from a.m. to a.m.

4:55 am?!!  Oh my goodness!  My alarm was supposed to go off at 4:25!  I jumped out of bed, double-checking the time on my watch.  I can’t believe I slept through my alarm.  I’ve NEVER done that.  I’m such a light sleeper, what in the world?  Izhar, Caleb, and Phillip were supposed to be at my house at that exact minute, whereupon we would walk into town to catch a bus to Kathmandu.  There we would meet up with some others  at 6:30 am to go rafting on the Trishuli river.  After going to bed at 12 the night before, I hadn’t packed a thing, and I had wanted to pack a breakfast as well...but never mind that.  They only had to wait a few minutes for me.

The traffic headed in and out of Kathmandu slowed us a little, and as we jumped off the bus in Kathmandu at 6:33 am we began to run down the sidewalks.  Nothing like sticking out - white people running down the street.  Also not a good time to find you are really out of shape.  We made it though, and after they seated us on the nice tourist bus, the kind man proceeded to tell Izhar we still needed to pay more.  1500 rupees more.  Or we couldn’t go.  Sheesh, what a scam.  Izhar finally gave in partway and we paid 1000 extra rupees.  What to do.  Izhar told me, “Jenny you should have been the one talking to him, you never would’ve given in!  I’m too nice.  You’re the mean one!”  Whatever that means, but nevertheless we got on our way, the bus stopping every so often for the driver to eat breakfast or get oil for the engine.  At one such stop, which I think was planned, this really old-looking lady got on the bus and began passing out these little pity papers for us to read.   And I quote: 

APPEAL

Jai Nepal These are being to Ludhana These parents has been die Nothing to euppor them Relatives are also dum they cannot do any work This children has been broken the hand so please donate him Rs 5, 10, or 20 for proper treamnt & help them Good will help you please Return this card after read.

I didn’t return my card, whoops.  Then she came back through to collect money.  I think she made 10 rupees off the entire bus, and maybe she even brought that in with her to make it look like people were donating.  I wanted to laugh, but I mostly refrained.

We finally got to our rafting destination on the Trishuli at about 9:30 am, but ended up waiting until about 10 before things got rolling.  I bought some 12 rupee cookies for breakfast during the delay.  The people in our raft were an interesting combination.  Besides the four of us, we had a Nepali guide and his friend, and Ben of England.  He’d been volunteering in Chitwan for the past few weeks and now was doing some rafting and kayaking for about 4 days.  Then we had Mike and Amanda, two teachers who had met each other in S. Korea.  They apparently weren’t married or dating, but they looked/were shaped so much alike I couldn’t believe they weren’t.  Amanda now lives in Oman but they decided to take this vacation to Nepal together.  As was needed (maybe you can tell from the pictures), the guide quite strategically placed them in the raft - on opposite sides for equilibrium’s sake.  Hah!  He then went on to talk about how if someone fell out of the raft, everyone might be needed to help them back in.  The rest of us figured that if one of them fell in, the raft would naturally flip in the other direction, so we’d all be doomed anyway.  And the mental picture of helping one of them back in was enough to make us nearly die in fits of laughter (later on, much more discreetly, of course).

Mike, Amanda, Phillip, Caleb

I was a little upset with my helmet, it wouldn't fit my head.

The rafting was obviously really fun.  I wish I’d had a waterproof camera.  The valley we were in was beyond beautiful.  If I were to live in Nepal long term, my second choice for a house location would be along this river.  On the far side of the river, only accessible by walking across one of the long suspended bridges.  (My first choice would obviously be in the mountains.)  It rained on us nearly the whole time, which was quite pleasant, and the fog rolled in and out of the mountains above us.  We were able to enjoy this scenery when we weren’t being pummeled by walls of water.  At first, I politely took a seat in the back of the raft so others could have the front.  I’m pretty sure in all of my previous experiences with rafting, I’ve taken the front.  It’s my favorite spot.  Most of the way through the trip, and after a particularly large rapid which had soaked everyone except me, I complained, “I’m still dry back here!”  Izhar generously let me trade spots with him, and I got to hit the last two rapids from there, one of which may have been the best rapid.

