I thought my transition out of Nepal to India would be relatively painless. All I had to do was catch a bus to the border and walk across, in time to catch the public bus to Gorakhpur, and then a train on to Varanasi. Simple right? Well I’m still on the Nepal side of the border and it only took me 4 buses, a taxi, and an extra 5 hours.

I bought a ticket on a decent looking night bus from Kathmandu to the Nepali border town of Bhairahawa. Unfortunately the intercity overnight buses leave  from the New Bus Park which is about 30 minutes away from where I was staying. I head to the microbus stop to wait for a minivan. After about 15 minutes of me yelling “New Bus Park?” to every passing van, someone politely taps me on the shoulder and tells me I’m at the wrong bus stop – I need to be down that side street over there. Thanks very much, helpful stranger.

Quick position change, and I’m standing in the correct bus stop, yelling at every passing van. After about 10 minutes of this, someone politely taps me on the shoulder and tells me that I’m at the wrong bus stop – I need to be back exactly where I was originally! Since my bus departure was rapidly approaching I decide to just grab a taxi. It turned out to be only double the price of the van ticket, so was actually an incredible deal. I get to the bus station with about half an hour to spare and I’m greeted by this sunset:

New Bus Park, Kathmandu, Nepal

Nepal, I will definitely miss you.

The tour agency left me specific instructions to go straight to counter 16 and talk to Shiva, and he would sort me out and make sure I get to the right bus. I of course go straight to counter 28 and talk to some complete random who happily takes my fancy-bus ticket, and swaps it for the cheapest possible bus and somehow pockets the difference in price. Naturally this is not my fault at all, as all the counter numbers are in Nepali and are also very small and hard to read. Also I was tired. And the sun was in my eyes. So, cue Bus #2…

Outside there are about 20 buses all heading to Bhairahawa, but I manage to find my new one and find my seat. We’re scheduled to leave at 7pm, so the driver arrives around 8pm and we leave shortly after. About 2am we break down. We all file out and stand around on the side of the road in a sleepy daze, waiting for Bus #3. Eventually another completely full bus comes past and we all pile onto it and stand in the aisle. Around 3am we come to another grinding halt.

It turns out that a bridge up ahead has fallen apart, and so instead of the nice double-laned highway we were expecting, there is a single dirt road through a river, and there is a huge queue of trucks and buses waiting to get through. We sit here for a good couple of hours before we start moving, and then slowly make our way forward.

After we get through things are pretty smooth sailing. I’ve managed to wedge myself into a sort of seated position between some bags and start to nod off. About 20km from Bhairahawa we come to another stop, and for no reason that I can discern, we all file off Bus #3 and onto an almost identical Bus #4. Finally, 5 hours after our intended arrival time, we limp gloriously into the transport station at Bhairahawa. At this point I’m cutting it a bit fine for time, but more importantly I’m pretty tired, so I just get a hotel room next to the station.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow I will make it to India. I am now walking distance from the border, nothing will stop me!!!

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I’d met a really cool American girl named Jenna and we decided to head out to Pokhara together on a beautiful rainy Sunday morning. We had ourselves two seats on the finest of air-conditioned tourist buses, guaranteed by the friendly man at the travel agency to be the best tourist bus available for the price. It was decidedly not-exactly what he had promised. I mean, it wasn’t bad, but it was pretty much like every other normal bus out there. The lack of air-conditioning turned out to be a big bonus when the girl in front of us started throwing up about half an hour into the journey and didn’t stop the entire time. I should have taken that as a premonition of the weekend to come, but I was too busy reading The Kite Runner and feeling awesome for being able to read on a moving bus without throwing up.

When we got to Pokhara we had no idea of where we were going. The GPS on my phone broke a long time ago and to be honest I really miss it. I’m sure it’s good for my sense of direction to not rely on it, but it is incredibly handy when you don’t know where you are to stop yourself getting fleeced by taxi drivers. But I didn’t have it, so we got fleeced. The first place we stopped was terrible and too far from the lake so we got the guy to drive us right to the shore. We found a place that looked great and was practically brand new. I bargained them down from 1200 to 900 and finally to 600 for a nice big room and beautiful ensuite bathroom. The only thing we asked for was that they had 24-hour hot water, and they assured us that they did. Fantastic! After the extremely temperamental hot water in Kathmandu I was ready for a nice long guaranteed hot shower.

