Pushkar, Rajasthan, India

Pushkar, India

Our arrival in Pushkar left a lot to be desired... Since the train from Barhatpur to Ajmer was late, we didn't arrive at the station in Ajmer until around 2am. We then had to go out of the train station and barter with the auto-rickshaw drivers to make a late night drive to Pushkar, about 11km away. This was quite a hassle, since it was late and it is ingrained in these drivers to rip foreigners off. The car drove through the night, over the mountain that separates the two towns, and down into the small town of Pushkar. Since no vehicles are allowed inside the town proper, we were dropped off in deserted streets and left to our own devices to try and find the hotel we had reserved. A little twist in this search was that the hotel we booked with was full, so they'd transferred our reservation to another hotel... We wandered around the completely deserted, locked up town for a good 45 minutes trying to find this new hotel. We finally approached the only people we saw, a group of men sitting around drinking chai and watching TV, and they pointed us in the right direction. It was around 2:45am by this point. We went to the hotel, pushed our way past all the cows blocking the entrance, banged on the door, rang the bell, and yelled (I was losing my cool by this point), but were met with only silence. Locked tight! Both of us were really tired from lack of sleep the previous night and such a late night this time that all we wanted was a place to sleep. Randomly, a man came riding along on his bike and kindly helped us find a hotel; he was much less timid than us and banged and yelled until someone opened the door. The second place we tried with him turned out to be nice, so we threw down our bags and crashed for the night. Quite coincidentally, we ended up at one of the places we were going to check the next morning as a better place to stay for the duration of the time in Pushkar.

Pushkar is a pilgrimage town for Hindus. The town itself is made up of whitewashed buildings surrounding a circular lake. Legend has it that Brahma (the creator of the universe) dropped a lotus petal here, creating the holy lake. An interesting twist to the tale is that Brahma took a milkmaid as a second wife when his consort, Saraswati (goddess of education) was late for a ceremony that required her presence. She was (understandably) angry at Brahma for this little mishap, and cursed him to never have temples built to worship him -- with the exception of one temple in Pushkar. And still, to this day, Pushkar has one of the only temples dedicated to Brahma in the entire world. Pilgrims flock here to worship at this temple, bathe in the lake, and go to the other 400 temples in the vicinity. With all of this worshipping going on, you can imagine that the streets are full of people, bells ring from the temples, chanting goes on over loudspeakers, cows wander everywhere... it's a pretty atmospheric place.

Our hotel! We "splurged" and stayed at a nicer hotel ($12/night) -- complete with a pool, green courtyard, views, a TV, and hot water in the room!

colors! pigments for paints.

watching the sunset over the lake and town.

The street view from our window. India is awash with color.

More colorful pilgrims

A local girl took this of her friend with Sarah's camera. Is it art?

The other view from our window

Sarah at the pool!

Keokoladeo National Park

Comb Duck


Bluebull (Indian Antelope) - tried to taste Sarah's umbrella


Painted Stork and cormorant colonies

With the Taj Mahal in the bag, we decided it was time to move onto our next destination. Luckily, our goal was only a couple hour bus ride away, so getting there wasn't a full day ordeal (like most of our travel recently has been). We arrived in Bharatpur in the state of Rajasthan around lunchtime and found a decent hotel near the entrance to Keokoladeo National Park. The host was very friendly and gracious, but that night would prove to be one of the hottest, worst nights of sleep of the whole trip. The power going out repeatedly didn't help the situation at all, since the fan only made it only marginally tolerable in the hot, stuffy room.

Anyway, this national park is famous for its wetlands and huge breeding bird colonies. We spent the entire next day in the park. The lakes, wetlands, forest, and grasslands of the area are all easily accessible by bike along canal paths, so we rented a couple bikes and went out on the trails. We'd met a guide the day before at the entrance who offered to show us around, so we took him up on the offer. He met us at 7am, and we spent the next four hours with him. His bird knowledge was extensive, and I really enjoyed birding with him. We tallied a total of about 70 species that day, most of them with him, but adding a few others later in the day by ourselves. I won't put an entire list here, but highlights included:

Brown-headed Barbet, Grey Nightjar (on a branch), Common Chiffchaff (the guide knew all the little warbler-like birds by call), Comb Duck (awesome bird - check the picture), Booted Eagle (2 of these), Cotton Pygmy-goose (voted cutest bird - the size of a green-winged teal!), Painted Storks (hundreds of these fabulous birds), White-breasted Waterhen (sounds like a monkey), Indian Robin, Indian Silverbell, Wooly Stork (2 on nest), Spotted Owlet (very cute!), Black-rumped Flameback, Darter, Eurasian Spoonbill, Collared Scops-owl, etc.

