how we met Winnie and Jimmy

It's been such a long time since I've promissed to write about our first trekking adventure (Poon Hill Trekk), that the experience itself doesn't feel relevant anymore, amongst all those other experiences that came thereafter. Right now we're on the brink of leaving Pokhara - finally! - after we've spent two weeks on a farm and doing a 2nd trekk (ABC); now time has moved on and so have we, it feels. On the other hand the Poon Hill trekk was such an unexpectedly interesting experience, that I might as well tell you all about it!

On the first day, a quiet day in Pokhara, Klaus and me we’re having our breakfast and watched a group a karate kids with blue (or black?) belts jogging along the lake. We felt some compassion with them regarding the morning sport, not knowing what was awaiting us in the mountains...

But at the beginning there's always a bus-ride, not to say: adventure, even before the real adventure starts. You wonder how 2 vehicles could pass one another on those narrow and bumpy mountain roads and then they do with half a meter in between them. The music is better than in Indian busses but 4 times as loud, at least we got a good view on the mountains. To be honest, they look just like any mountains, you can't really see they're 8000 meters high. But we could feel it in our legs very quickly on the first steep part (and later in our lungs on the ABC), an endless row of stairs, going up, up, UP! At first it’s ok, it always is, but after almost 2 hours of steep stairs my legs felt like on a sunday morning of a 3-day-tournament. Klaus pushed me further until one of those small guest houses/ restaurants/ souvenir shops, where we had lunch. 

 

one of those bridges

 

one of those maps

up in the mountains the Nepalis all farm, with amazing results!

already up high...

So far, we’ve wondered about a couple of things along the way: how’s it gonna be safer to hike for us now that we’d shown them our permits and so on, saying we don’t know how long it’s gonna take us? And if the conservation park management uses the money from the permits for it's development, why is every school we pass by asking for donations (and even claiming to totally rely on money from passer-bys)? And are Klaus and me really the only ones without a guide or porter? 

There was one important thing, a realization that had first crossed my suspicious mind during the discussions on the permit-counter, and soon formed into a fact: unlike in Europe, in Nepal trekking is business. Big business. And everybody tries to get their share by taking money from visitors in various ways: park entrance fee, taxis to higher points, guiding trekkers, carrying their luggage, feeding and hosting them up in the mountains and last but not least selling souvenirs. I was mildly shocked about this, because mountains have never been touristy places for me; instead I used trekking as a way to escape the world of selling and buying.

 

Funnily, there were some interesting contrasts as well: we saw a women walking just in front of us, who looked nothing like a trekker, wearing a thick jacket, slippers and a handbag. I was curious how this could be, but she was just a local walking from one village to the next! I began to understand that I'd entered a completely different world of trekking to what I was used to.

 

During lunchtime a huge black mountain dog got lots of our attention, but not our cookies, and still decided to follow us later on. I don't know why but the dog came all the way to Ghandruk, taking up challenges like fighting with other dogs, crossing bridges and an insecure future in where it might land. We found that so cool, we called the dog Winnie. When we settled down in the guesthouse in Ghandruk, Winnie went off with a new friend, only to be found lying in front of our door the next morning, ready to go on. Needless to say that I fancied keeping him... But there are some really scary bridges, even for something as brave as a mountain dog's heart, and so we went on without Winnie at noon the second day. Or did he know we were on the wrong track? As it turned out later, the small, steep and remote track, was not the way to the next village that we'd intended to take. But it led there, anyways, and for those 2 hours of exhausting walking, we had the beautiful rhododendron forest all to ourselves! 

 

Winnie following our footsteps

some of the many donkeys carrying goods up and down, for us tourists to consume

and suddenly about 20 women competing as "Miss Ghandruk" (or something like that) appeared

cuddling Winnie in the morning

morning mountain view

 

some of the rhododendron forest

the sun came out after the clouds just before sunset

Klaus and the Tibetan prayer flags

The rest of the Poon Hill Trekk went as planned and continued upwards for another 1,5 days until a touristy place called Ghorephani at almost 3000 meters. It was the third day, we were running out of cash because prices were a lot higher than we'd expected, and we didn't like the place, so Klaus and me just walked on. Then it started raining. No problem, experienced hikers like us are well-equipped, but no more time for conversations with others beyond the usual 'Namaste!', the thunder was coming closer. This must have been the only part along the whole track without any guesthouses within an hour walking distance, so we took some shelter when the rain got worse, but continued hiking when we realized the lightnings are coming closer. Just when we'd left the shelter of trees, it started hailing and the lightnings and thunder were directly above us. Scared as hell, we took our legs and ran! We stranded in a small guesthouse that didn't seem to get many customers usually and the owner hardly spoke English, but she had an oven to burn away any of our doubts. 

