Stranded... at the spa!

So, this last weekend my friend Joy and I went to a most wondrous relaxing hotel/spa just outside of KTM. It was sooo relaxing, bargain basement cheap, and they seemed to throw in free drinks, possibly because they messed up my food orders twice. Not sure how but for lunch on Saturday I received Prawn Cocktail which wasn't on the menu, instead of the beef (yes I ate holy cow) sandwich that I did order... random...

On Sunday when we were supposed to come home there was another Bandh (strike) this time called by teachers unions who incidentally haven't been teaching any classes the last 2 weeks... it was pretty well enforced, lots of tyre burning and rock throwing, and so alas we had to spend the whole day by the pool... stranded as it were at the spa! Cant think of many nicer places in KTM to be stranded!

Me outside our free upgrade deluxe room/cabin

Joy in the bedroom... it was huge!

power showers in the bathroom... soooooooooooooooooooooo very exciting!

One of the courtyards at the hotel... lovely!

The pool

We went on a guided walk in the woods (so exciting given how deprived of woods we are in KTM). The guide was interesting. He told us how because the land is Royal property the crown prince (not the most popular of chaps) comes often to shoot the deer in the woods, and so the numbers are going down... he also said 'democracy is good, but king and political parties are bad'. I think that this is felt by many Nepalis... they want democracy, but not the corruption and ineffectiveness of the political parties... but of a problem me thinks!

The golf course - I find it hard to believe this is actually in Nepal, let along KTM. It was green, well manicured, designed by people who did Gleneagles, and apparently one of the best in South Asia... very expensive for a round, but plenty of expats (particularly Asians) on the course... we discovered the Crown Prince plays a lot, bringing with him all his body guard entourage. Apparently he isn't very good tho ;o)

(very) mini break to India... without a passport

This last week I have been down in the hot hot southern plains of Nepal... very close to the Indian boarder, which was how I ended up having a mini break in India... without my passport! So after work one evening we got a rickshaw and went a couple of miles down the road and across a bridge and into India. No one really said anything, but perhaps it was obvious we weren't going far in a rickshaw? Once in India I posed for a photo (see below)... smelt the lovely green smell of the Forrest we appeared to be in, and then went back into Nepal... where there was a short moment of panic as they demanded to know where I had come from (India?)... did I have a visa? umm... well yes in my passport hundreds of kilometers away in Kathmandu! Fortunately my colleague managed to persuade them I wasn't an illegal immigrant and no great tragedy occurred!

In the cycle rickshaw on the way to India

Under the barrier, out of Nepal, over the bridge...

...under the 'customs' barrier... and into India... Dudwa National Park to be precise

Me in India!

Other random interesting parts of the trip included the glorious and large alpine scene that adorned the guestroom I was staying in above the office (see photo below)... and the fact that the night guard appeared to be drying his Y-fronts on the banister outside my bedroom, so whenever I left the room I was greeted by the sight of them... such a thrill.


There were also frequent power cuts. On most annoyingly happened the moment they were announcing the winner of American Idol. Can you imagine the stress? who was going to win... would it be Jordin or Blake? Fortunately I was able to call my friend Joy and establish that Jordin did actually win. Otherwise I just don't know what I would have done... possibly had a minor nervous breakdown?

The district I was in (Kailali) is a bit of a Maoist hotspot... largely because in the past the majority of the land has been owned by a few landowners, and much of the population were landless slaves... this is ripe ground for Maoism! Even though the bonded labour set up has been outlawed, there are still many many landless people. We saw quite a few living in small huts, covered with blue plastic sheeting in hospital compounds... (see photo below).

others had been given very small pieces of land by the government and were eking out a living on these. As they are low caste, their prospects in life are hard. A very different type of poverty from that in the mountainous areas which are so isolated!

Small family hut in southern Nepal, the land is not really large enough for the family to grow many crops to eat

Water Buffalo grazing

Typical transport... from bricks, wood, to sick people...

Anyways, there was evidence of the Maoist action in the bombed out customs buildings that we passed... (see photo below)...


...and the high security level at the airport... ok so they were still crap in checking bags, and although the body frisking was slightly more rigorous (the girl certainly made sure I wasn't stashing any grenades in my bra), i still could have taken whatever onto the plane... however considering this airport receives 1 flight per day, and this flight has a maximum of 20 people on it (including pilot, co-pilot, stewardess) there were several heavily armed army blokes, 5 not so heavily armed army people and at least 6 police and security types... and that was excluding the security post outside the airport. I conclude airport security in Nepal is more about job creation than actual security...

