So today I'm leaving to west to Pokhara.
I said goodbye to Sitaram, it was more difficult than I expected. He was an excellent guide not only in terms of his knowledge of the local fauna and flora. Above all, he relieved me of a few kilograms when the old man was about to collapse.
I wish him all the best or even more, because I doubt if his idea of looking for work in Malta is a good one. So all the best, my friend!
The Prithvi Highway
The Prithvi Highway is the central connecting road between the two largest cities in the country, a good 200 kilometers long, and offers a great impression of hills and mountains and deep valleys along foaming rivers.
The line of buses along the road, early in the morning at half past six, is long and confusing. It is now a matter of finding the right one, a red and yellow bus supposed to take me to Pokhara today. Not so easy, because somehow they all seem to look the same, maybe it's just my sleepy eyes that are having some trouble. Even if - as not otherwise to be expected - fogged by the dust and exhaust clouds of the buses and the overloaded trucks.
But then I discover a bright orange bus which I immediately take to my heart because it reminds me of an unforgettable journey in Peru.
First, however, we need to escape from the city, which might take hours. Even early in the morning the roads are blocked, there is no possibility for a quick escape. Kathmandu is a prison that doesn't let its inmates leave so quickly.
Once you have left the Kathmandu valley at Thankot, the long serpentine road descends to the valley of the Trisuli river, which we will follow from here.
Light luggage
Yesterday not only served to digest the strains of the trek (and the last bus ride), but also to accomplish some organizational duties.
Solo-traveling always means organizing. There's no tour operator who takes care of hotels, food, tickets, departure times and everything else. It's all up to me and it can take a lot of time, much more than expected.
I will be traveling with very light luggage for the next two weeks. So with the small backpack, few clothes, just the bare necessities.
I have always found it an irresistible idea to travel only with the necessities of life. To reduce life to the basics and realize how little you really need. A few clothes (there are a thousand Laundries offering washing for little money), toothbrush/paste and deodorant and showering things, medicines (in the worst case there are pharmacies and doctors anywhere) and as we live in the 21th century, a (heavy) bag full of technical equipment like charging cables and such nonsense, which really proves that our existence is completely devoid of meaning.
You' d have to try it sometime. See what happens after a few days without Smartphone and iPad and Camera. Do you finally concentrate again on the beautiful, the surprising, the astonishing, without immediately reaching for the camera or iPhone, without pre-formulating the wording in your head?
Would you feel cut off from the world? Would you have the impression that you no longer belong to the world? Would there be a sense of emptiness?
The ultimate test. I'll try it someday. Eventually.
The backpack is actually so small that today it even fits in the luggage storage above my seat. The hotel in Pokhara, the Nirvana Hotel (the name suggests good times), is booked for a few days, everything else will show.
Dusty memories
On the way along the river I try hard to activate any memory of the last time about thirty years ago or the first time about 40 years ago. Without success!
On long serpentines down into the Trisuli valley
The memory thing
Memory is a strange thing. Searching for the past, it is about the least trustworthy. It tends to dispose of events, to invent others that have never happened. And sometimes it changes events until they have taken on a completely different form.
Maybe one we like better.
Even though I've driven on this road twice before, it seems that my memory tends to brutal disposal in this case. There is simply nothing left. So I have to make assumptions.
The first time with our old rickety VW bus, the second time with a tourist bus like today. I assume that there must have been little traffic at the beginning of 1975. Whether the road was really worse then, I doubt. Even today it is not in a state of divine revelation. After all – since it is a so-called tourist bus – only the seats are occupied, so for once no sardine can with the prospect of being suffocated.
But either my eyes have been affected by the trek, or the landscape seems to be covered by a strange green-gray color. We are driving through a milky green landscape, so to speak, as if it had been artificially color-altered. Hopefully, this will disappear.
We follow the dirty Trisuli almost all day
Next to me sits a discreetly dressed gentleman in his middle years, wife and son on the two seats in front of us. Apparently also on the way to Pokhara, a family trip. But we don't get closer, his sparse knowledge of English is too big a barrier.
He gives the boss of the family, with a firm hand and clear instructions. The family obeys in silence.
Looking out the window into a strange world
Sometimes while driving by or during short stops – a look into a foreign world. Although – is it really foreign, or does it just seem that way? There are people surrounded by cars and bikes, in front of shops and restaurants, chatting, laughing, waiting …
All that distinguishes them from us is a different skin colour, a different culture, a different nationality. Nothing else. Everything else is the same. They suffer from heat or cold, they feel big or small, rich or poor, they love their children and hate injustice. Sometimes they laugh or cry, are hungry or thirsty. Like we do. It's all a question of perspective.
It's a long, almost seven-hour drive, in a state of meditative absorption, because all I'm doing is looking out the window, trying to think nothing. Of course, with no success, again and again memories emerge, associative, incoherent, strangely sad. Does it have anything to do with my birthday, threatening me the next day? Who knows …
Pokhara - a distant memory
Many kilometres before reaching the city, I have the feeling that we're not far away from our destination. But this is deceptive, because the city is growing at each corner and end. The small, peaceful town has become a metropolis, loud and hectic and full of life. The taxi takes me to the Hotel Nirvana in a few minutes, a friendly gentleman welcomes me, and I immediately feel comfortable and almost at home.
The lake is close by, as is the long road along Phewa Lake, so nothing stands in the way of a very peaceful stay in a city that I have completely forgotten.
P.S. Matching Song: AC / DC - Highway to Hell
And here the journey continues ...
