Nepal Notes Part 5: Totopani and Pokhara
If you are just coming into this, Part One is available here.
The hike was over, and I was still pretty rough around the edges. The trip had been taken for mental health reasons and my time in Pokhara was a little emotionally rocky, and a bit awkward to write about, but it happened and the next few stories were a time of real growth and recovery for me. Its a little weird, I am not super comfortable sharing it, but to gloss over it feels like a weird lie.
Totopani
The bus left Muktinath in the morning, David was on it, heading to Pokhara, I was headed to Totopani. Sick and tired, I wanted to rest at the hot springs, and Linda agreed to meet up with me at the hotel along her hike out. Also, I didn’t have the heart for a bus ride beyond 3 or 4 hours… In Nepali fashion, the 4-hour bus ride stretched out when we stopped at a military base and loaded it full of soldiers and gear which added a little over an hour. We then hit road construction that delayed us another two hours. The soldier beside me on the bus decided we were friends and added me on Facebook. He has since messaged me a lot with various business ideas, all of which seem to require my money. He doesn’t believe me that I have none, and I don’t believe he isn’t just trying to take my money. The hotel I finally arrived at was up a steep staircase, sans any kind of railing, on the face of a cliff above the hot springs. I was given a private hut with a queen-sized bed and a balcony that afforded me an amazing view of the mountains I had just hiked through. On the first night I had dinner with a German couple who politely looked down their noses when I told them my hike started at Chame instead of Besi Sahar. In the morning Linda met me and brought a Dutch friend. A very attractive blonde girl in her early 20s, she didn’t wear much in the hot springs and leaned in very close when she talked to me. Given our minimum 10-year age gap and me being aware of how I look, I attributed her flirtatious nature to a cultural difference and continued on with my life. The following morning, Linda and I caught the long bus ride into Pokhara and went our separate ways once we hit the city. I was sad my Annapurna adventure was over, but I was looking forward to a warm bed and warm showers. I checked myself into a budget hotel room, it was clean and I had two twin beds. My initial plan was to only stay for a few days.
Pokhara
Pokhara is a strange town to say the least. Its Nepal’s main tourist town, it sits on the edge of a huge lake and has endless bars and restaurants. I found out that Rita was staying at the hostel across the street from my hotel. We met up the first day I got back. My first impression of her in Kathmandu was quite positive and I was rather taken by her charm and beauty. Rather quickly I learned that her and Pokhara were not good for me, like a curse, I just couldn’t leave. The first night there, we went out drinking at a bar called “The Juicery” it was a bar/café/restaurant/nightclub depending on time of day and half of it was open air. I bought us dinner and a few drinks, and things were pleasant enough at first. We were chatting and the live band was playing some wild instrumental psychedelic rock and I was drunk enough to appreciate the music reverberating in my bones. Into the evening, she became a gremlin, taking drinks off of other people’s tables, trying to be friends with everyone, and trying to get on stage with the band. There was one brief, odd, moment, where she leaned in and kissed me, it may as well have been a siren’s song. Unfortunately, what should have been a fun night out turned into me babysitting. I suddenly felt responsible for this train wreck and tried to get her from the bar back to her hostel. On the way she dragged me into another bar, a local’s bar, where she harassed patrons and helped herself to their hookahs on the tables. The locals were not as enthusiastic as she was, it was their bar and they didn’t like us there, not in a threatening way, in an awkward uncomfortable way. Eventually she got bored and we left. I got her back to her hostel and myself back to my hotel. The next day I felt like hell and she was nowhere to be found. I have a hard time with depression and drinking makes it worse. Something about waking up alone with a hangover just pushes me down a hole. Days later, she got ahold of me and I explained how out of hand she got, and she somewhat apologized.
Over the next week we had a few meals together, did a day hike, and saw some of the local temples… all on my money, which admittedly wasn’t much, but I still felt a little used, but my rural western upbringing won’t let me make women pay for things. She was somewhat flirty with me the entire time, in hind sight it seems manipulative but at the time it felt promising.
Rita had mentioned she was making her way to Korea to teach English. The thought crossed my mind of going with her, it wouldn’t have taken much to pack my apartment into storage. She suggested it out loud saying it would be great to have a friend there. I wouldn’t be comfortable taking that jump with just a friend. The fact that I was considering this, even in passing, tells you just how much of a spin I was in. I think the altitude may have been effecting my brain still.
We also did a hike to Australia Camp, a base camp of some sort for alpine teams. We… I, hired a local guide to take us. With my bad lung and cough, I was surprised how well I kept up with the guide and how much Rita struggled (remember this detail for later in the story). The sun was hot and the trail was mostly going up stairs. We eventually came to a settlement at the top of a hill with a little restaurant and tents that could be rented. We sat for a while and had some lunch. We spotted Himalayan Vultures and the guide told me that in Mustang, where he is from, the dead are chopped into pieces and priests use a big horn to call them in. The big vultures swoop in and take the pieces.
One really fun activity I did was the Gurkha museum. Dedicated, of course, to the famous Gurkha soldiers. It was far enough away to justify a taxi but the entry fee was minimal. The displays were simple, primarily of uniforms and photos, but was still well worth seeing.
In the days that followed, we went out drinking again, and it was another disaster. This time it was a DJ set at an outdoor lakeside bar, The Krazy Gecko. That night was worse than pneumonia in the alpine, if I had to choose between this and that night at High Camp, I would take sick and cold at High Camp every time. I bought us a few beers and she vanished into the crowd, then came back, introduced me to Micky, a very flamboyant gay man. He was friendly but was also hitting on me a lot and kept commenting that he wanted to find drugs. A while later, Rita grabbed my stomach and said “you have a cute face, but you need to start working out twice a day”. And that was more or less the end of my night. I was plenty drunk, and now plenty grumpy. I am well aware that I am a little doughy, and have been for most of my life, I didn’t need the reminder. There I was, sitting minding my own business, when Micky came by, gabbed my hand, and poured a dark brown liquid on the back of it near the base of my thumb. “do it, do it, do it!” he yelled. I had no idea what IT was… I looked at it, and him, long enough that he just grabbed my hand and licked it all off… I got up, washed my hands, and left. I was done. The next morning, I met Rita for breakfast and, for the second time, explained what she had done and said during an evening of drinking. She gave another half-hearted apology, that neither of us believed. I ordered a strawberry smoothie with my breakfast and was brought a huge glass mug full of pink ice cream. We both looked at it and neither said a word about it. I don’t recall touching it. I decided I was done drinking for the foreseeable future.
Technical
There’s no real gear or equipment to discuss in this story (though my crocs did come in super useful in the heat). This little blip above, was actually a span of nearly two weeks, it was longer than I was on the trail. It didn’t fit into the story but there were some days where all I did was sleep in, get some food, read my book, scroll social medial, get supper, and then go to bed. I was still quite sick and I had even developed a pain in one of my ribs from coughing so much. Part of the reason I stayed so long was that I didn’t feel well enough to take the long bus ride back to Kathmandu and I definitely didn’t feel up to doing my next planned hike. So I hid out in a cheap motel and told myself I was recovering, which is true, but it isn’t the entire truth.
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