Another one bites the dust...Arrived Nepal

Hello ladies, gents and creatures! The lack of time or connection caused this waiting for the post, but here we are again, ready to rumble. Last time you know of us we were at Delhi and already bought our train ticket to Lucknow. Our train departed from New Delhi Railway Station at 6:15AM so we woke up at 5:00AM. The Main Bazaar street was starting to pulse with life and human activity, even at such unholy hours.

We were expecting a nightmare of a train, but at our surprise, we had an AC wgon, full of facilities (connector for recharging laptop, cell phone), breakfast included, mineralwater, in other words, the day could not start earlier and better. The only sad note was that passangers of this vagon class had high status, and seemed to us that some of them did their best to mess the work of the waiters.


We even spent our time playing a bit of Heroes, just to remember how it felt. The six hours passed pretty fast, so we were delighted. Also I started to feel bad, had stomache, I think, since we were going to Lucknow, was about time to ran out of luck, and pay for all the things I had been eating.

Lucknow has a 18th Century english colony-fort, known because around 3.000 persons went there to take refuge during the "Cipayo" Revelion. If I'm not wrong 2.000 of them died on it during a twelve month siege. We were thinking of visiting this after buying the train ticket to Gorakhpur, last indian city before entering Nepal, but my stomach decided for us. I was feeling so sick that, instead, we went a good hotel with a good restaurant with, probably, the best western toilet in the city, and spent the waiting time there. I ate plain rice, drank water.

Then it came...the train. I've never been in anything similar to it. First our ticket didn't have seat number, which was funny at the beginning, but not so much when we discovered that our one and a half dollar ticket were for 'General' class. We never entered the general class, crowds of standing persons filled the different wgons, we moved until we found a couple free sits, which we discovered they belong to sleepers class. Advice: buy all your train tickets with anticipation.We should have taken, there, at Delhi, our ticket from Lucknow to Gorakhpur if that was possible. Instead we had to stand on the corridors of the sleepers class vagons. That's not so bad "perse", but if you are feeling sick, and it's a six hours trip, can be kinda hellish. I was just hoping that my stomach doesn't play me a bad trick.

On the bright side of it, not counting all the insects that were falling from the roof and walls of the wagon, we met a couple of young indians, with whom I chated, answering and asking questions.

Gorakhpur was just a hotel and a night. On the morning we took a taxi with a couple of Denmark guys and three indians to Sunail, the border town. We made a stop on this 2 hours trip, and when we arrived Sunail a quasi-infinite line of trucks forced our ban to stop. We walked the last kilometer into Nepal, and starting to find an ATM to get some cash to pay a bus trip to Pokhara, one of the main cities in Nepal.

I still feel bad for the poor richshaw driver (bicycle one) who took us to the bank road to get the money. It's gonna be Delawhi festival here in Nepal, or something like that, and the ATM at the border did not have money. Was obvious that he barely was able to carry us and our backpacks, but he made and efford since we did not have money, and we gonna get it at our destination.

At the end got the money and went to eat something before getting a bus to Pokhara. Is not a difficult task, lots of busses go there from the border, and you can ask everyone for them. We also reserved a night in Pokhara and the guy told us that someone is gonna pick us when we arrive there and take us to the hotel, with no extra charges, we were amazed.

Our bus trip to Pokhara was great at the begining. Nepal natural beauty is under any kind of doubt. The mountains full of green, the rivers on the depths below, the sky of an deep blue. Everything stuns the visitor on it's first time. But of course, we could not have a pleasant, perfect trip, as many others before, this one has its own drawbacks.

First of all they are 8 hours, if you get into the bus at midday, you arrive at night, and you can't delight on the natural beauty of the surroundings. Second, thebus runs very close to the same very depths you are enjoying, making them not so delightful. And of course, our bus was the prized one. We made a stop to pick up some persons and then the motor decided was enough. Looked like the battery was low on power. Hmmmm. We waited for around ten minutes, while crossing cars and buses blew their horns at us. At the end, last option, the driver took off the hand break and we started to fall back on the mountain, then he happily got the motor back to life. Not needed to say that he did not stop the motor for the rest of the trip, even we stop at a fuel station to get some gas.

Arrived at Pokhara around 22:00PM, although we did not know. But someone entered the bus and pointed at us, and said, I'm here to pick you up. We stared at each other surprised again. Were we going to have a nice trip end? So it seemed. He took us to the hotel as we were promised. Freely. No extra charges. We walk 30 yards.

We ate dinner, my stomach, the champion, resisted the whole trip and I was congratulating it. Ferran asked for a coke, they opened one bottle for him and fill one glass. After he drank the second glass and they were removing the bottle again, he said "No, you can leave it here, I'll drink it all."

The room has no AC but it had attached toilet, and was no very dirty. The hotel manager also carries on a Nepal tour, so we have taken it. To get us a bit fond of him he invited us to an international (India Kerala college vs. Nepal team) of cricket. I do not have to say that we did not know anything of this sport before yesterday. He also told us that we were granted the honour of giving the prize to the winner..."Ein??? Hmm Uh! Oh1 ... 0.k." Feran went to the "stadium" at 8:30AM, since I was not feeling completely well I went at 12:00 in the noon.

The stadium was the ground yard of one of the major colleges here in Pokhara. It has no seats, of course, and the main, and ONLY, spectators of the match were us. I have to say that cricket is just a bit funny, but matches are so long that, after one day and nine hours, it gets boring, nevertheless, the players were very excited and shouted the whole match, so I guess they were getting a lot of fun.

At the end of it, 17:0PM more or less, as we were promised, with the Principle of the college we got the honour of giving the prizes to the winner. In fact, there were two cups, one for the winner and one for the runner (second place), so everyone got his prize. The Nepal team won, but that is reasonable, since Kerala is at four bus days to the south, and I bet the indian team didn't feel at their best form.

We took some pictures and went back to the hotel. Tomorrow, that is today, we were gonna get a guided tour around the city, and I hope we also play soccer with the hotel manager, he told us he will arrange a match for us.

We'll see.
Best wishes.