Gorkha
Sat 29th Aug 2009 — drew
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Well, we managed two days without coffee and cakes to take a trip to Gorkha and are now safely back to all these indulgences in Pokhara.
We had an early start on Thursday morning having successfully managed to set an alarm for the right day this time! We had given ourselves plenty of time to navigate the chaos that we had found at the last bus park; however, we were taken aback to find that the 'New' bus park has counters, bus numbers and even an announcement system (the fact that we couldn't understand a word of the announcements was beside the point). So, we picked up our tickets, found our bus and had time for a cup of chiya (tea) before the journey began.
Our bus was a fetching shade of bright pink, and proudly exclaimed 'video bus' on the front. This meant we got to watch a Nepali film on DVD (as we'd been led to expect by a story in The Royal Ghosts, this was similar in style to a formulaic hindi film, with all the set pieces; musical numbers with colourful dance troupes surrounding the coy couple singing to one another, truly awful kung-fu inspired fight scenes, and lots of melodramatic weeping and wistful looks into the vaseline-smeared lens). It was nice that we could actually understand the odd line of dialogue (we're talking as simple as 'yes' and 'no' here – no claims to fluency are being made!). We were also treated to several music videos transferred from the conductor's mobile phone – so a bit of an education in the Nepali film and music industry provided a welcome distraction.
It took a mere 5 hours to travel the 100km or so to Gorkha – most of the route follows the scenic Mahesh Kola river valley. As it is the main highway, progress was relatively fast and smooth. Our driver looked like he had only just hit puberty but he was generally very good although we maybe saw a little evidence of hormonal behaviour when we were involved in a stand-off with a lorry coming the other way which had decided to overtake a stationary bus. This was not a high speed game of chicken, but both vehicles ended up nose-to-nose in the carriageway with the drivers gesticulating at one another to yield and reverse out of the way. Stopping traffic in both directions obviously upset a lot of people and there was plenty of shouting and honking of horns. Eventually, the conductor (who was older and wiser; he must have been all of 20) persuaded our driver to swallow his pride and reverse.
Gorkha is spread along the side of a hill overlooking the valley and was the birthplace of Prithvi Narayan Shah, the “founder of modern Nepal”. It was the capital of his Kingdom until he conquered the Kathmandu valley. The main attraction lies at the top of the hill (Drew was not surprised when Heather told him this!), so our first morning in Gorkha began with another early start as we set off to see the sunrise from the temple and palace complex – a climb up 1500 steps according to the Lonely Planet, but it seemed like more! We arrived at the top around 6am, but sadly clouds denied us a Himalayan panorama again. It was still pretty dramatic though, and we're confident we'll be seeing plenty of the snow-capped mountains over the next few weeks so we weren't too disappointed.
We had a bit of a dilemma on our hands; on the way up we'd passed several groups of Nepalis dragging reluctant goats up the steps. The temple is one of the main sites for animal sacrifices, and the goats seemed to know they weren't going to have a good morning. We thought about hanging around at the temple to experience this custom, but decided against it.
We nearly didn't notice the giggle-inducing rude carvings in amongst the intricate woodwork of the temple and palace (which is a characteristic of Newari architecture). We were given another unexpected comical treat when a group of soldiers arrived at the top, and formed up into a big circle. We thought they would start doing some drill or physical exercises, but instead they began to take it in turns to step into the centre of the circle and serenade their brothers in arms with sentimental love songs. Very macho.
We stayed in a lovely guest house with amazingly colourful gardens overlooking the valley which the Lonely Planet led us to believe would be way out of our price range, but we are not sure what has happened to the tourist trade in Gorkha as the two expensive places both offered us cheap rates and looked like they had seen better days. Gorkha turned out to be a very pleasant and relaxing stop-over and we enjoyed a few beers watching the sun set over the hills thinking of Heather's granny Nan as the sky turned from blue-to-green-to-pink.
Third day in a row getting up before 6 this morning to get a bus to Pokhara. We thought that this was going to take 5 hours so were pleasantly surprised to arrive here in less than 4. Pokhara has a lovely setting by Fewa Tal (lake) and with fantastic views of the snow-capped mountains to the north, especially Machhapuchhare (fish-tail), so we are looking forward to spending some time here and exploring.
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