So here is the long anticipated blog about trekking, Pokhara, and the events that took place in between. Trekking was to be a fairly uneventful village trek, but it turned FUBAR. We, Birman the guide (also Nima's brother in law), took the bus out to a little town an hour from Kathmandu. The bus ride was in itself an adventure. Buses, apparently, can go quite fast through tight S turns, meanwhile 6ft. men must squeeze into spaces that Claire would find uncomfortable. Fun stuff. For the first three days of the trek we would be staying with familes in what was described to me as " a traditional rurual Nepali experience. You might be sleeping with goats, cows, yaks, chickens, etc. " I was fully prepared for this. It's actually worse than it sounds. The first floor of the houses were generally a barn of sorts, then the family slept above. Not a problem. The first night was wonderful. The family was very nice, their house sitting above a little river valley which I took time to explore, reminded me of the Bear Creek area, just not quite the volume of water. The only thing that bothered me was that the windows were shuttered at night. NO LIGHT whatsoever passed into the room. It was very disconcerting. I woke up several times while trekking wondering where I was. They wouldn't let me sleep outside, I asked. Things were going well on day two as well. On the morning of the third day I had some breakfast of museli, and we were about to take off, when they offered to make up some popcorn. This is a normal breakfast in the rural areas. They threw in some roasted soy beans. I ate up. About an hour into our walk, I started to not feel so well. We pressed on as the walk that day was only two hours. Arriving at the house we would be staying at, I was not a happy camper. I laid down for a bit of a nap. Still not feeling well, I decided to try to the toliet. Twenty minutes and no relief later, I again tried to nap. At this point, I knew I had a problem, but wasn't sure to what extent. I opted to try and sleep it off. This didn't happen at about 11:00, I made a hasty exit to the balcony and let fly with breakfast, on this poor families front step. For 15 minutes. Half an hour later, another quick visit to the balcony. Again I tried to rest. I asked Birman how far it was to Nala, the closest place we could get a taxi. Two kilometers. An hours walk. Okay, lets go. But wait!! I made another trip to the balcony, careful to not get the steps as I noticed they had cleaned them. We gathered our stuff. Down the stairs, into the front yard, I feel it coming on again. Here, there anywhere, I don't like this green eggs and ham. We ended up calling an ambulance and getting a ride down to Banepa. I was now on my way to a hospital. I don't like hospitals. One bag of IV fluid (not BLOOD), a little anti-nausa medication, and three hours time. I kept increasing the flow on the IV because they told me when it was done I could leave. They would come in and lower it, leave, and I would raise it. Maybe they were lowering it while I slept. Bastards. We caught a taxi back to Kathmandu, but there were several police check points because a)the maoist had bombed Bhaktapur the day before b) there were HUGE political rallies in Kathmandu that day. I spent the next few days getting over the end of food poisoining and the beginning of Giardia. That seems to be on it's way out now. Thank goodness.
Pokhara. I spent 6 relaxing days there. Waking up in time to see the Himalayas, staying late enough that most of the shops were closed. I picked up a few things for people. Apparently embroidered t-shirts are the thing there. So I had some made in custom designs. It rained, thundered and lighteninged everyday that I was there, mostly in the evening around 5:00. You could almost set your clock by it. I had flash backs to the High Unitas in Utah. One day it was so bad that it crushed the thatched roof of one of the restaurants.
I am now back in Kathmandu, land of the "faster" and cheaper internet and food. When I got back they tried to extract 400r for a taxi ride to Balaju. I laughed. The metered ride to the airport was 160r. I was pushing for either a metered ride or 150r. They were pushing for 200r. It's very hard to get the taxi drivers from the airport to use the meter. We settled on 180r. And that brings us up to right now.