We went for a walk down to the lake to have a look around. Apart from the intermittent rain, it was really nice. I’d wanted to hire a motorbike to go and look at all the sights but the weather wasn’t really great so we decided to put it off for tomorrow.

We got lunch at this lovely little organic cafe called Black & White. If you have a real dislike for your internal organs I seriously suggest you go there and order the Chicken Tacos. I can guarantee it will be an unforgettable experience.

That night we went out drinking in town. Pokhara town is actually a really cool little place, all the bars are on one walking street, and they all have great live music. I saw the best bass player I’ve seen in 5 months playing at a place called Busy Bee. They are mad keen on live rock bands in Nepal but it’s pretty hit-and-miss. This band was actually incredible. We went to Amsterdam bar after that to see a vastly less impressive live band playing chilled out AC/DC and Cold Chisel covers. It’s about this time I start feeling a bit queasy. Like quite bad. Really not that good actually.

Jenna finishes our drinks and we start walking home. A few taxis pull up and refuse to take us for a reasonable price, so we walk in the rain. Eventually one of them doubles back and agrees on the price we asked for. I am extremely grateful for this until he drives straight past our road and then demands more money to turn around and take us back. We just get straight out and walk off. I make it back to the hotel and lie down on the bed. I am not feeling good at this point, but thinking that I just drank too much. Suddenly I feel a massive clenching in my stomach, and the feeling of a thousand feet stampeding for tickets to the Chunderdome. I launch myself at the bathroom door and step inside. The floor is completely wet. My foot slides out under me, I cut my other foot on the tiled entrance to the bathroom, my head hits the floor. And I puke like I have never puked before.

Jenna comes in to find me lying in an almost perfectly circular pool of vomit approximately the size of my body. Tough though she is, this is too much, and she barely makes it to the window before chucking up everywhere. I am groaning and making weak attempts to regain consciousness. Eventually I manage to pull myself up and turn the shower on.

Remember how we asked for hot water? There is none. Not once on this trip did we get a warm shower. I sit under the freezing water and think about how much I love eating strange foods in foreign countries. After a lot of effort with the shower and the toilet hose I manage to clean the whole bathroom up, and finally get back to bed. For about 5 minutes, and then I’m sprinting to the bathroom again. This carries on for approximately the next 2 hours, long after I’m only dry heaving. And then the diarrhea starts. In a stroke of brilliance, the designers of the hotel positioned the sink so that you can throw up into it while also sitting on the toilet. Absolute genius. I spend the night alternating between bed, the toilet, and thinking pleasant thoughts about Nepalese architects.

About 8am things finally calm down. We’d planned to get up early that morning to see the sunrise, but luckily it was raining heavily. I sleep through until about 2pm and we spend the rest of the day watching movies in bed. By that evening I’m actually feeling pretty good so we head out somewhere safer for dinner and order some more cocktails. Hey, alcohol kills bad bacteria right??

The next morning we get up at 5am and it’s actually not raining! We walk down to the lake front and watch the skies lighten. The mountains rise out of the clouds like a long forgotten promise. The world is quiet and yesterday seems like a distant memory. This is the view at 5:30am.

We get breakfast on the way back and anticipate the possibility of a proper shower. We’d complained the entire day before and they assured us that today would have hot water. There is none. That’s it, it’s raining again outside and we’ve had enough of Pokhara. We decide to jump on a local bus and head back to Kathmandu. After a lengthy argument with the hotel owner we get the rooms for half the price we were supposed to pay and take a taxi to the bus station. At the ticket counter the four guys there argue between themselves about the price and keep dropping it. Finally they agree that it should be 930 rupees for the two of us. We buy the tickets and get on the bus.

Queue 6 hours of the bus ride from hell. Don’t worry, not for us, it was hell for everyone else on the bus. We spent the entire 6 hours making up terrible puns and cracking ourselves up. I think everyone on that bus genuinely hated us.

Probably the best bus ride of my life.

