I went to Nepal and somehow I lived...

So last minute .. that is, 5 days prior, I decided that I would go to Nepal. I mean, why not? It's located in the north above India to the east and its been proven that saying you went to two asian countries over the summer is cooler than just one. So i booked the train ticket there with Alvin (New Zealand) and Kylie (my Canadian travel buddy) and a plane flight back. So we left Friday night for what we thought was going to be 24 hours of train and bus traveling. Ohhh were we in for a surprise.

So we show up at the train station for our 5PM departure time and our hour later, without any announcement that says our train is delayed, the train has still not shown up. So we continue to wait. 2 cups of chai and 2 cups of fake coffee later, still no train. So Kylie and I go off to the "Enquiry" stations to find out what is happening. Turns out all of the Enquiry stations are closed for the day... typical. So we somehow break into the place where the train workers are working - props to Kylie - so we can get some questions answered. Still no one knows. How is this possible you ask? The answer... its India. So we head back to meet Alvin who lets us know that in the 20 minutes we were gone, the train both came and left. Fantastic. But lucky for us, its returning in 20 minutes. It was at this point that I think we created the "surprise scale" that we would soon use for the rest of the trip. Essentially, we assess at one level, from 1-10, we are surprised that something has happened. So about 40 minutes later, at around 8PM now, the train finally comes and we arrive in Sonali (on the border of India with Nepal) 14 hours later.

So then we get a taxi to the border and go to the Indian immigration office:

Yep, that's it. Surprise scale? Zero. So then we head through the Nepal border (very exciting!!).

Horray! Then we head to the Nepal immigration office with some new friends we made in the taxi ride - a guy from England who comes to Nepal every year in the summer to work with the same village, and a guy from Sweden who is traveling all over Asia. We were going to wait for the guy from Sweden because we were all going to Pokhara (another bus ride away) but we thought we wouldnt be able to because it took us 4 hours to get our visa from the Nepal embassy and he was buying his at the border. It took 5 minutes. Suprise scale? 6 - I was actually quite impressed. So then we head off to find the next bus leaving.

After we buy our bus tickets we wait around 1 hour for the bus to come even though it was scheduled to leave in 15 minutes. In India (and I guess Nepal as well) you must learn the art of patience. I've been getting better. So then we board this:

The tin can of doom. Let me first inform you of what the Lonely Planet book on Nepal says about the buses: "Bus travel in Nepal poses a significant risk of accident. It's uncommon to drive for more than an hour on any stretch of road without passing the burnt-out shell of a public bus crushed like tin foil into the canyon below. Travelling on an overnight bus is probably the most dangerous thing you can do in Nepal, and is certainly a bigger risk than that currently is posed by the Maoists and even more dangerous than the bungee jump (only kidding on that one). You are 30 times more likely to die in a road accident in Nepal than in most developed countries."

Needless to say, after I read this in India I refused to take a bus. But somehow... we ended up taking a bus. We talked to the experienced English guy who came to Nepal a lot and he said its only bad if you take it at night. So we said, sure not problem our bus leaves at 4! Problem. Not only did our bus not leave at 4, (somewhere around 5:30 to be exact) but the driver made three 20 minute stops within the first hour of movement. Our surprise scales we adjusting with every stop.

So by the time we were finally on the road, it was pitch black out. Then we began on the road that would last for the rest of the trip to Pokhara - a small barely-paved road on the side of gigantic mountains. To our left, there was the mountain. To our ride, I saw the largest drop (imagine looking down into the Grand Canyon) I think I have ever seen in my life. At least there was a river with rapids at the very bottom right? That is, if we would survive the 2 mile fall. Oh and there weren't any of those cushy barriers that exist in the US - oh no. It was just the end of the road and then plop! ..there goes my life!

