Pokhara, page 1 of 3

Pokhara

Pokhara is a bit tourist, but very peaceful place with a wonderful view on the Himalayas – that is: when it is not too cloudy. We found a pension with the appropriate name: Pokhara Peace Home. It was very cheap, only 7 dollars per night, with private bathroom. The hotel was small, only six rooms. There was a big garden to relax in, so we took our book with us and told each other how good it was to stay here after our India experience! By the way, did you know what 'INDIA' stands for? Now you are supposed to say no and then I can tell you: 'I'll Never Do India Again!'. Sorry, small joke, of course India was an enormous experience, but you need to have a little distance in time and place before you realize this!

In Pokhara you can drink your beer, sitting in a bar with a kind of 60-er years atmosphere, or you can have a real nice dinner almost any style you want, sitting in a beautiful garden or on a roof terrace with a view over Phewa Tal, the big lake of Pokhara. You can wander around without any problems. Pokhara is very clean compared with India, except maybe when you look at drugs because you can smoke a joint if you want, quite a lot of persons asked us if we were maybe interested… I had no idea Jac and I looked so interested in drugs? But we seem to be the type or maybe everybody who visits Pokhara is the type! In fact, my idea of the kind of person that typically smokes weed was abundantly available! So, as I said already, the atmosphere was very relaxing.

Halfway during the morning of our first relaxing day I thought it time for a lazy stroll. It was too cloudy to visit the mountains, at least we thought so now, before we learned that this was the clearest day we were going to have during our stay! So we walked to the dark blue lake, looked at the high mountains we could see peeping through the clouds –impressive, and seemingly very close. We followed the lake to the south to find ‘Devi Falls’, a waterfall where water from the lake falls into a deep hole and stays a couple of 100 meters underground. After that we visited Tashiling, a nearby Tibetan village. This picture shows the Tibetan Library annex Monastery. They know how to put their priorities: the only holy items we see from the outside are the satellite receivers for direct contact with all Gods? Quite modern.

Tashiling didn’t look very special, but there were a lot of small shops specially for tourist, where we paid about five times too much for small souvenirs, sold by Tibetan women. The women resembled each other, each one had such a kind, friendly smile, but from their worn faces you could read how difficult their live was. They were quite persistant without a moment becoming unpleasant or obtrusive. Both Jac and I proved to be unable to negotiate prices with them, so guilty we felt about our easy lives! Now we were warned, but this didn’t help us much, because we kept feeling both charmed and guilty and it took another two times till we learned to run away as soon as a friendly smiling Tibetan woman appeared around the corner of the street… Anyway, we bought some nice things and I will certainly never forget where we bought them.

We took something to drink in a stand outside and I photographed the furnace made of clay were water was boiled and milk was heated to make ‘Chai’, the very sweet thee you can drink from the one-time-use-only flower-pot-like thee-cups I described earlier. On our way back I made a couple of pictures from typical houses, some very rich houses (also with satellite receivers!) and some normal ones. The sticks that come out of the concrete on the roof are meant to start the next floor as soon as you have money again. In the meantime you can use your roof already for hanging the laundry, as a storage for your wood logs or other things that take a lot of room or as a playing ground for your children. No worries apparently about falling down one floor – they don’t seem to have that terrible TV advertisement against parents who don’t watch their child sufficiently to protect it from falling head-first off window-sills or pulling table cloths with hot thee in there face!

Buffalo’s are walking everywhere and lying in each not too warm pool of water, with pleasure rolling in the mud. Buildings look extremely colorful, even the local gas station looks exotic with all the colors and the big advertisements in Persian script. And what do you think of this photo processing Color Lab?!

We are heading for the airport to find a quicker route to take us to the footbridge over the Seti Gamdahi river, from where you have an exiting view over the river deep down, according our LP. The map doesn’t show any quicker route, but you can always trust me to find an interesting shortcut! And indeed, we find an obscure road that promises to bring us behind the airport. We walk down this road, worrying if it won't stop suddenly at the most faraway point, when quite a few singing and dancing people stop us!

It appears that we have to pay toll if we want to go any further! It is still the Festival of the Lights, children visit houses and restaurants for the third day and sing again and again the same ages old song with a kind of after-carnival-voices. They stay till somebody gives them some money, and then move to the next house/restaurant. Our hotelkeeper (who keeps his place totally dark already very early in the evening to keep unwanted elements away) explains us they don’t know the real intention of the Festival any more, everybody wants money and in the Old Times he himself always was content with sweets and fruit! It is not completely clear if he worries about loss of moral, or about his mistake not to ask for money when he was young!