Not long after us another person took shelter here from the weather: a Canadian called Jimmy Wood. We spent the whole night listing to his stories, experiences and theories about the Nepali and their culture, he knew it all! Not only did Jimmy speak Nepali but also ALL of the local languages in the whole country, plus Hindi, plus God-knows-what-else, due to spending some 30 years of his life staying in Nepal and India (half of the year, at least). Thanks to him we started to understand some behavior of Nepalis better and learned about the original food that is not on the menu. He invited us to Canada, where he works in the endless forests, and maybe we will follow that invitation, some day...

we're trying a self-portrit, when some Chinese walk in the picture... funny!

the view towards Poon Hill - we didn't go up because of the weather

meeting some horses in the middle of the woods, being free!

the hut that saved us from the storm - the day after

a porter carrying a hiker's luggage - up to 25kg

looking back at Machapuchare (Fishtail mountain) before finishing the track

Needless to say that we got back to Phokara safely; we took a different route out of the conservation area and therefor could use our permits again for the ABC (which wasn't allowed, but that's another story). Despite the paper troubles (before), some arrogant guides (during) and aching legs and feet (after), we really enjoyed the Poon Hill track, thinking of the good mountain views, the beautiful rhododendron forest and meeting Winnie and Jimmie.

namaste

Ein kurzes hello aus Nepal! Wir sind wieder in Pokhara, d.h. nach einer 4-Tages-Wanderung zum Poon Hill, was abgesehen von einem Gewitter, ein paar kleineren Wehwehchen und die nervige und teuer Buerokratie im Vorhinein echt schoen war. Vor allem der interessante aber steile Umwege, die bluehenden Rhododrendrombuesche , aeh, -baeume, Winnie und Jimmy waren hammerstark. Aber mehr davon (und Bilder!) beim naechsten Mal, mit besserem Internet. Vielleicht wenn wir von der Farm zurueck sind.

Ciao ciao! :)

PS: Wir haben heut spontan Ultimate gezockt, weil ein paar Leute auf ner Wiese hier ein Spiel gestartet hatten. Sehr cool! Natuerlich auch sehr simpel, aber hauptsache zocken!

PS(2): Wir haben schon ueber ein Dutzend Postkarten verschickt, wenigstens die aus Indien sollten angekommen sein. Meldet euch, wenn nicht und ihr noch eine wollt...

PS(3): Zeit zum Abendessen!

by Lia

music and people

da wir in Kathmandu nicht viel zu tun haben, sind wir schon wieder im Internet... Mir ist aufgefallen, dass zwei sehr wichtige Dinge fuer das Glueck auf unserer Reise bisher relativ unbeachtet blieben. Musik und Menschen. Das holen wir jetzt nach:

Enjoy the music, Nepal O.S.T.:


And now some of our friends:

the GREAT Lara (GER/ Windarra)

the incomparable Gansham (INDIA/ Windarra)

the memorable Moijtaba (INDIA/ Windarra)

sweet Bree (GB/ Windarra)

cute Mokscha (Sweden) and Sina (IRAN/ Windarra)

Carina (BRAZIL), Lara, Lia, Bree, Lydia (RUSSIA) and Maite (BRAZIL)

beautiful Namoh (PORTUGAL) and Mojib (INDIA)

funny Leela (GER/ Auroville) and her friend and Klaus

the incredible Massi, Sion and Laura

this was India

Hey hey, we're out of India and back to bad english... Staying at a farm with many non-native speakers and Indians on top of that didn't really help improving our skills. But what else happened?

At last we got to travel a bit, first of all in trains, which was nice, not to say a lot better than what rumors say. Mostly, trains were on time, food and drinks were available almost all of the time and overnight travels were almost comfortable (we always took the lowest class). Only during the day it got so hot that just reading a book got us sweaty all over! No need to mention that it was a cheap way to get over huge distances...

Busses weren't as comfortable, local ones, I mean. The system is quite confusing, since vehicles sometimes don't have numbers and people only seem to know where the bus goes that takes them home... Next to the driver there's a helper who stands in the door, shouting the destination when the bus approaches, chasing people in and collecting the money. The A/C is ... open windows! But the bus to Hampi, for instance, stopped so often that it barely helped to sit next to the window. The seat must have been designed for people of slim built, students maybe, or Nepalese. The music shouting from the speakers is surely taken from some Bollywood movie, and despite not being beautiful, it's very appropriate in a way. So while we're given a good shake on this endless bus ride, we had enough time to think about the lessons this country has taught us...