I had a great time out here, and I think even Sarah was impressed with the show the birds put on. The other overwhelming factor of the day was the HEAT. It was so hot and humid.... I haven't sweated that much in a long time -- even in all the tropical places we've been in the last few months. The afternoon brought a huge, exciting rainstorm, which luckily played itself out by the time we had to head to the train station.

We caught a train to Ajmer that evening. This time we had booked ahead and gotten upper bunks. It was way more comfortable than the last time we were on a train. We arrived late at night in Ajmer, ready to head to Pushkar. More on that in the next blog posting.

egg sandwich on the train.

Little Glimpses from Sarah

Hi everyone,
This is my first entry in our travel blog. I guess after almost 3 months, I should get to typing :). Matt's been great about spinning out the stories of these days and I'm glad he's so good with electronic communication.

I have only a few things I want to post; 4 poems from various parts of our traveled path. They are all still malleable, still in process... as are most things, hey? Here goes:

The Second of July (7/2/08)
Leaving Vang Vieng
Women holding wet umbrellas
Aloft as they zoom on mopeds in the
Morning rain;
Purples, blues, black checkers.

And I see them, and green,
And tin roofs through
Big streaming bus windows
Moving through Monsoon Laos

Summer Thailand (7/26/08)
Sticky
Sticky skin from sunscreen and sweat
Sticky fingers from cups of sweet cold tea
Sticky rice in woven straw baskets
Sticky bare legs and back of the neck
Hot, sticky, sun-soaked still air

Unmoving, anticipating a breeze, holding its breath
We hold our breath. And sweat. Sticky.

Kathmandu (8/8/08)
I look out my fourth-floor hotel window
And see men at prayer in the florescent-lit
Room across the close alley,
one level down

Children carry long drooping flowers and
flop them while they bounce through whizzing traffic
Women's dress and fruit stands splash bright color
onto the living road

Tiny street entrances lead to Tibetan restaurants
to broad courtyards with stuppas casting eyes far above to an open sky

Whole worlds open up
Through narrow doorways

Crossing Uttar Pradesh (8/20/08)
Street stand samosas served in newsprint
Stares, yelling men
Fragrant incense, heat, rests on piles of carted cut corn
Wet land and strewn trash reflected
on night brick roads

Banana peels dropped from bus windows
Hindi music floating
Women's garb floating
Colors and green and distance and stops and distance
So slow that every mile counts
Slow so that distance stretches

Across wide India.

The Taj Mahal and Agra

After our crazy introduction to India, we were happy to arrive at our first destination: Agra. This sprawling industrial town is home to the Taj Mahal. We planned on staying here for a couple of days to see the Taj, then to head on into Rajastan. We spent the first day resting at our hotel in the Taj Ganj area just south of the Taj Mahal. It's a crazy, alley-filled area that sprung up while the Taj was being built, and really hasn't changed much since. The narrow alleyways are filled with people, rickshaws, cattle, dogs, carts, motorcycles and more, plus the open sewer runs on both sides of the road. As you can imagine, it's not the best smelling area. Nevertheless, it's what amounts to a "tourist area" in these parts. We did manage to find a couple restaurants we liked, usually above street level. Many of the restaurants and hotels in the area have rooftop restaurants, where there are fabulous views of the Taj Mahal. We spent a lot of time enjoying the views over a pot of masala chai.

On our second day there, Sarah was hit pretty hard with a second round of stomach issues (the first being in Thailand), so our 2-day stay in Agra turned into a week! There's not much to do in Agra beyond the Taj and Agra Fort, but we used the time to relax and catch up on blogging, sleep, meeting locals, and of course, getting over the stomach bug. After her second day of stomach problems, we decided to have Sarah start the Ciprofloxin that we brought along. It's a pretty hefty drug, so it kinda wiped her out even more. Good thing we had a comfortable room (it even had a swamp cooler!). The couple restaurants we frequented got to know us well; I even helped take orders one night when our favorite restaurant was really busy!

