Pokhara II - This time, it's personal

On that Sarangkot hillside, watching the crazy paragliders jump into nothing, I noticed a suitably impressive looking Swami. He was from India, travelling with his western students. He's a commercial swami (he has his own Myspace page!) and goes from Goa to Rishikesh to Pokhara, following his (lucrative) students around. Does he know Gosh, my uncle, who lives in a cave on a beach? Of course he does!

Back in Pokhara I went into a bookshop I had gone to before. The conversation had gone roughly like this:

Me browsing, bearded shopkeeper hovering.

Guy: Looking for anything?
Me: Just passing time
Guy: It's easy to pass time. Everyone here is just passing time [dissaprovingly]
Me, taking a book out, looking at it, then putting it back slightly out of place.
Guy: Put it back right, or don't take it out at all.
Me: Ok ok. Whistling innocently, trying to stay happy
Guy: Don't whistle. It may be ok in Western countries, but on the sub-continent it's very bad luck [I've checked this and haven't heard of it anywhere else].
Me, leaving: Thankyou.
Guy: Don't thank me... but I was out the door.

Unnecessarily grumpy shopkeepers fascinate me (hello Anton!), so I headed back for some more punishment. He seemed surprised that I'd come, we got talking, he shared his knowledge of a dozen languages, the books on yoga he was writing, his numerous students abroad, his trance music, and of course, Gosh. Is there an international fraternity of slightly strange western-orientated gurus?

So what did I do the rest of my time in Pokhara? I spent some time improving my pool game, particularly against two English guys. Whenever an Australian plays an English person, in any sport, it's the Ashes. And you get all the mental edge that implies - they are thinking 'Warney Warney Warney no matter what position we get ourselves in he will win oh no oh no'. You're thinking 'I can't lose to them at any cost, I can see the fear in their eyes', and the battle's half won. But it's not enough just to win - you have to be like Warney, bedevilling and befuddling the hapless Englishmen. You have to crush them mentally. No one speaks of it, but in the crowded corner of the pub, between you and them, it's the Ashes.

What else did I do? For some reason, I ended up overstaying my visa. It may have had something to do with a girl. I couldn't possibly comment.

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.