Sarangkot

After my friend left I decided to go up to Sarangkot for the day. It's a little village on a hill outside of Pokhara, and it's the thing to do outside of the main city. The drive up was so beautiful I either had to ask the driver (supplied by my hotel) to stop every minute so I could get out and take a photo, or just give up on the whole thing. Unfortunately for you lot, I gave up on the whole thing.

A quick word picture of the best though - on a bend in the road, a Nepali guy in normal Nepali clothes (shirt, vest, topi) reclining on a tussock, the perfect triangular snow-covered peak of Machhapuchhre behind him.

Sarangkot is another one of those Nepali village paradises, a little touristy, but still the sort of place where everytime you look around you go 'ahhhh....' it's the visual equivalent of the feeling you get after lying on the beach a few hours during the summer holidays. On one side you look down onto Pokhara, the lake, and the valley, on the other you get an un-interrupted view of the Annapurna's (well, they were only totally clear the day I came up and didn't take photos, but you get the idea). You know those pictures of French or Swiss villages you get on puzzle boxes? The place is like that.

In the midst of all this eye candy, I was able to internet people. "Hi Benny, I'm on a hilltop gazing at the Himalayas in a beautiful village. What are you up to?" Incongruous.

The first night I had the guest house to myself, the next night an Aussie girl and an English girl joined me, then they paraglided back down to Pokhara the next morning. I thought about it, then thought about it some more, then decided there's no way I'd pay to do that. I wanted to get a flight around the Himalayas, but that crashed while I was there too.

Also, I have my first grey hair. Here's some pictures of Sarangkot:


From the lookout. It's also an army outpost, with one guy, a tin shed that says 'Army' on the side, and some barbed wire:


Clouds are intense there. Those are eagles:


View from my guest house. They wake up to this view every morning. That's Maya on the left, she gave me some recipes:


Taking it easy...


The big paragliding expedition. Would I go?

No, no, I would not go, I would not go for all the dough.

On the way back up I saw this happy looking goat. Why so happy, Mr. Goat?

'Cause he escaped this fate, I think:

Wild flowers of Nepal:

Me on the way down, all tikka'd up for Dassain (big Nepali festival):

Wave goodbye, little one, see you next time:

Pokhara

Ah, the third 'P'.

Imagine a small city in a valley, next to a lake. Imagine the Annapurnas soaring behind. I'm in Pokhara, which is a kind of heaven. It's touristy, but touristy in a totally western way which is even enjoyable - you can get a good steak and chips - cool bars, nice clothes, clean hotels. You pay for all this, of course, but it's comparatively reasonable.

There's kind of a beach hippie culture going on, but it's nicely tempered and not as annoying as at Goa. You can go boating on the lake, with the mountains reflected behind, or even paragliding from a nearby hillside village. I spent a lot of time in bars, working on my pool game. The time of year was almost perfect - the monsoon clouds were beginning to clear, sunsets ripening and the weather warm.

My friend Jon from Bombay, who is now working in India with his girlfriend (of cheerleading fame), also came up to Nepal for a Visa run and we spent a few days together:

That's a cigarette, folks.

The hotel room, the morning after:

Nearby Devi's Falls:

I went back to Pokhara, but more on that later.

Shangri-La

While getting into Dhulikhel and having a Sprite, I got chatting with a guy basically because he could speak English. He'd been around, been involved in the movie industry, etc. He worked for a women's micro-finance bank - taking deposits and giving small loans to village women so they can buy a cow, etc. It was down in a nearby valley and I said I would go visit the next day.

The valley turned out to be soooooooooo beautiful I don't want to name it - it's mine! Let's call it Shangi-La. It used to be on the trading route to Tibet, let's just leave it at that. The road down was so pretty that I got off the bus and walked. In the valley there are several villages, a small town, and plenty of farmland. It's kind of a pastoral paradise, like something Van Gogh would have painted or you'd find in the south of France or Spain or Italy - stands of sunflowers, corn, rice, potatoes, fruit trees, bufallo, goats and chickens wandering around, brown adobe or grander country houses, the place clean and the people happy, the climate warm and fertile.

I spent the day with Sudeep going round to some of the villages for the meetings under the Pipl trees, interest was paid and loans were given out, and we began and ended the meetings with a song and a prayer. The bank conducts training programs so everyone understands their duties, the woman must be married and her family must agree, but the account is her responsibility. I asked Sudeep why they concentrated on women, he said it's because they need more support in Nepali culture, and also they're more trustworthy than the local men.

Below are some pics of Sudeep, another friend whose name I can't remember (sorry!), and the beautiful views on the way down to and in the valley.

Ach!

I'll backblog about Nepal later, but I'm in Delhi and I "lost" my camera on the way here. Luckily I'd put all my photos onto a DVD the day before, so I only lost a few shots.

Anyone want to contribute to the new camera? Unfortunately, electonics in India aren't any cheaper than home.

Dhulikhel

About two ours bus ride east of Kathmandu is Dhulikhel, with supposedly one of the best views of the Himalayas in Nepal. Most of the time when I was there it was cloudy (it was still monsoon), but in the mornings and evenings I got glimpses of the mountains behind the clouds. They were pretty impressive - I'd imagined them to be maybe half as high as they were. You had to look up, then keep looking up.

I stayed in a small village about half an hours walk outside the main tourist drag (filled with holidaying Nepalis and Indians). The people there were Tamangs, originally from Tibet. A family had recently set up a guest house with help from an Australian NGO. They were still cementing it, but it was lovely and quiet. The mum cooked in an outside hut in traditional style, over a small fire.

Here's the pics:

View from my windows:


Pot plants in my lawn:


Traditional cooking - awesome knife tool. You cook cross-legged on the floor, putting pressure on the blade with your knee to keep it stable, then slice things into a bowl. Surely some adjustment could be made to attach it to a bench:


A closer look:


The naughty kid who showed me round the village, including the Australian-made toilet and sewerage project:


One day one of the builders brought his pet fox for me to see. Isn't he a happy fox?


Here's some more local wildlife:



Here's some pics for my friend Benny.

A man and his duck:


A woman and her duck. This was on top of a bus - the only way to travel in Nepal.

Passive agressively, I'm still waiting for more suggestions below.