No More Walk!

Short Version:
We walk from Syauli Bazaar to Naya Pul. We stop walking.

Stats:
Total Walk Time Day 22 = 1:30
Cumulative Total Walk Time = 104:00
Beer Time = 7:00

Long Version:
Syauli Bazaar Morning:
It's the last day of trekking, and we sleep in, partly because we don't really want the trek to end, and partly because we're buggered from yesterday.
Fishtail looms, bathed in sun, above the dining room where we breakfast on a tasty omlet and some delicious banana pancakes.
One of the serving-wenches has a ridiculously squeaky voice.
Our "big cups" of coffee come in glass handles, more usually associated with beer-quaffage
The reception counter sits atop a glass-fronted cabiinet. There is a random assortment of junk in the cabinet:
- a plastic dog with a waggy tail. It is old and dirty*
- a blender jug with lid
- an assortment of juice cans, no two alike
- drinking straws
- candles
- envelopes
- a can of tuna
- more drinking straws

For 21 days Uzir uncomplainingly carried all our crap, and even though we paid him to do it, it seemed just a wee bit unfair.
The whole village turned out to watch and laugh as we set off, then, with two big duffel bags strappeed to the Puppetnoggin. There may have been some complaining. There was certainly only six minutes of Puppetcarry.
Nenecarry followed, and lasted eight minutes.
Then we were back to normal, with a newfound appreciation not only for Uzir's efforts carrying our 25kg load, but also for his 105kg record effort.

Sunny Saturday means many people about; working in the fields, walking the road, building haystacks. There were also some strange nutcases around; one guy threw rocks at us from atop a cliff, another wandered past carrying a sickle and with a "seeking-victims" look on his face.

We hit Biranthanti, and specialty shops started to appear (we'd had only limited-goods general stores up in the hills). By the time we reached the outskirts of Nayapul, there were stores selling beauty stuff, shampoo and other hair stuff, hardware, electronics**, and random junk. There were also geese with bandit masks made of rooster-comb***

And then there were buses, and taxis, and we waited a bit while Ganga did some negotiating, and then the four of us and all our stuff somehow managed to fit into a Suzuki Swift hatchback. The driver had spider-web graphics on his gloves, bells and medallions and other crap hanging from his rearview mirror, and pictures of Hindu gods all over the place. And he drove really blimmin fast on really shitty roads, somehow managing to not run over any of the people and cows and other vehicles executing random-seeming manoeuvres, including the motorcycle cop with the enormous gun.

We drove past a store signed "Grossery" and then we reached Pokhara, and our hotel, and our room, where each wall was a different colour and the bedspread had lime green and bright yellow flowers, and where there was a bath in the bathroom. And then we went out and ate pizza and drank beer and said our farewells to Ganga and Uzir at a lakefront restaurant with a balcony overlooking a park where an elaborate festival of some sort was underway, and we did some reminiscing about the trek, and then they set off for Kathmandu and we wiped a tiny tear from each of our eyes and then had a nap before heading out to wander the streets of Pokhara.

Pokhara's lakefront district is similar to Thamel in Kathmandu, only less intense. We wandered aimlessly, looking at stuff and warding off sales attempts. Eventually, hunger spoke loud, and we stopped to eat delicious foods, including fried cashew nuts, tandoori chicken, and a wonderfully-flavored malai kofta which had, instead of cylinders of potato drowned in the sauce, two large Madonna-tit-shaped piles poking out like model volcanic islands in a thick brown ocean of tastiness. It was good that the foods were delicious, because the service was terrible (although that may have had something to do with the 20+ Orstralian teens who ordered just before we did).

Oh, and they played Joan Armatrading on the stereo. The whole album.

When asked to play something good they turned it down a bit.

Waking in the middle of the night to the sound of someone climbing the stairs to the third floor of the hotel, going in to the room next to ours, urinating, then leaving again was kind of odd, as was the discovery that the ceiling of our room had glow-in-the-dark stars and moons and planets on it.








* = Nothing wrong with old and dirty

** = Basically just selling shitty old TVs

*** = I assume not actually made from rooster combs. That would mean the geese were mugging roosters for their hats, and then fashioning them into supervillain eyemasks. Which is possible but unlikely.