September 23rd-NEPAL TRIP

Sunday, September 23, 2009

Last week we had off Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday for Eid break. My roommate Donna and I and our friends Kristen and Stephanie went to Nepal for 4 days. We left on Friday, midday. That Thursday night I felt like it was Christmas Eve, I could barely sleep I was soo excited. I needed a break from school badly too. We had booked our tickets with a travel agent and he had recommended that we get to the airport 3 hours in advance and be mindful that there might be bad traffic. For once in Dhaka there was zero traffic and we got to the airport in about 10 minutes. Mozib drove us in a school van and I was singing karaoke over the buses’ intercom system the whole way-typical. Kristen forgot her travel Rummy Cube, which she is obsessed with but our trip mom (Donna) would not let her go back for it. Haha. When we arrived at the airport there were more people begging outside on the sidewalk then there were in the actual airport. We got through baggage check, check in, and security in about 15 minutes. So we had hours to kill at the Bangladeshi airport. We headed for the Duty Free shop.
While Donna and Kristen were busy buying rum I played dress up with one of the male shop keepers who showed me how to put on a sari correctly after I had picked it up to inspect it. He put it over my head and then wrapped it around my body-the whole thing was a complicated process. Then I had to take pictures with all of the shop keepers-they thought this little white girl dressed up in a sari was hilarious. We proceeded to the next Duty Free shop. This one was more legit and I bought 2 bottles of red wine for our trip; something that is hard to attain in Dhaka. With more time to kill we went for coffee at a typical Bangladeshi restaurant. This means that they have all different types of cuisine on the menu including Bangladeshi and there are some very interesting spellings on the menu. It’s a gamble whether you will actually get what you order and I am very wary of any item listed as “vegetarian” because this doesn’t really guarantee much of anything. Really yummy, whipped, sweet coffee though. There were tons of other teachers going on holiday and families from the school as well so there were plenty of people to chat too.
Finally time to board and no doubt, this was the number one sketchiest plane I’ve ever been on in my life. The seats interior looked like someone puked up the 1970’s all over the inside; huge orange and blue and vomit green flower patterns everywhere. We had tried to get seats together but this did not work so I was several rows behind Donna and Kristen and Steph. Have way through the flight the control panel (with the call buttons and lights) in the row of seats in front of mine promptly fell out of the ceiling. I was staring up into this black hole with all these blue and red and green wires hanging out of it. I tried not to look but I couldn’t help it. Two stewardesses tried to put it back and when they could re-put it up there the co-captain came marching back with a silver roll of duct tape and taped the damn panel back up. Ghet-to.
The flight was only and hour long and they served some suspicious looking sandwich that looked like chunky mayonnaise, which I did not have, as well as some sweet noodles, which I did try and were pretty good. I saved my soda they served us for later to make rum and cokes. When the flight (thankfully) landed, we came down, over the mountains into Kathmandu, which is a valley with mountains all around it.
Once off the plane, we got onto a bus that took us about 100 yards to the terminal. The airport was only one level and very small with beautiful Hindu-looking wood carvings everywhere. I felt at peace already. A lady took our temperatures with a thing that looked like a radar gun and we all passed! We also had to fill out a swine-flu card. We already had our visas so this part was quick. When we got through all of the desk stuff we were trying to figure money, exchange rates, ATM’s, etc. because Nepal uses Rupees but we were mobbed almost immediately. We had been told you could hire a taxi (which looks like any really small beat-up car) to take us anywhere we wanted to go. A guy agreed to take us there and said we could stop at an ATM along the way. This is typical of a lot of people of Asian countries-they will tell you whatever you want to hear whether they know what you’re talking about or not.) For some reason we had all these people swarm us, asking us where we were from, what we were doing, etc. Our hired guy hustled us into the taxi and we set off for Nagarkot.
We slowly made our way out of Kathmandu, descending hire and hire into the hillsides and taking in all the local architecture and street life. I want to own a fixer-uper in Nepal-there are some gorgeous empty houses here that are just going to waster or have squatters living there. We went up and up this switch-back road carved into the hillside. It was quite scary the higher we got-the road became unpaved and these motorcyclists would whip around the curves at high speed, packed buses with people riding on top going very fast. We finally got up to the top of the hillside and were passing all these guesthouses when we asked if we were near the Nagarkot Farmhouse, where we were staying and where the nearest ATM was. He looked us like we were crazy and it turns out he A. had no idea where we were going, and B. didn’t know where an ATM was. Despite this, we felt like we were at the top of the world and we were staring at beautiful rolling hills rice terraces and our sense of adventure was strong. We kept winding along this steep, curvy, rocky, pot-holly road until we finally found the Nagarkot Farmhouse. We were able to pay our driver in US dollars and we gave him a BIG tip for braving the journey. We had actually gone all the way to the top of this steep hillside and over the edge and started going down again.
We were so incredibly happy that we had kept going once we were there. The Nagarkot Farmhouse was the cutest place on earth; the moment we arrived they didn’t ask about money or our reservation, they simply asked us if we wanted some tea or coffee. So we sat on the outside patio, looking out at the Nepalese hillsides with prayer flags waving drinking lemongrass tea and coffee with steamed milk and sugar. It was so incredibly nice. There was a little lodge with a fire place and some table and a small bar and then a stone patio attached and a lawn area with more tables and chairs. They showed us to our rooms. Stephanie and Kristen shared a room and Donna and I shared another room. Donna and my room was on the end and had two huge windows. Again, the rooms were soo cute; two little twin beds with big fluffy duvets, stone floors, candles for nighttime and a wrap around porch with lounge chairs.