It was also nice to be around long enough to get to know a few people and have them notice a drastic change in my appearance. My huge beard had been bugging me for a while, so I finally made the plunge and shaved it off. It was funny the kind of response I got -- mostly favorable (including from Sarah).

The real reason to water harvest -- as a monkey drinking fountain

Finally, though it took us seven days, we made it to the Taj Mahal. The admission fee is ridiculously steep (and skewed), but it was worth it. Indians pay 20 rupees to enter (50 cents), while foreigners pay 750 rupees (19 dollars)! That's a massive mark-up! But what a sight.... There really isn't any place like it. Gleaming white marble and simple design -- elegance at it's best. The "masterstroke" was placing it up on a platform, so that there is only sky behind. It was built as a monument and mausoleum by a maharajah for his wife when she died.... and I don't think it's been outdone since. If you ever get to this part of the world, you must visit. Sarah and I visited in the late afternoon, a couple hours before it closed. It was a nice time to be there, with smaller crowds, cooler temperature, and wonderfully shifting sunset colors. Sarah took a bunch of great photos, which I'll post later. The place is very atmospheric, with hundreds of Rose-ringed Parakeets flying around and the Muslim call to prayer playing over the speakers. As we were being escorted out at sunset, several hundred Black Kites took to the air and rode the last thermals of the evening into the pink sky....

The Taj Mahal, Agra, India

Sarah and Matt! with the Taj Mahal in the background, India

More Taj

The Taj

The Taj upclose

The Taj at sunset

The mosque next to the Taj Mahal and the Yamuna River

Trash, chaos, and urine -- Welcome to India!

And mud -- lots and lots of feces-filled mud.

OK, so that's not exactly fair to India, but it was pretty much our experience for our first two days here. We crossed into India at a typical dirty border town. The actual immigration stuff was extremely easy, luckily. One of our first observations was that India was even more covered in trash than Nepal (or Thailand or Cambodia or Laos). Plastic and sewage chokes every drain and creek, and clogs up everything, creating pools of extremely filthy water. There are cows and buffalo everywhere, so there is always lots and lots of dung to step around, and all of this gets pushed into the water. It was raining quite hard the day we crossed, which made everything a soggy mess, too. We caught a bus down to the closest town that had a train terminal (Goratpur), and were greeted by a muddy town that was even more chaotic and gross than the border. We walked to the train station and entered into an extremely chaotic scene where we couldn't figure out the train system and everyone was staring at us... Not particularly comfortable. The Indian train system is pretty confusing, especially for someone who just arrived... We went to the "tourist office", where a woman (sort of) helped us (but really made us more confused). Sarah took charge and tried to get us tickets for the first train to Lucknow, since we definitely weren't going to be able to get to Agra that day. Long story short, we ended up having to give a commission to the tourist office lady to purchase us a general boarding ticket (meaning we had no seats) to the train that pulled into the station. After waiting around in frustration for a couple hours, this all happened in less than five minutes, and the train was on its way out of the station. We wandered through the overcrowded sleeper car trying to figure out what to do until a kind man took pity on us and squeezed us in with his family. He had to run interference for us a couple times when people came who had more of a claim to our seats, but we managed to have a cramped place to sit for the next 6 hours. The man was nice, but was really insistent on having us take over his leprosy counselling job when he retired.... kinda weird. The only real plus side of the day was the great chai tea and samosas that were served on the train (quite cheap!). We arrived in Lucknow at 11pm and had to wander around in the dodgy train station area looking for a hotel to stay in...

The next day proved to be more of the same, except it was all on buses -- basically 14 hours worth of bus riding at an average speed of 25 - 30 kilometers an hour.... It was a dirty, slow, tiring day. We were just filthy by the time we reached Agra -- once again, really late at night.

The countryside was quite interesting, since the monsoon rains had hit the area quite hard -- all along entire stretches of road and railways the fields were completely inundated and flooded. Often there were a few building or trees sticking out of the water.

Since tourists don't take the buses in the areas we were going through, we got stared at constantly. One particularly memorable moment was when Sarah needed to find a bathroom during a stop on the bus, but she didn't know how long she had before it was leaving again. She was hurrying around in the bus "station", trying to find some facilities, with everyone (mainly men), all staring at her as she jumped around mud puddles and looked in vain.... It's hard not to stick out in a sea of dark skin when you are blond, tall, and a woman.