All too soon, we reached our destination, 22 km down the river.  They provided a weak and inadequate lunch, consisting of white bread with yak cheese, white bread with marmalade, a banana, an apple, a hard boiled egg, and humidified, bendable crackers.  Our guide then put us on a van headed back towards Kathmandu.  Just a random micro bus headed in the right direction.  Seemed fine enough to me since he paid for it.  I don’t mind the local buses.  But let me say a little about this road.  It’s the same road that heads to Pokhara; it’s a fairly narrow road that winds through the mountains.  Up, down, around, and then along the river.  The road is full of potholes and stretches of mud, and they like to drive as fast as possible for two seconds, then slam on the brakes behind the next vehicle you come up to.  The traffic was horrible, and the object was not to dodge potholes, but rather to dodge other vehicles.  As a result of this, I thought my head might come unattached from the rest of my body.  We passed numerous broken down trucks and buses, a truck in the ditch, two trucks in a head-on collision, and a bus that had careened into someone’s house.  On one occasion, at the same time as we were passing a slower vehicle going up a hill, a truck came barreling around the corner down the road toward us.  Both the truck and our van came to an abrupt stop head-on, with about 2 feet in between us.  The drivers yelled at each other for a brief moment and we then pulled back onto the appropriate side of the road.

Everyone in our van was very sleepy.  There were no headrests, however, and so our heads, and entire upper bodies, flopped around as we dozed off and on.  At first I made fun of Izhar next to me, who was flailing everywhere - his head would rest on the man’s back next to him and the next second he’d be nearly on my lap, not to mention drooling on himself.  But soon I fell asleep on the lady next to me, who was also sleeping.  Izhar woke up and took a picture of it, and soon the lady woke up and proceeded to hold my head on her shoulder to keep it from bouncing around.  Apparently it looked like I was her child, resting on her shoulder, and I slept this way for maybe half an hour.

We finally got to Kathmandu, or at least somewhere in its vicinity, when our driver announced this was as far as he went.  We got out and tried to figure out where we were.  I still have no idea.  But we started asking around, trying to figure out the direction to walk to Thamel or Newroad, and people kept pointing us in different directions.  Finally a man who spoke very good English told us that we needed to walk back to where we’d come from, and take a blue micro bus, because Thamel was at least an hour’s walk from there.  Oh that’s nice...Thanks mister rafting guide for paying for our transportation to middle of somewhere/almost Kathmandu/not where we wanted to be.  We asked every blue micro bus and a few white ones if they were going to Thamel, and none of them were.  Finally we just started walking in the direction that the blue micro buses were driving.  Then it started to rain.  We asked another guy at a shop how to get to the bus park.  Following his instruction, the first van we pulled over was going where we wanted for 10 rupees.  And good thing too, because the rain started to pour.

From there we walked to my favorite restaurant here, Or2K (which means Light to Kathmandu).  We stayed there and ate for at least an hour and a half, even getting dessert, hot chocolate cake and ice cream.  I usually don’t even like vanilla ice cream very much, but this may have been the best I’ve ever had - it was probably straight fat, but it was soooo rich.  Yum.  It was about 7 pm now and getting dark, so we headed off to the bus park.  We passed the fancy Pizza Hut and stopped by to use their amazing bathrooms.  They were playing Avril Lavigne at an overpowering volume and as Caleb said, it felt more like we had walked into Hot Topic than a restaurant!  We managed to catch the LAST bus to Banepa, arriving about 9 pm.  We went to my house, and with my housemate Marlene, attempted to teach each other 3 different languages - English, Spanish, and German.  When I went to bed at about 12:30, I discovered my alarm had conveniently been set to 4:25 pm instead of am.  Oh good, at least I didn’t sleep through it!