Now I am off to a 5* spa resort for le weekend with my friend. £35 for 2 nights and all food included. Total bargain... I cant wait x o x

Ants

So I am currently sitting in the dark in a power cut... we have a lot less now, but they still pop up every few days! Laptop batteries are handy!

I thought I would write about ants, and ask if anyone has any good remedies for killing ants? If so please let me know. I am currently waging a war with the small black beings.

My kitchen seems to be fairly overrun with them, although keeping anything edible out of sight does help keep numbers down. Yesterday I made a fairly fatal mistake. I made a whole load of mini choc-orange muffins. Just as an aside I made them in a Le Creuset (darling) Silicone mini muffin baking tray: http://www.lecreuset.co.uk/Default.aspx?PCat=56 which is legendary. It has a 10 year guarantee and can be screwed into a ball, frozen, put in an over or a dishwasher... and if purchased from a Le Cruset outlet store is really quite cheap ;o) Truly the way forward in kitchen bake ware... and it is orange? What more could anyone want?!

Anyways, so I made some to take to a party which was happening after the concert of the choir I sing in, and some to take to a friends house for lunch today. So, the ones for today I wrapped up in silver foil, and then tied them up in a plastic bag and left them on the side over night. This morning I picked up the bag and moved it and that was when I noticed million ants crawling all over my surfaces... hmm so i went and looked at the bag of muffins... many ants on the bag... so i opened the bag... many ants in the bag... so i opened the foil... and those cheeky ants were all enjoying my mini muffins... seriously it was horrible... the muffins were just seething in small black crawling ants, it looked revolting, and was such a waste... but I was just SOOOOOOOOOOOO glad that I had noticed and hadn't taken them to my friends house. Just imagine the horror! Anyways, being chief domestic goddess I whipped up some more, and all was OK!

Moral: Store things in the fridge, or in Tupperware. Ants can get through plastic bags and foil.

Escape from Lamjung!

Last week I was out in Lamjung with work. Lamjung is a district to the east of Pokhara in Central Nepal (although it is actually in the 'western' development region. It is a really beautiful place, up nice and close to the Himalayas, and I think many of the treks you can do in Nepal start from here.

So, I thought I would do a small pictorial guide to Lamjung district (in particular the district capital Besishahar), and my escape from it, which proved rather eventful!

I was staying in what appeared to be the penthouse bedroom of the Tukuche Hotel... fairly basic, but huge balcony and nice views!


Randomly given its remote location the hotel had a rather flash electrical set up with one of those room key cards which activate the electricity. Unfortunately it seemed that we had power cuts half the time so I couldn't make the most of such wonders...
Also of interest (??) were the curtains... which had a garden cross stitch pattern stamped on them. They seemed totally alien to the surroundings!
So what can one do in Lamjung? Here are some suggestions, should, like me you have an extended stay...

1) Buy some new under ware... i don't think a fitting service is available.

2) Buy some chickens.. possibly not free range
3) Buy some chili to accompany the chicken. Fortunately this is available by the kilo.
4) Make a cup of tea. This was the first time I have seen one of these devises for myself. They're great, basically the mirrors reflect and concentrate the sun rays onto the trivet where the kettle is, and this is, and this boils the water. It seemed to work pretty well!
5) Join in a rally of the Youth Communist League.
This was a bit scary as adults driving in the jeeps were shouting out down with US and Indian imperialism, and the children (some looked very young) were responding with chants and cheers... I decided I might look too much like a US imperialist to join in...

However, latter on I passed the buses shipping them home and they all seemed quite friendly and wanted to say 'hello, how are you?'... Note that health and safety standards are followed carefully as children cram onto the buses, and some even get to ride on the roof... one to remember for those school trips at home me thinks... none of this seat belt m'larky.
6) Enjoy the GREEN... don't underestimate this, after the smog of smogville the green of Lamjung is refreshing on the eyes ;o)
7) pick some maize... they grow lots of maize here.
8) Sit on your balcony and watch the mountains. Beautiful.
So, to the escape. We were due to leave Friday morning. It is about a 6hr drive back to KTM. Unfortunately we heard there was a blockade down the road, and we would have to wait until it cleared... so we waited... and waited... and waited... and then it became apparent the blockade wasn't being lifted, so we stayed another night. Basically some villagers were unhappy that contractors had stopped work on a new bridge, and so were blocking the old bridge. Contractors had stopped work because Maoists were threatening them, as they hadn't been involved in the planning of the bridge. Messy.