That night for dinner we were the only guests besides one other couple and their son. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was put I hadn’t really eaten a meal all day. Nepal is also an hour behind Bangladesh so I was starving by dinner time at 7. I had brought UNO with me and we had picked up a bunch of bottles of wine from the Duty Free before leaving Dhaka. So we sat around and played UNO and drank red wine. The owner of the place came and sat with us and chatted. He told us that it was unusually cold for this time of year. It was indeed pretty chilly but it was so nice to wrap up at night and put on pants and shawls and sweaters and not be sweating insanely. A little elevation makes such a huge difference!
Dinner was amazing. They brought us four plates and huge pots of everything; a dark dahl (lentils), rice, cooked vegetables, cooked cabbage, and chicken. It was so nice to have a delicious home-cooked meal. Everything was excellent and I think we ate about 3 plates each. We had so much fun that first night-we were basically the only ones there so the more we drank the louder we got and we were just so happy and giddy to be on vacation somewhere other than Dhaka.
In the morning we got up early. I didn’t even need an alarm to wake me up, I got woken up by the sun shining in. We all got up and watched the sunrise together. As the sun came out and the clouds lifted a bit we could just see the tops of the Himalayan mountains way off in the distance. Even from far away they were amazing! They were so jagged and so high up, punching out above the clouds. They were very dramatic.
After taking a bazillion pictures, I took a hot shower and headed up to the lodge for some delicious coffee and steamed milk. We sat out on the porch, wrapped up, enjoying the crisp morning drinking cups of coffee from blue and white china cups and saucers.
After an hour or two, they asked us if we wanted breakfast, to which the answer was of course, yes. We had these flat, round breads with butter and peach jam, which they make on sight. We also had yummy egg omelets with mixed veggies and chillies. I was so impressed with the food so far!
We decided we should probably get moving before the food coma set in and a mid-morning nap became too tempting. So we strapped on walking shoes and headed back up and over the hill the way we had arrived. It was so nice and warm during the day, getting pretty hot compared to the chilly nights. It was just so nice to feel a contrast other than hot and sticky. We hiked up the dusty road, taking short cuts when we saw them. We checked out the other guest houses at the top of the hill. Our walk was so nice and relaxed. Stopping at little craft shacks and tea houses along the route we talked to local people who were all so nice and didn’t pressure you to buy anything.
Arriving into the small town of Nagarkot we found some local children who were flying a kite on the side of a cliff. They spoke very good English and let us fly their kites. We met some other children who right after meeting us asked if we had any chocolate-smart kids! We wandered around, and found some really cool things. There was a little artist hut who did these amazing mandalas. He explained what they all meant and how they depicted the stupas and the cycles of human life and so on. They were so intricately done, they were beautiful. We stopped and had a beer, which were huge, at a small café. I really miss this about Dhaka-sitting outside and having a beer and just people watching.
In the afternoon, we hiked back to the lodge. There were so many cute tea shops and cafes perched on the edge of the cliffs that served light meals, tea, coffee, and beer. They were so open and had amazing views and the people who work them are all so nice and friendly. When we arrived back at the lodge, lunch was being served; really tasty garlicky, vegetable soup, a rich dish, followed by French fries. They brought out mustard and ketchup with our rich, which was supposed to be for the fries, but being the idiots we are, we ate the condiments with our rice because we thought this was customary!
In the afternoon, we relaxed and sat outside in the sun, listening to music and reading. It was so perfect. At night we had the same delicious dinner as the night before but only it was buffet style this time because there were a lot more people staying at the lodge and we downed two bottles of white wine with our meal and played more Uno.
The next day, we hiked the opposite way, down the hill, and took several short cuts, bringing us to a small village with just a few terra-cotta colored houses with bright blue shutters and a couple cafes/bars again. People tend to do a lot of hanging around in these places; just sitting outside and drinking and relaxing. In contrast, everywhere we went we saw old women hauling huge sacks of rocks or other heavy building materials or crops in wicker baskets on their backs. These women are strong and tough and have been doing this kind of manual labor their entire lives. It was a pretty amazing sight.
I loved this walk-it took us into more rural areas, although everywhere in Nagarkot was rural, we trekked along windy dirt roads and vegetation patches and up and down steep hillsides. It was much hotter today even though the previous night had been quite chilly. The countryside was so gorgeous too; looking out over terraced patty fields of rice and down into a deep gorge with a rushing river. It was so quiet and peaceful as well compared to the gritty noises of Dhaka.
The next day when we left Nagarkot, we took the scariest bus ride I have ever been on, hands down. We went the opposite way that we had come, going straight down into the valley below. We had to start off rolling down a hill to get the bus to start and once it did it repeatedly stalled out. Our driver whipped around hairpin corners high on the edge of steep cliffs and took no regard for the huge pot holes that dotted the road, sending my skull into the roof of the van more than once. We stopped once for a photo op once we got closer down to the river and I seriously doubted if he would be able to start the car up again. We bumped and banged all the way down the hillside, into the valley, and slowly the countryside began to change, giving way to a more populated and industrial-looking space until we eventually arrived in the outskirts of Kathmandu and then inched our way in heavy traffic deep into the heart of Thamel, where we were staying.
Kathmandu reminds me a lot of Dhaka-dirty, loud, open-faced shops lining the roads, packed sidewalks and roads. This was a far cry from where we had been just 2 hours ago. But it was fun looking at all the faces and things passing our car windows. We arrived at the Kathmandu Guesthouses that had gotten its fame from such guests as the Beatles and Ricky Martin! It was in the middle of a busy district with tons of shops and restaurants