The next 12 hours were the most horrifying 12 hours of my life. I first hyperventilated for about 2 hours with a death grip on one of the bus seat ...like that would save me. Then as Alvin and Kylie tried to calm me down (somehow they were able to sleep even though they knew we also had about a 50% chance of dying) and I listened too happy music on my Ipod. Thank you, Hairspray. And of course, to top off the horrifying turns on a bus moving much to quickly for that altitude, there were other cars on the road. Oh and not just cars - trucks. So there would be a bus (usually us on the outside closest to our pending doom) and a truck on the inside. Wonderful. Then the driver also stopped another 4 or 5 times. One stop at about 3 AM lasted over an hour. Considering I didn't sleep at all because I wanted to be conscious when I was dying, these stops for who knows what became increasingly annoying. I just was praying he wasn't drinking... although that would have been about a 4 on the surprise scale.

Somehow... we lived. I literally kissed the ground when i stepped off the bus. Somehow we found a guest house to stay at when we arrived at 5 AM and we stept til 12. When we woke up - we noticed... Pokhara is BEAUTIFUL. Just wonderful. So after some delicious breakfast we headed out for a boat ride on the lake.

This was just the relaxation we needed!

After paddling for a bit we stopped at a small idland in the center with a temple on it. And here we took another picture...

Only odd part about the Temple Island was that there were a large number of decapitated pigeons. We asked our boat driver and he clarified our suspicions - they were definitley decapitated by humans.

After that we decided we would walk around and see the shops, town and get some lunch. The signs were pretty hilarious at some of the stores.

After lunch we did a few touristy things like see Devi's waterfall. Apparently a European woman, Devi, was bathing in the waterfall with her husband when she fell down it and died. It's now named after her. It was pretty.. but it makes me wonder who would bathe in it since its pretty obviously deadly. Then again, I did willingly take that bus ride the night before.

Then we went to a temple cave (we weren't allowed to take pictures of the temple though. Then cave was located right under Devi's Fall so it was dripping water down there.

Then we had some dinner (looking back we mostly ate there). And I got some authentic Nepali food! Basically like Indian, but with rice instead of chapatti. And they eat it all with their hands too! This was our view from the restaurant where we ate outside:

The next day we woke up at 5 am to go to the top of some mountain to get a view of part of the Himalayan range during sunrise. It was pouring but we had to pay our driver anyway (500 Nepali rupees each!!) It was incredibly foggy so we saw nothing. But then we went back at around 4 for only 300 rupees for all three of us (much better) an we saw it!They were SO TALL. It is difficult to describe. I know we have huge mountains surrounding us in Arizona but Dad, you would have died. It was amazing. This one's name is Annapurna and its is the 10th tallest in the world. Actually 8 of the top 10 are in Nepal - the other two are in Pakistan (K2 and another one).

This is us in our Indian squatting pose!

Alvin always looked off into the distance in every picture...

So then the next morning we went to our FLIGHT to Kathmandu. We were previously going to bus it there as well but I would rather cut off my toe than do that again. They could have charged me $300 and I would have agreed. Good thing they didn't..

This is our plane! We actually got to step only the runway and get on it (AKA one of my life goals). Check!! The plane ride took a total of 20 minutes and it was remarkably smooth - suprise scale? 11!!!

For the afternoon and the next morning we explored Kathmandu. It is like a typical Indian town but MUCH cleaner. We only saw one person on the street!n To kill time we also went to see Transformers 2 in theatres (it was awesome) and I started getting excited about next year because half the movie was set in Jordan (woo!). Overall, Nepal was great. The weather was amazing (I actually didn't sweat!) and the mountains were gorgeous. Kylie and Alvin even took the plane ride to Mount Everest in the morning on Wednesday - i didn't see it as worth it unless I planned to trek to see the mountain so I slept in :) But we were also happy to get back to Delhi where the prices are not so ridiculous (for some reason everything was so expensive there in comparison). And Delhi was happy to see us too - welcoming us with a big whiff of shit. Ahhh.. home sweet home.