Oh yes, the urine. Men pee everywhere. I saw more men peeing in the last two days than in our entire trip so far. Entire walls in front of the train station and bus stations are impromptu urinals, and the smell permeates everything around these areas. Not pleasant. On the flip side, there are often no facilities for women at all.... quite bizarre.

Not all was bad, however. There were hints of the India that visitors fall in love with. A boy bought Sarah an ice cream once.... staring people break into a big smile when you smile at them.... people help when they know you are confused.... India might be the most chaotic, messy place either of us have been in a long time, but there is some magic lurking there. Hopefully we find more of it in the days to come.

Birthplace of Buddha

Next stop: Lumbini, Nepal.

After Chitwan, we travelled by local bus to the historical birthplace of Prince Siddhartha Gautama, who would later achieve enlightenment and become the Buddha. I visited the pond where his mother bathed before stumbling a few steps, grabbing a sal tree branch, and giving birth to a child who as a man shaped a good portion of the modern world with his teachings of the Middle Way.

This was an interesting sidetrip for us. Not many tourists come here. It's more of a place for pilgrims. The sparse accommodations in the little town nearby are very shoddy and dirty -- obviously more for the use of poor pilgrims rather than Western tourists. Still, we managed to get a decent room at the nicest of the cheapies in town. It had stunning views out over the rice paddies behind the village.

A large area around Buddha's actual birthplace has been set aside to preserve its woodland aspect, and quite a few countries have built their own monasteries and temples within this zone. It made for a great place to rent bikes and ride around -- no traffic and no hills. The forests also provide refuge for an interesting endangered mammal, the blue bull (boselaphus tragocamelus). Sarah's sharp eyes spotted several of these weird deerlike animals in amongst the trees. Just north of the protected area is a second protected area, set aside as a refuge by the government of Japan. It provides habitat for the critically endangered Sarus Crane -- there are few of these birds left in the wild. We managed to find three during our time there. They are bigger than a Sandhill Crane with a red head. Amazing! Sarah also found a great path for a run, so I spent a little time looking around for other birds and wasn't disappointed: new ones included Chestnut-bellied Nuthatch, Gray-capped Pygmy Woodpecker, Black Bittern, and Asian Koel.

Because of the lack of tourists in this area, we received a lot of stares (including a guy who took a picture of us). This turned out to be good practice for India, as you'll find out in the next blog. Overall though, it was a nice quiet place for walks and countryside. We had a rather magical experience one night during a walk outside of the village when all of the trees along the road were filled with thousands of twinkling fireflies. It was simply beautiful.

rhinos and crocs and sloth bears, oh my!

Happy in Chitwan National Park, Nepal


Elephant bathtime!


More elephant bathtime

Royal Chitwan National Park was a mixed bag for us.... on the one hand, we had some pretty incredible moments here and met some great people, but on the other hand, we had a bad experience with some aspects of our "tour". I'll touch on the bad stuff first so we can move on to the rest. Our problems centered around the tour package we booked in Pokhara. As I've mentioned before, we almost never sign on to tours, but we added up the prices for the different activities and accommodations, and it pretty much was a wash whether we went on a tour or did it ourselves -- the tour was simply less work for us. So, like suckers, we booked with a guy who was professional and nice -- too bad he contracts with a crappy lodge for the tour. He'll be hearing from me soon. Anyway, we got to the "lodge" (Tiger Wildlife Camp) around 9pm, after our landslide adventure. Exhausted, we were shown to our room, which turned out to be a hovel with some planks for beds (complete with Snoopy sheets), and a filthy (as in dirty toilet paper in the bin, etc), grimy bathroom. Don't get me wrong here, our standards are pretty low since we're travelling budget, but this place was just gross. And we were stuck with it for 2 nights because we'd already paid for our package. It got worse, too. The food was fine (though we didn't have any choice in the meals), but the manager (who was a loon) tried to cut any possible corner he could, including flat out lying to us about the river levels, saying that it was too high to canoe, so we should do a longer hike. We believed him because we'd just gotten there and didn't know any better. He basically pocketed the money he was supposed to spend for our canoe trip, and we found out later that most people were doing the canoeing and loving it.... Grrr... When our two nights were up, we packed up and moved to a much nicer room at a place down the road. We still had some of our programs to do since we were delayed in starting them by the avalanche. The crazy manager for some bizarre reason decided that we were unhappy with his place and program because of the guide who took us on our jungle hike (whom we loved) and fired the guy! I was pretty upset about that and told him repeatedly that we liked the guide and that it was the room and him (the manager) that were the problems. Seriously, this guy was sleazy and nuts. Despite repeatedly telling him our grievances, at the end of the tours when he had to arrange our ride to the buses, he tried to pretend that we had a great time there and wanted us to recommend him! I'm actually being pretty brief on the negative parts of our stay in Chitwan, because they had such an impact that it almost overshadowed the good stuff. Almost.

