Archives for December 2010

…that I don’t remember much about.

We hired a taxi to take us around outside Kathmandu on our final full day. We asked to be taken to Bhaktapur and he suggested we stop here on the way. Unfortunately for me, temple fatigue had already set in and I didn’t care to learn too much about it. I even forgot the name! Here are a few shots:

xo, jill

Spelunk.

When we arrived back in Pokhara, we had a little trouble finding a place to stay. The first few hotels we sought out were full. Luckily one of the employees walked us down the street to another good option… Hotel Unicorn. My favorite part was the painting of the unicorn. How could we say no?

After cleaning up from the trek, we scurried down to the lake to take out a boat before sunset. We visited a temple in the middle of the lake but didn’t stay too long. The light disappeared quickly. We (ok, Mike) brought the boat back in the dark with the boat attendant’s cigarette guiding us.

We ate dinner that night at an appealing looking restaurant with horrid horrid food. My appetite was confused from the trek which led me to order a plate of mashed potatoes and some sort of burrito. The mashed potatoes were a big mistake. Picture a huge portion of instant potatoes more closely resembling porridge. Gross. My mom would have been insulted.

The next day we had a few hours to spend exploring before meeting up with Molly and Frances to return to Kathmandu. We rented a scooter and scooted out to the Bat Cave. I was a bit nervous to enter at first. The guidebook warns claustrophobes of the tight exit and I still have vivid anxious memories of crawling through the lava tubes on Mt. St. Helens in fifth grade. In the spirit of adventure, I did it anyways.

Inside the bat cave there are… bats, duh. Lots and lots of bats! And poop. Lots and lots of poop!

The cave’s exit wasn’t quite so daunting once I actually saw it. It was very tight and required a lot of scooting around on my back and belly… but being able to see the light on the other side made it much easier to brave.

Our guide tipped us off to another lesser known cave in the area, Kumari Cave. We headed off and over a high bridge to check it out.

On the way to the cave we met up with our soon-to-be tour guide. Our guide showed us all the interesting sights inside the cave including, “This is where man comes and drinks alcohol and cigarettes. I don’t like it.” and in a very serious tone: “Don’t wake up the bats. They will eat my eyes!!!”

After the spelunking, we still had a little bit of time left over. We zipped over to the other side of the lake to see Devi’s Falls. The falls were named after a woman who was bathing near the falls and was pulled by the water to her death. Sad and believable. The water drops 100 feet down a well so deep you can’t see the bottom. But beautiful.

Next stop: airport.

xo, jill

of two.

Once we reached our lodgings for the night, New Excellent View Guest House in the tiny village of Dhampus, there wasn’t much to do. We took a little walk around the area and waited for dinner time. (A wait that included far too much game playing, if you ask me.)

The guest house provided the basics. And by basics I mean: electricity only in the dining room, unheated water, and a candle. Thankfully, the bedding kept us quite warm through the night… which was a necessity since we had another day of hiking ahead of us.

Day two of the trek took us through a more inhabited area. It was fascinating to see the local people going about their business working in their fields. At midday we stopped for lunch at another guest house. Molly and Frances booked a para gliding ride for the next morning, so they stayed at the top while Mike and I hiked down.

My goodness. The hike down was horrible. Momentum wanted my body to move much faster than my joints would allow. If I could have run down at parts it would have been better, but the rocky ground and sharp drops made that option far too frightening.

Just as I was cursing the uneven ground and wishing for at the very least some comfortable gravel to walk on, we reached the main road back to Pokhara! Now all we had to do was walk into town, pick up our packs, and find a hotel.

xo, jill