Cross Country Ride

After talking to many so called 'travel agencies' I decided to just take the offer my hotel made: bus to the border, stay in a hotel on the Nepali side and a bus to Kathmandu for 770Rps. If I had taken a bus/jeep/train combination I would have had to do a lot of booking myself and it wouldn't have been much cheaper. So I took the ride to the hotel. On the way to the border we picked up an Indian family(20 ppl) on their holiday trip to Nepal. Since they had to stop in a temple on the way (in Gorakhpur) and other things like this it was not until 11:00pm that we arrived at the border. The Indian guys stamped us out and Nepali guys stamped us in (after we gave them lots of Dollars). We went into a very shabby Hotel. Next day we left early and in the late afternoon we arrived in Kathmandu. I managed to get a free ride into Thamel, the tourist center, and found an ATM to get me some Nepali rupees (1 euro = 100 Nepali rupees).

Taken out of the bus in Gorakhpur


The second bus wasn't as good as the first one. And sitting in the back row we literally jumped as the bus worked his way up the mountains in a very dangerous and risky way. The 'highways' are small and the trucks and buses are big and full beyond limits. After a very long and painful ride we entered Kathmandu valley. In Thamel you easily find a hotel and loads of shops with fake trekking gear (North Face, Larca, etc.), fake DVDs and CDs, booking offices for doubtful experienced trekking, rafting, kayaking, hiking and paragliding tours.
As you might conclude most of the people there are some "Yeah I'll spend 2000$ and do a 21-days trek to the Everest base camp and won't see a shower or a toilet until I'm there and that makes me the coolest extreme sports guy around for sure!!"-people. I am not. Most people think I'm crazy since I'm in Nepal and won't go trekking. Anyway I got a brand new, night black Pulsar 220ccm and after 2 days of sightseeing and hanging out in the 'Lhasa' bar for live music, hooka and screwdrivers I went on the scenic Prithvi Highway off to Pokhara.

Kathmandus biggest temple, Swayambhunath, with the all-seeing benevolent eyes of Buddha


Way to the temple


View to the east over Kathmandu



Later we went and saw Kathmandus Durbar Square as well as the Durbar Square (temple and palace district) of Patan, south of the center

Wood carving detail, Patan Durbar Square
(just download it and turn it yourself, connection is too slow, so I won't upload it again.)


Old men hanging around a temple


Since it was a late night the last day I didn't manage to leave until after noon... After I convinced the guy at the military checkpoint on the city borders of Kathmandu that my purse with my German as well as my international drivers license has been stolen in Varanasi and paid him 200Rps he let me pass (actually I really don't know where my purse is, but luckily there was nothing important in it except for my drivers license, and the last time I needed that one was at a police control in Goa).
So I drove along the highway until the sun was hidden behind the steep hills and it got cold. I stopped at Mugling, ate some rice with grilled fish, veg curry and some spicy red veg sauce and dal. Next morning I bought a jacket in the cloth shop across the street, where I encountered this lovely shirt.



Perhaps you have to explain why there is such a shirt (and others, e.g. a picture of Che saying 'Fuck the Revolution' next to it) in a small 200 people town with no tourists (at all!) and no political significance whatsoever. The Indians thought Hitler was a cool guy since he started the war, which in the end led to Indias freedom of the British. The Nepali guys get attacked by Maoists from China all the time, there is lots of terror and stuff like that. And the only thing they know is that Hitler was kicking the communists asses. So they think that's cool. But they have no clue about any war history or the holocaust or anything.
I didn't buy the shirt. She wanted 320Rps for it.

Mugling, first half of the town.


Second half. The road is btw the highway with the most traffic in Nepal.



So I took my jacket and went to Manakamana, a temple reached by a Austrian 'Doppelmayr' cable car going up 1km on the 2.8km ride. Humans get a return ticket. Goats (130Rps) don't. If you have a special wish you really want to come true you sacrifice a goat, or if you're not rich enough a chicken or pigeons.

Woman lighting fires around the temple (I wasn't allowed in as a non-Hindu)


More lit candles


Bells, hanging around everywhere. (Whenever you do a religious offering (punja) you have to ring one, so the gods know it.)


The pics below contain explicit depictions of gore and dead animals. If you want to see them don't blame me afterwards. That's Hinduism for you!
Goat Pt. I
Goat Pt. II
Chicken action shot

I continued until I reached the road leading up in the hills to Bandipur. A lovely, remote, small town not destroyed by tourism. If I had more time I would have spent a couple of days there.

View of the town


Huge spiders everywhere, these were bigger than my entire hand


I continued my drive to Pokhara, which is situated between some lovely lakes.
Today I went up to the World Peace Pagoda, built by Japanese monks some years ago. Obviously it didn't work, but a great view anyway. This is the town of Pokhara (170.000 people) and the Annapurna Himal in the background.
The lonely planet says the summits are from west to east:
Hiunchli (6441m), Annapurna I (8091m), Machhapuchare (6997m), Annapurna III (7555m), Annapurna IV (7525m), Annapurna II ( 7937m).






World Peace Pagoda



Pokhara with lake 'Phewa Tal'



I got many more pics of the highway and other stuff, but since it's slow and expensive in Pokhara I'll do an update when I got a better connection.
My plans are to do a long tour round the south of Nepal back to Kathmandu and drive for a couple of days to the mountains north of the city.

So far, have a nice time!