Now on to the good parts of the experience there. Chitwan is a beautiful place. The riverine forest and open grasslands of the valley are lush and stunning. We had the opportunity to explore these on foot, on elephant, and a bit by water.

The jungle walk was the first activity we participated in. David and Vicki (from Hong Kong) and Sarah and I went across the river by dugout canoe with our two guides, and walked into the forest from there. The lead guide was named Raj, a gentle, quiet man who has been guiding inside the park for 18 years. He took us on paths through the forest, pointing out interesting things like rhino tracks and Bengal tiger scratchings on tree trunks. We walked quietly, listening for sounds that would give away the location of any wildlife. The area was full of spotted deer, and a few rhesus macaques (the temple monkeys) were up in the trees. The riverine forest here is quite open in the understory, so we could see quite a ways through the trees. A few birds were around, including a Red-headed Trogon (rare at this time of year -- they are usually up on the slopes of the hills), a Red Junglefowl (wild chicken), and a couple huge Indian Peafowl (wild peacocks). A Crested Serpent Eagle screeched as it flew in and landed in a treetop. Suddenly, we heard a loud, snorty breath off to one side. Raj immediately became extremely cautious and hurried us along the trail for an additional 20 meters, then we squatted down to peer through the trees. Eventually we made out a rare one-horned Indian rhino -- a female based on her size (massive but smaller than a male). She was moving through the trees, but starting to veer in our direction. That was when Raj saw a young rhino trailing her (which Raj later told us was a male based on the scent of its urine!). Our guide went into high gear at that point, and quickly moved us out along the trail and onto a dirt road that bisected the forest. Just like bears, female rhinos have every reason to be very protective of their young ones. The snorting through the trees sounded closer, giving every indication that the mother was agitated and following us! Raj made us jog down the road for a ways, checking behind him often, then veered us back off the road and into the brush behind a tree (you are supposed to hide behind a tree if charged by a rhino). We crouched there, hearts beating fast, adrenaline pumping, and manic grins on our faces, hoping the mother wasn't too upset with us. THEN, there was another snort directly behind us. Another rhino was in the bushes! Raj got us up and running down the road as fast as we could. We were heading towards where the forest opens up into grasslands. He obviously had a destination in mind, because he kept urging us along while checking behind us. I was the last one in line, with Sarah right in front of me. As we ran, both of us turned and looked back at the same time -- just in time to see a huge male rhino come out of the woods where we'd been hiding. We both saw him in full profile on the road, right before he turned his huge, horned head towards us. Scary! We were out in the grassland by this point, but it was even scarier out there, since the thick, thick grass and cane was over 4 meters high. There were paths pushed through it where rhinos had passed. We eventually cut down a human trail through the grass and pushed through until we came to a viewing tower looming out of the grassland. We climbed the ladder to safety, and stood watching as first one, then another rhino came running by uncomfortably close to the tower. It was hard to see them most of the time, but you could definitely tell where they were passing by the movement of grass. We'd inadvertently stepped into the middle of a chase where a male was after the female and her young one. Just like with bears, males will sometimes kill young ones so that the female will become receptive to mating again. No wonder she was agitated and not happy with us being around.....