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I wanted to send a postcard back home, and was asking around trying to find where the post office was. Two guys in their 20s said “Come with us”, and led me down a bunch of twisty backstreets to the middle of nowhere. There, scrawled on the wall in paint were the words Post Shop. I would never have found it in a million years. It was closed though, so they walked me to another place where I was able to send the mail. Any other country and it would have been some kind of scam, but these guys just genuinely wanted to help. So we went and got breakfast and they told me all about their lives in Nepal. One of the cheapest and most interesting breakfasts I’ve ever had.

Since this country is just so great I’ve decided to stay here for another month instead of heading straight through to India. Two weeks is nowhere near enough time for Nepal.

I take a walk to the Immigration Office, which is about 3km away. The city is beautiful.

At the office I run into a middle-aged American lady who is yelling at everyone. She’s yelling at all the staff, all the other customers, and possibly the furniture. I sit down at the table and fill in the extension form. The staff working there are ridiculously helpful and showed me everything I’d need to do. Then instead of me having to go up to the window and apply, one of the guys takes my cash and passport and goes inside the office. Literally two minutes later I have my passport back and my new visa. It was so incredibly fast I didn’t even have time to use my backup plan of screaming at the top of my lungs at everyone. It seemed to be working well for American lady.

As I left I wished her good luck with her application and she turned her affections towards me. A literal quote, in the most sarcastic voice you can imagine: “Oh yeah, hang loose bro, everything is sooooo easy for you, you’re such a good looking guy, doors just open for you and people jump to get you your visa.”

Weirdest compliment I have ever received, but thanks!

Now I have a visa for India through til mid January, and I can stay in Nepal until October 8th. I love this place! At the Indian Embassy, I had run into this very interesting guy. He had told me that people who rated themselves as being lucky generally had more good things happen to them. I think in the same vein if you approach everything positively then good things generally work out. It’s like I can’t walk anywhere in this city without something beautiful appearing in front of me.

Electric octobunnies and fruit. What more could you ask for??

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Prayer flags over Thamel

The sheer amount of experiences you can have in a day is staggering. We live our lives in cycles afraid or unsure of what we really want. I’m as guilty as anyone. In the last two days I have encountered some of the most amazing people I’ve ever met. One minute longer in my room going back to grab my phone and my life would have turned out completely different. A butterfly flaps its wings in Tokyo, and the ATM is disappointingly free when you get there.

You don’t know what opportunities await you down every side street. And no matter what you do there are a million other things that you’re missing out on. But the real beauty of life is that there are no bad choices, there is only your response to the choices you make. Almost everything that happens to you is an outcome of how you view the world. When you look for the good in everything then that’s usually what you get.

And every day I wake up and realise how lucky I am.

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For eight hours.

Nepal is even more fun! My bus driver this morning looked about 16 years old, and he drove with one hand at breakneck speed while chain smoking with his other hand. He was probably the coolest bus driver I’ve ever seen. Every now and then he’d take a break from the boring “safe” one-handed driving to answer a call on his phone or send a text message. I wouldn’t have believed it possible to steer a bus around cliff edges using your knees, but apparently it’s very possible!

I’d met an Israeli girl a couple of days ago and she’d told me about a bungy jump that she was heading to. I’ve bungied once before in my life on a 47 metre drop back home in Taupo. This was one hundred and sixty metres. Oh hell yes!!!

The bungy is out at a place called The Last Resort, which isn’t too positive a name for a place where you’re jumping off a bridge potentially to certain doom, but I’m sure their marketing manager had some good meaning in mind for it. But the view was spectacular!

After a thorough safety briefing we all to come up and get weighed for our jump. This is the first time I’ve been on a set of scales in 5 months. When I left New Zealand, I was 82kg and feeling pretty good about it. It’s extremely hard for me to gain muscle and I’d worked damn hard on that. I stepped on the scales feeling a little trepidation and the number was read out.

68 kilograms. Shit! I’ve lost 14kg since I started this trip. I need pies, and fast!!! Where’s Georgie Pie when you need it? I knew that I was a bit thinner than I started, but not that much. Oh well, time to step up the eating that’s for sure. India will be a lot better I think, less rice, more butter and cream. Bring on the butter chicken.

Since I’ve bungy jumped before, I decided that the only reasonable way to fall 160 metres off a tiny platform would be to jump off backwards. It was an incredible feeling throwing myself that far down into the unknown without even being able to see it. I don’t have a picture of my jump unfortunately, but here’s one I took of one of the other people on the trip:

Now tell me you don’t want to do that! If you ever get the chance, I suggest you go jump off a bridge.