So how does India appear to the traveller?
First of all, as a country of spicy food (lassi and not breathing through the mouth helps), chaotic traffic (a street has exactly x lanes, and x being the number needed at that time), hundreds of languages (hindi is only spoken by a fourth of all Indians), thousands of gods and last but not least millions of cows, everywhere. On the second glance we saw the beautiful sarees and punjabis of the women, which are (like snow-cristalls) never the same. We saw the curiosity and suspiciousness in the eyes of most Indians when they saw white people like us, and not only when it came to the multiple times higher prices for us, I had to think of racism. It's an annoying and tiring feeling to be always different, excluded in a way, to be stared at and looking at pointing fingers. But still, I'm grateful for that experience, showing us what it's like to be different. And of course we've also had many positive moments: people smiling at us, asking where we from and trying to help if we needed it or not, especially with busses. They seemed to be fascinated by Germany ("good country!"), and usually wanted to know what we work (or even how much we earn).
As you may have heard about India, PDA (kissing, hugging, even holding hands) is like a crime and you will never see even a married couple doing it. So you can imagine our surprise when we saw men of every age hugging, cuddling and holding hands! I'm not sure if girls do it, but two men walking hand in hand on the street is very common...

We won't spare you some of the dark side we saw in India, like the stray dogs, the litter lying around (globalization and plastics came here before the concept of recycling did) or being burned everywhere, and the poverty. There're many beggars walking around, and not only the slums of Mumbai were scary, because we saw them right next to the runway while driving in a bus on the airport. Anyway, even the poor ones have smartphones which really makes you wonder about priorities in life...

And now, after so many words, some pictures from our trip in India:

Chillout area at Lara's, Windarra Farm

visiting a worker's family, Tamil Nadu

rice harvest, Windarra Farm

those strange bugs, grown together on their butts

a normal swastika on our hut, Hampi

sunset at the monkey temple, Hampi

view from the monkey temple

temple in central Hampi

the temple elephant goes for it's morning bath, Hampi

the trains were really long...

chillin out in Palolem, Goa

those two crazy travellers!

is this India?

Unsere Indienreise ist beinahe vorbei, nur das dickste steht noch bevor: Mumbai. Immerhin haben wir schon Hampi und jetzt Goa ueberlebt...
Hampi war angenehm. Ok, ueberraschend touristisch, an der Hauptstrasse gab es wie erwaehnt unzaehlige Ramschlaeden, die einen Tag nach unserem Eintreffen niedergemaehmt wurden. Die Zeit danach war wesentlich ruhiger und gepraegt von Ausfluegen in die Felsenlandschaft, inklusive Sonnenuntergang wie man sich ihn sonst auf Kalenderblaettern findet.

Wir verliessen Hampi frueh morgens als noch keine Faehre fuhr und trugen unser Gepaeck selbst durch den Fluss. Das heisst, Klaus tat das, ich war damit beschaeftigt, im Dunkeln die Untiefen zu uebersehen, ein Fliflop zu verlieren, ihm hinterzuspringen und zu erwischen, dann beinah weggetrieben zu werden und schliesslich den anderen zu verlieren. Immerhin blieb die Trommel in meiner Hand trocken und ich schaffte es ans andere Ufer. Ein paar Tage spaeter bekam ich von unseren britischen Freundinnen in Goa neue alte Schuhe geschenkt. Ueberhaupt laufen wir in zahllosen Secondhand-Klamotten rum, auf der Farm haben wir eine Menge Gebrauchtes abgestaubt, sehr gute Sachen teilweise. Die Schuhe, von denen einer jezt im indischen Fluss treibt, waren auch dabei.

Die Zugfahrt war angenehm, bis auf die Hitze. Aber zur Abwechslung mal tagsueber zu fahren bereicherte uns mit Einblicken in die indische Einoede und spaeter den Dschungel.

Angekommen in Palolem, Goa, war ich tatsaechlich ueberrascht, dass es am Strand ein wenig so aussah, wie ich mir Mallorca immer vorgestellt hatte: zahllose Strandbuden mit Cocktail Happy Hour and noch mehr Touristen mit Hautkrebs im ersten Stadium. Dann eben baden, warum auch nicht? Unsere Huette ist etwas weiter weg vom Strand, vorbei am Bikinishop ("Barely covering girls since 2006"), aber nicht an der Strasse, eigenes Bad, nur 500 Rupien, coole Sache.

Morgen machen wir uns wieder auf die Socken, entspannter mittlerweile, da wir um die Gegebenheiten im indischen Transportsystem bescheid wissen: Klimaanlage heisst Fenster auf, Busse fahren, wenn genuegend Passagiere da sind und mit dem Ticketchecker legt man sich besser nicht an, nur weil man den "Weisse-Haut-Aufschlag" bezahlt...