We stayed up there for about an hour until Raj felt like it was safe to continue. It proved to be a great place to birdwatch, with such exciting birds as Emerald Dove, Yellow-crowned Woodpecker, Bay-backed Shrike, both Coucals, Green-billed Malkoha, Rufous Treepie, and many others flying over the grasslands. When we descended from the platform, my senses were amped up to level that I haven't felt since the first few weeks of hiking in grizzly country when I lived in Alaska. There were BIG animals out there.....

hiking through the grassland


Sarah "birdwatching"


birdwatching from the tower


crossing by canoe


Gharhial


post-rhino encounter


Royal Chitwan National Park

The rest of the walk was uneventful, but Raj proved to know his birds extremely well, helping me locate Brown Crake, Little Heron, White-browed Wagtail, Black-breasted Weaver, Chestnut-headed Bee-eater, Red-breasted Parakeet, Pied Kingfisher, Plum-headed Parakeet and more. Along the river's edge, we spotted a gharhial (a bizarre, fish-eating croc) and a "marsh mugger", your typical man-eating croc.


David, Vicki, and Sarah on an elephant!



on an elephant

We also went on an elephant ride for a few hours. This was a lurching, uncomfortable journey, but it certainly is a unique way to travel and we did see some barking deer (muntjacs). The elephants themselves were really neat to spend time with. Later in the day, we toured the Elephant Breeding Center, where we got to get close to some ridiculously cute 6 month old elephants. The sun was setting as we were leaving this spot, and the river and distant hills were a beautiful golden color.

boat crossing


Chitwan


Sarah with the baby elephants

One evening we went to a village cultural show, where the local Tharu people showed off some of their amazing stick dancing skills, as well as performing a few of their traditional dances, such as the dance to bring a family out of mourning after the loss of a loved one. The house was packed and everyone had a great time.

An evening walk out in the rice patties was lined with Large-tailed Nightjars sitting up on the wires. An early morning birdwalk didn't add too many new ones, but I did see an Oriental Pied Hornbill, Eurasian Golden Oriole, and Large Woodshrike.

All in all, we're both glad we went to Chitwan. Other than the idiot manager of that lodge, it was a really special place. Highly recommended!


rhino tracks


through the grassland

Landslide!

After our time in Pokhara, we headed out for our next destination: Royal Chitwan National Park. This park is located in the Terai region of Nepal, the low-lying flat area south of the Himalayan foothills. It comes as a surprise to most people that a lot of Nepal is tropical, and this park is in the heart of it.

The bus ride from Pokhara to Chitwan was supposed to take 6 hours, so we set off with high hopes that it wouldn't be a really long travel day. Of course, as usual, that turned out not to be true. We were starting to drop out of the foothills through some spectacular river valleys and were about 40 kilometers from Chitwan when we got backed up in a long line of traffic. It was pretty obvious that it was either because of an accident or landslide. It turned out to be the latter. We spent hours backed up along with everyone else, since there are no other roads connecting the Terai with the foothills anywhere in the area. There wasn't much shade, so it was a good thing that it wasn't unbearably hot -- just enough to keep people off the bus. Every once in a while a bus or car would come thundering by the line of cars, for some reason thinking they could get through when no one else could. Invariably, they'd end up backing up the highway causing all sorts of traffic issues. We met a lot of nice people while stranded on the road -- one guy on our bus was actually from Tucson! Also on our bus were Vicki and David, a couple from Hong Kong who we ended up spending a lot of time with in the following days. At one point I Sarah and I also watched a shady character get up on top of our bus and try to get into people's bags. Luckily the bus driver saw him and yelled at him to get down. He actually had the nerve to try to make it seem as if he was just trying to get a better look up ahead!

After several hours of waiting, word trickled back that there were huge rocks in the way and that vehicular traffic might not make it through that day. That settled it for Sarah and I, so we got our bags off the roof of the bus and started walking for the blockage, hoping to get across it and catch another bus on the other side. It was a two kilometer walk in the rain to the landslide spot. As we approached the area, there started to be a lot of movement of people coming towards us. They had just opened the gap for people to hurry through, and people were trying to get by before they closed it again to continue working. We sped up and pushed our way through the oncoming people trying to get there quickly. We reached the landslide as the last of the people they were letting through straggled by The road workers were frantically trying to stop people as they kept an eye upslope for sliding debris. There were a couple bus sized rocks still in the road, along with hundreds of tons of dirt and rubble. It was obvious they weren't going to get even one lane open for traffic for several hours. We rushed across the debris (two of the last 5 people to do so) and into a big milling crowd of people already stopped from going the other direction. The feeling as we continued walking in the rain away from the danger zone was very refugee-like; people were carrying all of their belongings, all walking in the same direction. Further on, the truck drivers and bus people were all taking the delay in stride. Many of them were taking showers in the small waterfalls, shaving, doing their laundry, and cooking dinner under their trucks.