Saturday dawned and the blockade was still on. We decided to try an alternative route, but we weren't optimistic as it had been raining and the road was bad!

We got about 10min down the road and were confronted by another blockade. This was local people protesting about the original blockade further down the road. After about 15min of being harassed by various irate drivers it seemed they realised this wasn't the best plan, and so moved their minivan which had been placed across the road.

We drove along and the scenery was just beautiful... alpine almost...
One thing you don't really expect in the middle of no where is a HUGE dam construction... but yes there is... a large dam is being built, perhaps to reduce load shedding! It was interesting looking at it as we passed. Dams really are immense structures, and its easier to appreciate that when they're empty!

They must also employ a lot of local people doing construction, labouring, guard positions etc.

We then turned off the main road, on our detour and got some beautiful views of the mountains... not totally clear, but still in view!

Then we hit the bad road. The boys go off to investigate:

It is at this point i realise that although the KIA is shiny and comfy inside it is not really a very good 4x4, and a Toyota, although more pricey would be far more practical in this situation (I am sure Jack would agree with me on this one). The boys decide the road will chaw up the bottom of the car and so its not an option. We watch a Toyota pick up sail down... as we drive off to attempt another similarly nasty route!

We then devise a plan to persuade the protesters that a) I am ill and b) need to catch a plane, and therefore need to cross the bridge. I am left in the car as the others go off to negotiate this. Its hot... the car is black with leather seats... i decide siting outside might be nice... until I get slightly deterred by small groups of boys who seem to be wondering what an earth a foreigner is doing siting by a car in the middle of no where and reading a book...
After the best part of an hour the others return. Alas no one would be persuaded and would let us though... i guess fair enough. Why make exceptions for foreigners.

The only option was to return back to the town (a depressing thought)... or to abandon car and driver and walk over the offending bridge and find alternative transportation...
we chose the later.

The offending bridge:


On the other side we found a taxi that would take us to the main road... which it did, brushing the side of a girl herding her cow. She was SO lucky she did not go under the car...

At the main road we found some lunch... which I am certain resulted in me spending the whole evening, and most of the next day in the toilet... ooops.

Then we found another car to take us home. We had a friendly driver and his wife and they shared with us some a dairy product. It was small and hard and smelt like cheese. I gave it a go... it was very hard, and it took over 2 hours to fully break down. No exaggeration. Seemingly you couldn't chew/ bite/ grind/ dissolve it very easily. It passed the time i suppose... but i didn't go for seconds. Made it home by the evening... at last. Our driver made it back last night... so he was delayed 4 days. Fortunately his family lived close by so he could catch up with them!

This is long. Time for bed. Over and out.

Airport Security

Today I went on a very short (work related) mini-break down south, to the hot and tropical Indian boarder... it was great! Very few cars... rickshaws everywhere so nice and peaceful...

...flat... would you believe so flat it reminded me of the bodge... not sure how many people would think the photo below is Nepal? The international image of Nepal is so focused on Everest and the Himalayas... but down south its flat as a pancake!

and clean... lovely lovely...

Anyways my flight down there was delayed due to a suspected bomb on a Qatar airways flight coming in from Doha, which caused the domestic and international airport to shut down for a couple of hours. Turned out to be a total hoax, however I was amused by the following quote in the paper about the it "Officials said security has been tightened following the incident". Ok so I wasn't flying international, but domestic security involved the lady prodding my laptop bag and asking me if I was carrying any knives. As I am not my 8 year old cousin who always seems to be armed, the answer was negative. She waved me through without looking in the laptop bag or my backpack. tum de dum... not sure airport security was tightened here! They do sort of scan your luggage when you go into the airport, but I'm not totally convinced about that process either...

Along the same lines I was chatting to a lady on the plane, and she was telling me how she once was on the same plane as the US ambassador to Nepal. Now America is not the Maoists favourite nation, and embassies in general, and US embassies in particular are like forts. Ambassadors have security guards etc. So anyways ambassador man gets on the plane with his security people, but the lady I was talking to said no one even looked in her bag... how lax is that? You would really think security would be tightened in such situations... but apparently not!

Crazy country!