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On the way back from the Indian Embassy, I rounded a corner and ran into a protest. The Nepalese Police was out in full riot gear all looking quite serious. I asked around and it was all the local teachers protesting their lack of pay. They get paid 2500 rupees a month, which is about what I’m spending every 3 days. 500 for a room, another 500ish for food. That is insanely low. I don’t know how much it costs to live as a local, but the cheapest food I’ve found is about 60 rupees for a meal, so I can’t imagine living on 2500 a month and supporting a family too.

Aside from the odd street protest and the dozens of touts everywhere trying to sell you treks, hash, or LSD, this place is fantastic. The people are so friendly and positive. Everyone is keen for a chat with you and happy to walk you halfway around the block just to help you find the post office. The only possible downside to this place is that the internet connections run at a maximum of 50KB/s. That makes it quite hard to upload photos….

And I went out this afternoon and ran into all the kids going home from school. I got an amazing series of shots of kids running in and out of the traffic with huge smiles on their faces, jumping on and off the rickshaws and dodging motorbikes. Probably the best candid street shots I’ve ever taken. And then I found out I’d left my memory card back in my room.

Damn it!!

Ah well, can’t win ’em all.

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Homesick!

We climbed about 1000 vertical metres from the start position to where we stopped in Chisapani, in about 3 hours. The food was all inclusive so I ordered myself three lunches and got down to business.  

So I might not have got much sleep, but getting up at 5 was definitely worth it.

We passed through all these tiny villages, and everyone was so friendly to us. I can’t believe how amazing the landscapes looked, I think it was the bluest sky I have ever seen.

All told, in the three days we walked a total of 30 kilometres. Not bad for a lazy Kiwi guy who never does any exercise. I’m so glad I came to Nepal instead of going straight through to India. This country is definitely a slice of paradise.

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Spent the night lying on a really comfortable couch in the Seoul Airport – rated number 2 airport in the whole world, and I can see why. That place is incredible!! It has a museum of Korean History, a technology centre to showcase all the fancy up-and-coming Korean technology, a transit lounge with amazing eating/sleeping areas, it has it all.

Oh yeah, and breakdancing:

I could have stayed in that airport for another couple of days easily. But I must make it to India, so onwards and upwards. The flight into Nepal was really cool – the city is made up of multistory buildings, but not like a city block, more like a residential neighbourhood. So each building isn’t connected to its neighbours, they’re all separate and it gives a really unique and different feel to it.

I had more fun at this border. More situations of my own making really…. I didn’t manage to get any cash out at Seoul because I couldn’t find any ATMs inside the check-in area. I asked a staff member, but I think that must be wrong because it’s one of the best airports in the world and that seems quite unlikely. The money changers couldn’t help me with my card either. So I though, no problem, I’m sure I can get my Nepal visa with Visa.

I get to the customs area, and go to the ATM, and it’s out of order. The guy working at the desk next to it says “No problem, just go outside and use the one outside the airport.” This is before I have my visa. Or my bag, or anything. I walk up to the customs desk, hand them my passport, tell them my problem, and they say “No problem, just use the one outside.” Ok then…. I wander past all the queues, wander through baggage screening, leave the airport entirely, and look for the ATM. I find it and my card doesn’t work. I go back inside, wait for my backpack, grab my other cards from inside, and try those too. No go. Hmmmm…. I find the guy who’s meant to be picking me up and ask him if there’s another ATM around or anything. He says it’s not a problem, and spots me the money. Nice! I now retrace all my steps back through all the “security” areas, and join the end of the queue for customs. The visa is no problem, and we stop at an ATM on the way to the hotel and I pay the guy back. Problem solved.

I really have to remember to keep some cash on me at all times…..

The room I’m staying in is great and totally reminds me of home. Mold on the walls, damp carpet when it rains, ahhh it’s just like where I was flatting.

No, not a Nepali prison cell. This is my room.

Gotta pack my bag now, then be up at 6am tomorrow for trekking. I met another backpacker who’s going on a trek tomorrow and she invited me to join. If there’s one thing I’ve learnt, it’s that letting other people do the planning of your trip for you is the best way to travel. Sounds like a great trek, plenty of good photos I think. Can’t wait

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