We ended up walking over 8km from our bus to another bus that could take us to Chitwan. We ended up getting our "trekking" experience in Nepal after all! The bus we got onto waited around for several more hours to pick up any more people that might have crossed through the gap, then headed out. We ended up arriving at our destination almost 9 hours late. Vicki and David, both of whom had decided to wait with the bus, arrived 3 hours later (at midnight). What a crazy day, but actually not a bad one. We met a lot of really great people, including 3 Irish college boys (one of whom kept talking about his childhood as when he was a "wee" boy -- how cute) and a young Nepali man. The scenery was pretty impressive, as well. High steep green cliffs with waterfalls cascading off them will brighten any one's mood.


Heading for the landslide


Across the gap!


Pushing through the stranded masses

Pokhara and around

HI folks--

I have a lot of catching up to do from the last week of adventures (and non-adventures), so bear with me if some of the next few blogs sound rushed.

We had a fantastic few days in Pokhara, Nepal. The city is the staging point for many of the Himalayan treks people undertake; most famously the Annapurna Circuit and Annapurna Base Camp. We didn't do any of these, though we'd like to sometime -- but preferably not during the monsoon/leech season. Instead, we spent 5 wonderful days rambling around the hills and the lake that surrounds Pokhara. We put in quite a few miles each day during our explorations, wandering through beautiful forests up in the hills and through brilliant green rice patties and wetlands along the lakeshore. Pokhara itself was a breath of fresh air -- no traffic, no hassles, great food, a nice room, etc. We were there long enough to establish a routine with our favorite restaurants. We figured out where we could get the best Nepali set meal (dal baat, vegetable curry, curd, salad, pickle (sauce), chapati, and rice), and even found a place that had fantastic Italian food (on par with food I've had in Italy -- including homemade noodles!). My typical drink choices at meals have changed quite a bit in past weeks -- no coffee at breakfast, no Coke at lunch, and no beer at dinner. Just a nice glass of black tea or masala chai. And way cheaper!

She wanted some rupees for this photo... but it was worth it.

Sarah near the International Peace Pagoda above Pokhara, Nepal

One of our hikes took us up the mountainside near town to check out the Peace Pagoda up there. It was quite a sight, but the better views were looking out from it. On clear days, the whole Annapurna massif of the Himalayas stretches out to the north and east, with Mt Machupucarrhe (7000 meters) sticking straight up above the town.We didn't see this, but were treated to views of these mountains through the clouds on our first day in Pokhara, so that's OK. The birding up on the mountainside was fantastic, with such lifers as Red-headed Vulture, Black-lored Tit, Golden-fronted Leafbird, Velvet-fronted Nuthatch, Common Hawk Cuckoo, Grey-headed Woodpecker, Blue-whistling Thrush, Grey Treepie, Greater Yellownape, Great Barbet, Long-tailed Minivet and Grey-hooded Warbler. We wanted to go down the longer route through the forested slopes of the mountain, but visitors are often robbed at gunpoint along this route, so we stuck to the well-travelled paths. Go figure, people get robbed when visiting the Peace Pagoda.... We attempted a route that would take us all the way around the lake below us, but couldn't find the path at one point, so it turned into an interesting side trip to some small, little-visited villages.

climbing to Peace Pagoda

Matt! at Peace Pagoda

Peace Pagoda

view of Pokhara valley

cooling off at the top of the mountain. Gross.

Mt. Machupucarrhe

Another day in town sent us on a long, leisurely ramble along the lake. This walk included a long lunch at a little hole-in-the-wall place that had fantastic views over the lake. While waiting for our meal, I saw an immature (2nd year?) Pallas's Gull, Bronze-winged Jacana, Lesser Whistling Duck, Little Grebe, and several herons in the shallows nearby. The walk continued through rice paddies that were the most magnificent shade of green we've ever seen. Sarah got a lot of nice photos, so I'll try to add a couple here.

Ah.... papad and Nepali beer

rice fields along lakeshore

more fields