Nepal 5: Tea and Rabies

I told you that my feet overheated on day 3, but I didn't tell you that I went to bed -

at 7:30pm.

By day four, I was full on head-coldy and exhausted but I wasn't the only one struggling:

Those were Christin's feet. There's so much going on here, I don't even know where to start.  At one point along the way, both she and I had the humbling experience of having someone else put bandaids on our trekker's feet after we realized our boots were giving us blisters. She had already lost a toe nail from her previous hike before this so she was definitely faring the worst.

But we had now reached our last day of the trek so we continued to hobble  head down the stairs.

I called the fourth day Fern Gulley because while it looked similar to the Lord of the Rings days, it had less fog and more water. Welcome to the inside of my brain. It's scary in here, you should get out quickly...

Fern Gully day

We passed a spot where trekkers were leaving little stone markers, kind of like an "I was here" type gesture. So we did too.

We passed more interesting sights, like this:

Nothing to see here, just carrying some animal hooves....

And passed more animals like this:

At one point, a mule passed gas right on me after I politely greeted it with a Namaste. Since I was already sick and fairly exhausted by that point, it seemed pretty appropriate, really.

At some point, we strayed from the path in order to walk across a terraced field.

Me being obsessed with those things, I was very happy to be walking right in one:

..until I found out we'd need to go down a steep embankment to get back on our trail:

I ended up sliding down on my rear end. Vanity was long gone by that point.

We eventually made it back down to Terraced Fields scenery again, where I snapped a photo which shows so many elements that were normal sights for us:

And another normal sight was Dom, our guide, looking back at me wondering if I was stopping because I was tired, taking yet another photo, or both. (usually it was both)

That's Dom, looking back at me.

Here are more of my pics from that last leg:

We made it!

Well, almost. We finally made it back to down to the point where our driver would pick us up and take us into Pokhara. We had "splurged' and reserved a hotel room for that night that included heat and our own clean, western style bathroom complete with a shower. When we walked in, we nearly weeped with joy.

It was Thanksgiving day back in the States, so we showered and headed out to enjoy dinner.

Our Pokhara Thanksgiving meal

We discovered that Kim had brought a surprise can of cranberry sauce for us to feel more like home, and that can was schlepped around in "Christina" for the whole dang trek.

...we could never find a can opener, however, so those cranberries are likely still in that can to this day.

Nice thought, though.

We looked around Pokhara for a bit:

And it was here the we saw more other "bideshis" (foreigners) than we had our entire trip. The place was full of other western trekkers... and hippies.

No need, indeed.

I call this: Hippies on a stoop.

 And Pokhara was also full of interesting things like this:

No idea....

We went to bed and woke up early to catch our long ride back to Kathmandu (thanks to the air travel restrictions currently in place.)

The morning was terribly foggy and having seen how traffic works in Nepal, Christin's first question when she got into the front seat of our taxi was " Should I wear a seat belt or just get thrown clear?"

We all decided she'd probably fare better in an accident if she was just thrown from the vehicle. And with that, we all settled in for a potentially frightening, potentially long ride back.

Because of my tendency to become vomitting-goat-ish, I ended up taking two Dramamine before the ride. I didn't realize I should've only taken one until after I kept falling into unconsciousness and at one point dreaming that I had reached transcendence. 

I guess the Buddhist culture had seeped into my subconscious and I distinctly remember, during the dream, thinking "this will be funny later"...  and it was. 

Thankfully our driver was really cautious, and we drove through the fog safely, through traffic that included many giant trucks like this one:

(Pic found on Hope for the Hills)

These colorful trucks typically are used for carrying in goods from India. They all had amusing sayings on the front like "Speed Control," or "See You," or "Road King." I was hoping our driver did indeed, see those road kings in the fog.

I also hoped he took this Nepali motto to heart:

Slow Drive. Long Life.

I recall waking from my enlightenment coma long enough for us to have tea along the road at an establishment that included some type of animal running around. I honestly can't remember if it was a dog or a cat, but I just remember us girls joking that we were stopping, you know, for "some tea and some rabies."

That type of joke occurred more than once as we passed animals that truly appeared to be just waiting to give us diseases. At one point, when we were surrounded by pigeons, Kim - the local - dead panned "aaaaaand: Typhoid." In such situations, you just have to matter-of-factly laugh and keep it moving.

Asphalt was an elusive commodity during our ride back, disappearing, then reappearing at will. Sometimes in a wide enough strip to pass another car on, sometimes not....

 More typical "traffic"...

We finally made it back to Kathmandu around lunch time and, after unloading our things at Kim's, we headed out for more sightseeing.

I'll tell you about getting a "trekker's massage" and seeing a living "Goddess" in the next post.