26.11.2008

Kathmandu to Bangkok

After quite a few days in Kathmandu I was more than happy to leave for warmer weather. But that was not to happen until I witnessed some riots in Kathmandu after the bodies of two youths missing since a couple of months have been discovered. The alleged murderers are thought to be members of the Young Communist League (YCL). I don't see the reason but the students forced a general strike and were roaming the streets of Thamel with bricks just when I was waiting for my 'Mixed Club Sandwich'-breakfast.
Soon after police forces were everywhere and it got calm again.

Police in front of the (former) King's Palace - notice the remains from the bricks on the street.



More - notice his tear gas-whatever-launcher


closed shops after the riot


empty streets after the riot


Kathmandu and Bhaktapur street scenes






After someone attempted to steal my beloved Pulsar which I carelessly parked in the streets near the hotel I was not in the mood for a lot of driving anymore. The repair was only 40 Euros but still it's awkward. I spent one day on a small Pulsar (while mine was being repaired) and had a final look on the snowy peaks from Nargakot and went through Bhaktapur on the way back.


Thai Airways brought me safely from the tiny farm-style 'airpot' in Kathmandu to the huge temple of steel, glass and light which presents itself as an impressive monument of modern culture built for eternity in Bangkok. After being ripped off by the taxi guy who drove me (in a brand new Isuzu SUV which occured to me more like a spaceship than a car after the barely driving Marutis in Kathmandu) to Khao San Rd. I finally felt the humid weather I missed while freezing in Kathmandu.

It's incredibly clean, you have road signs, traffic lights (which are enforced!!!), trees and plants in the city, proper pavements, no power cuts, 24/7 Subway, Mc Donalds and Burger King, Mercedes and BMWs! It's like Europe, only cheaper and with far better food (try the Double Big Mac!) - nice!


Khao San Rd. is full of hookers (female, male/female and ex-male but you can't really tell), drunken tourist guys, tourist girls in hotpants competing with the hookers, food stalls that sell everything from sausages to locusts, fake shirts and ipods, fake student and journalist I.D.s and many other enjoyable things.



Music entertainment (his 'brekaing the law' was quite good)


hookers


bar on the street


Khao San Road


food


more food


christmas decoration close to MBK shopping mall



There's a lot going on right now, the government is in a crisis, there are riots and neighbouring countries warned their people not to go to Thailand. In the tourist centres business is as usual even though 24 flights were cancelled due to people forcing the aitport to close down. You have lots of security around with batons and yesterday evening someone was shooting in the street. I got one of the shells but forgot it in my room. I'll check if it was real next time. The gun and the shooting sure looked real though. Anyway, going to Cambodia tomorrow!

See you around and have fun!

11.11.2008

Tansen, Lumbini, Sauraha, Daman

I finished my trail along the 4 most important highways and just arrived back in Kathmandu.
Before leaving Pokhara I got up at 5.30 in the morning and nearly froze to death while searching a special view point to see the peaks in the first light of sunrise. After 20mins of searching I gave up and headed to the World Peace Pagoda for a 2nd time since the view is probably the same. You have the daylight pics of the peaks so I won't bore you with the orange ones.
After another 2hrs of sleep I took my bike and followed the highway south until Tansen, called 'the city of the white lake'. There is no lake nearby, but from the city you have excellent views down into the valley and in the morning the fog and the clouds down there look like a white lake (I got up at 6.00 again to see the sunrise). At my hotel I met a psychologist from Melbourne who is doing Kathmandu to Delhi by bicycle, which is quite a hard tour with all the mountains, the pollution, etc. Anyway Tansen is mainly untouched by tourism which is great for the atmosphere and for seeing some of the culture. It's easier to talk to people and someone around (mostly the kids) knows a few words of English and they are all very keen on being photographed and seeing their pictures. Parents carry their babies out so I can take a picture of them etc.

Tansen


Boys I met in the streets


When Hinduism (Swastika) and Maoists come together it can be confusing for Westerners


Kids in the street


more


The white lake


Me and my bike


I went down the Siddhartha Hwy on to Lumbini, 80kms that didn't really pay off. The birthplace of Buddha was probably the most unspectacular thing I ever saw in terms off religious stuff.
There you go: it's a stone like the one in the top left corner under glass with a sign. And in buddhist tradition they charged me 125Rps for it.



I rode on east the Tribhuvan Hwy trying to reach Sauraha at the border of the famous Chitwan National Park. I didn't manage to come near Sauraha until after dark and in good Nepali tradition there are no street lights and no signs to be found anywhere. Luckily I stumbled over the Sapana Village Lodge, some small houses with a really beautiful park around it, directly at the border to the Park, so far probably the best hotel I stayed at and the room was only 1500Rps.

Restaurant area in the morning mist


They serve amazing food by the way and offer amazing programs inside the park and outside with the local Tharu people.

Elephant in the garden


The next morning I drove off back to Kathmandu an reached Daman (2300m) around noon. I spontaneously decided to stay the night there. It is said that you have the best view of all Nepal in Daman and it probably is true. There were too many white peaks in the distance to count them. I stayed in a small family lodge and ate dhal baat (rice with verg. curry, pickles and dhal of course) with them and drank loads of chai (and Tuborg). Over lunch I got to know Yatri, the chief of the news department of radio Pratidhwani broadcasting over 2/3rd of Nepal from the hut next door. It literally is a hut. About 6-7 people working there. Since Daman is one a high position it's perfect for a radio. Still it's little more than 5 huts.


View




So I ended up discussing the US election and Nepali politics with him, until he looks on his watch an screams out: "Damn', I have to go, do the news!" Of course he invited me over to come see the studio and everything.

Studio live on air


Nepal really is a strange country. To get from Hetauda (about 300m) to Kathmandu (1300m) you need to pass Daman (2300m) and go down the valley again (250m) and finally back up to Kathmandu. That's a lot of serpentines and u-turns. To give you an impression this is what the highway looks like in Daman. And you're confronted with buses and trucks of this size all the time. As you can see they consume about 70% of the width of the street and they are speeding like crazy.



I'm thinking of going to Dhunche. The highway is about 2900 meters up there. But I'll have to get closed shoes.

So far, have fun!

07.11.2008

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!