Week 28 - Pokhara + Besisahar

The bus rides here are divided into tourist buses and local buses, with standard and luxury tour buses. Luckily I opted for the luxury version with sofa seats, because I have never experienced roads like these in any other country. The journey of around 150 km takes a leisurely 10 hours and you are shaken so much that you regret not having put on a sports bra. My sofa seat had no seatbelt and there were bumps so big that I was completely lifted off the seat and my head almost touched the ceiling. The whole country is basically a huge road construction site and in the monsoon season most of the year's progress is washed away. Contrary to my hopes, the air is consistently bad in Pokhara and I realise for the first time that I have landed in the middle of the burning season, which I had managed to avoid in Laos and Thailand. Kind of ironic. I hadn't noticed that, because April and May are the peak season for trekking in the higher mountains. When I arrived on the way to the hostel, two sweet girls gave me fresh flowers, which was a great welcome.

Pokhara is supposed to be the more relaxed version of Kathmandu and at the same time it is the gateway to the Annapurna region, where there are many beautiful hikes. The burning season unfortunately obscures the snow-covered eight-thousanders and the large lake also looks mysterious and uninviting. But it is definitely more relaxed here. The people in the equipment shops don't push anything on you and even let you browse in peace. Since I wanted to wait for Floor to go shopping, who was on safari in the meantime, I just wandered around the city for two days. This week I felt really strange with low energy, little desire for social interaction and a kind of inner restlessness. So even though I had 10 days to settle in Nepal, I couldn't sort out my thoughts at all and was so strangely agitated the whole time and dead tired by 8 p.m. But with the hope that this would soon settle down again on a hike with exercise and fresh mountain air, I just accepted it.

I then spontaneously went on a paragliding flight, simply because it was so cheap (35€), which was really fun compared to my experience in Canada, but a bit unnecessary due to the absolutely terrible visibility. For our morning flight, our pilots were assigned by lot. Mine went straight to the take-off slope, pushed his way to the front and we were one of the first in the air (out of around 300 people). When we took off, people in front of us tumbled over in rows or the parachute cords got tangled and I had a queasy feeling in my stomach for a moment. But Ramesh brought me down safely with a smooth landing and took a few terrible pictures on the way. The landing on the field can only be described as chaotic, because everyone landed randomly in the area and with varying landing skills. While I was sipping my freshly squeezed orange juice downstairs and waiting for an hour for my group, one of them almost landed on the roof and the next one almost knocked over a spectator with his landing. But somehow we always arrive safely! In the evening we went to the open-air cinema, which is decorated really cutely and offers a great evening with pizza and hot chocolate.

The big shopping trip turned out to be extremely exhausting and ended up taking two whole days. Since we both needed basically everything except hiking boots and backpacks, we bought all our equipment together for around €100, including water purification tablets, electrolytes, snacks, extra water bottle...). When it comes to clothing, you can choose between fake Patagonia, North Face, Arcteryx and all the hip brands. You want to look a bit smart at base camp (you have to have a bit of vanity). In the end, the whole thing can be sold on to backpackers pretty easily, which makes it totally financially viable!

I am now sooo ready for the hike and send my best wishes🥰

Update:

We begin with an indefinitely long journey to Nagdi. The first leg was announced to take 2 hours. We managed this in 4 hours in a local bus. This was totally fine with relatively comfortable seats, legroom like in an airplane and a fresh breeze mixed with a healthy amount of fine dust. Before changing buses, we quickly had 3 samosas for breakfast, followed by a toast samosa and a banana offered by our guide (it's impossible to refuse). The second bus is a thousand times more local than the first. The legroom and width of these seats is a generous 30cm and because the front seats cannot be pulled out of the reclining position, the legroom is reduced to around 10cm. The two girls with the long legs are very kindly seated on the front seats with more space. The people in Nepal are really remarkably friendly. So we sit a little closer to the screeching loudspeaker and before the full bus sets off, about 15 more people jump on board. Our thick trekking backpacks are attached to the roof and with every hill we climb at 5 km/h, I hope that the luggage doesn't end up quietly in some bush. In Besisahar we wait a few hours for the other two with whom we are going on the trek (we were informed of this change the evening before, so spontaneity and flexibility are required here). While we wait, we eat a cornetto from across the street. Since the other two arrive later than planned, we spend the night in Besisahar so that we can drive to Nagdi the next morning and start the trek.

Floor and I woke up at 4am with terrible food poisoning. The crappy (milky) ice cream was obviously no longer good and I really should have known better after months in Southeast Asia and especially my food poisoning in Cambodia, which I ALSO caught from dairy products. But after a while you feel safe and think you now have a stomach of steel, but YOU THINK! Well, the curry from the night before was flying out of all directions and we spent a lot of time in the bathroom of horror. Admittedly, things could have been worse in terms of the accommodation. Recovery isn't really too big a problem but we were thinking about the start of the hike the whole time, which was even more stressful. But they looked after us really well and brought all the meals from the restaurant opposite to our bed and brewed the hottest ginger teas.

Recovery then went steeply uphill and our boredom and the strong urge to finally leave the bad air of the burning season and the garbage fires behind us meant that after 3 days we requested a new guide and our original itinerary was almost identical with one less day of hiking for an additional €30. But through this stay we got to know each other really well and were both so incredibly excited about the hike with fresh air, exercise, snow-capped mountains and social interaction outside of our room. In the evening we met our new guide Puru with whom we were finally able to start the tour the next day.