So I caved in and signed up for the short version of the Poon Hill trek.

I was really sceptical about doing a trek on my own, with just a guide for company, for two reasons; 1) I hate when I have to pay extra because I’m just one person and 2) I like being around people to share the experience with. Realising he wasn’t going to get me to commit to a trek without addressing those two issues, the guy at my Kathmandu hostel let me book it at the group price and assured me (backed up by other people I met in Kathmandu) that there are so many other people trekking that I’d meet people along the way. But the problem is that you only really do that if you happen to be staying at the same tea houses as the same groups every day and that’s just very unlikely. And you still do the actual hours of trekking each day with just your guide and I quickly realised that I don’t actually enjoy the trekking itself enough not to need other people around me to chat to, pace myself against and share the physical pain of the ‘uncountable steps’ my itinerary warned me against at the end of Day 1 and the view of ‘the sunrise for lifetime reminiscence’ while wondering if we could feel the onset of ‘a life changing awareness after watching the sunrise over the view of the Himalayas’, as the itinerary also promised. That’s not to say my guide wasn’t absolutely awesome (because he totally was), it’s just that I’m fundamentally not a trekker, I just like the experiences that come with the trekking and I like being around other people in those experiences.

The sunrise views from Poon Hill were awesome, despite the huge amount of tourists and the French kid who had a seat on the best positioned bench and still threw a massive hissy-fit because her chocolate bar wasn’t the type of chocolate bar she wanted (I’m not a parent so I don’t know how difficult it is to teach your child to be respectful and not act like a spoiled brat so I won’t judge the complete lack of response from her parents too much. But I’ll still judge a little because they had taken her somewhere freakin’ awesome that not a lot of kids get to see and experience and she should probably know that. And (unlike me) she still had a chocolate bar! So I reckon I actually had way more reason to be throwing hissy-fits). And the rhododendrons in bloom all over the valley and hillsides were as beautiful as the postcards had indicated.

On day 3, we got caught in a rain storm that turned into a hail storm and I was fearing for my DSLR’s life. But I had come prepared with many many plastic bags and it escaped unharmed (but I have no photos of that day which is a shame because we walked through such a beautiful forest).

Back in Pokhara, back trying to eat my way through the bread on offer at the German bakeries, the pain of the trek was setting in (why didn’t I stretch? Why?!) so I decided to combat that by going paragliding. No, actually I just wanted to try paragliding and why not do it over a lake with a view of the Annapurna range? My Romanian instructor didn’t really grasp my sense of humour when I tried to make a joke about running down the mountain for take-off (lesson learned: don’t joke with Romanians about the very important paragliding take-off!) but he made sure I didn’t regret having trusted a piece of fabric and the wind (and him) to carry me across the sky for 30 minutes and safely back down to the ground.

From Pokhara I had to take a(nother) day-bus (I hate them, I want to travel overnight) to get south to Chitwan National Park (apparently people don’t mind wasting entire days on buses in this country so there are hardly any overnight options available) where I was really hoping to see a rhino at closer range than the tiny dot of a rhino I saw when I was on the safari in Ngorongoro in Tanzania a few years ago. But like Thamel and Pokhara and Poon Hill, Sauraha (the access town to Chitwan) is also overrun with tourists and here, most of them were of the package variety and I didn’t have (or want) a package. So instead I went to a few travel agents, found the best deal I could on a jungle walk and a jeep safari, one of which I figured had to result in seeing a rhino. They tried really hard to sell me on an elephant safari (apparently that’s part of those packages people buy to see this place) but I have developed a bit of a principle thing about not wanting to encourage how they are treated so I opted to avoid that.

The jungle walk started early and involved a safety briefing before we went in so now I know that the way to survive the wildlife of southern Nepal includes hiding behind trees, climbing trees, running in zig-zags, making lots of noise and, in case of a tiger, eye contact is key so don’t stop trying to stare it out. While making lots of noise. But not running in zig-zags. That’s just for the rhinos.

The weather was grey and misty that morning, a bit rainy and with a thunderstorm threatening to come our way the entire 3 hour walk so not ideal for wildlife spotting. We eventually saw two rhinos in the watering hole they use but they were far off and hard to spot without binoculars. My guides were super sweet and apologised for the limited wildlife encounters but I didn’t expect them to have control of the weather so I definitely didn’t fault them. But then, as we were walking along the raised path next to the river to get back to Sauraha, suddenly a rhino walked out from right under us and went just across the river where it stopped to try to see if we were a threat (and to give me a chance to get my camera out to get a shot!). It was literally 2 meters from us when it heard us and moved and we first spotted it! And then as a little added bonus, we saw tiger prints 10min later which I was quite alright with because I don’t think I would have fared well trying to stare down a tiger.

Back in Sauraha, the thunderstorm arrived and the rain started. And it was hardcore. And continued for so long that all the afternoon jeep safaris were cancelled. So instead I walked to the elephant breeding centre which didn’t change my opinion on how they get trained in captivity, although there were signs up that seemed to indicate that they were aware that changes should be made to their treatment which just ironically were contradicted right there next to them.

From Sauraha, I headed towards the Indian border but detoured slightly to Lumbini, where Buddha was born, to hopefully finish Nepal on a calm note. While there, I ran into the lovely Aussies who I’d met at the tea house on the last night of my Poon Hill trek, rented a bike, saw Buddha’s birthplace and cycled to some of the temples in the Lumbini Development Zone (China’s was the biggest, which is probably no surprise, but Germany’s was the prettiest and Cambodia’s, which is still unfinished, the most photogenic).

And that was my time in Nepal. I did a lot (probably too much) but I kept searching for that thing that would make me have that ‘wow’ moment about Nepal. But it never came. I suspect that’s because I didn’t have enough time to either head off the tourist trail or to do a longer, more impactful trek. So I’m back at the conclusion that I just didn’t approach it correctly given that I had only 2 weeks. I tried to do it the way I’ve come to prefer travelling, where my planning abilities support the get-to-know-a-place-properly thing but it’s too hard to get off the tourist trail in Nepal for that to work over such a short period of time. But I grew to love dahl baht (the cheapest and best value-for-money meal you can get your hands on) and I had awesome chili chicken momos in Bandipur that a little local place with limited signage in Sauraha managed to trump completely and that I will have to try to recreate when I go through one of my I-can-totally-teach-myself-how-to-cook phases when I get home because they are AMAZING.

So Nepal is a beautiful country nature-wise, a friendly country people-wise and a popular country tourism-wise. If anyone ever pitches one of the basecamp treks to me, I’d be up for returning (with a plan) but otherwise, I think Nepal and I just have to accept that we didn’t bring out the best in each other and therefore just weren’t meant to be.

 

Today I’m listening to: Florence + The Machine – ‘What Kind Of Man’