The Stunning Adventures "Not all those who wander are lost." Tolkien

After all of our blood, sweat, and blisters on our trek, and cruising into town on top of a local bus, we arrived in Pokhara. We were all lusting for a hot shower, and a delicious meal. We satiated ourselves on piping hot sizzling steaks and glasses of cold beer. We were in heaven. The five of us spent 6 relaxing days meandering around the streets of Pokhara. We made a little trek up to the top of a nearby hill and checked out the World Peace Pagoda, where the views of the lake below, with the towering Himalayas behind, were incredible.
One Pokhara high-light that cannot be missed, would be the shave and massage...oh yes, massage for an unsuspecting Greg. The group ate some momos at a little local canteen, Pete headed off to have a shower, and the Pols plus the Stunnings had all decided that it would be really fun to go watch Greg get a shave (he was looking quite rugged after the trek) from one of the little local shops in town. We stopped at the first little place, where there were two boys hanging out. The older one, who turned out to be 15 sat Greg in a chair and told him it would be 50 rupees for a cut and a shave. That's a little less than a dollar. Great deal! So the rest of us had a ball, snapping photos and playing around with some of the little local rascals messing around in the street. Shave--leaving behind a very nice, very thick, Magnum PI mustache. Done. Then some balm comes out and a face massage starts to ensue. That of course seemed completely normal. Then a shoulder massage begins. Greg leans forward and gets into it, but asks "This massage is still a part of the 50 rupees, right?", "Oh yes, sir, oh yes." The massaging eases its way down his arms then down to his lower back, then the shirt gets rolled up and massage oil comes out of a nearby drawer. It is sprinkled all over Greg's back. Elizabeth says, "Boy oh boy, he had no idea he was going to get all this. Greg you must be in heaven!" But at the same time, she's getting a kick out of Greg's bare torso being massaged by this young Nepalese boy for any and all passers-by to see. Greg again says, "This is still included in the 50 rupees, right?" Again, "Of course sir, of course." Dorothy and Peter were long gone by now, and Pete had already came and went on his way into town after his shower. It's been about 45 minutes. Another young man had been hanging out in the shop chattin' it up with his master massage buddy--who by now is crouched down on the ground massaging Greg's quads. He asked Elizabeth if she would like a head massage. "Welll, how long will that take?" "15 minutes madame." "Well, how much longer will his massage be?", "About 15 minutes madame." "How much is it?" "50 rupees". What the hell, she has to sit and wait anyway so figures she'd go for it, and let's just say this boy had some of the toughest little fingers ever. He was very skilled and knew what he was doing. With her head resting on her hands in front of her, and thoroughly enjoying her head and neck massage, Elizabeth thought this was well worth her 50 rupees. So as she's enjoying herself, she hears Greg's massage abruptly come to an end. As Greg is reaching into his pocket to get his wallet, the boy begins to write something on a piece of newspaper. Greg had no idea what he was writing, but thought to himself that maybe he was writing down his email address or something. The boy shows Greg the paper and the number 1,250 had been written on it. Greg says "1,250 rupees?!" The boy confirmed that is what the paper said. Greg tells him that this is not possible, that he had been told and re-told that the price for the shave AND massage was 50 rupees. All he hears in reply is "Sorry, cannot sir. 1,250 rupees". Elizabeth is continuing to enjoy her massage thinking she might as well get her 50 rupees worth. Greg adamantly tells the boy that there is no way he will pay that (over 20 US dollars) and that there must be some kind of mistake. Our young friend then writes, 1,200 rupees. Greg replied with, "No, no, no, no...we will pay you 50 rupees for myself, 50 rupees for Elizabeth, 50 rupees for the miscommunication/gratuity, and that is all!" The boy reluctantly took the money from Greg, at which point Elizabeth had to accept the fact that her massage, too, had come to an end.

Thanks to our darling Polish friends, we were inspired to celebrate St. Nicholas day, which is a tradition in their culture. So we all drew names and had a hoot exchanging gifts. Elizabeth got a bright red and pink felt gardening hat, Greg got a shirt embroidered with "I'm afraid of PolStraliCans Two Yankees, One Ozzie, and a pair of Pols" (that's in reference to our little group, of course, in honor of our trekking experience--we all got the shirts made, later on), Pete got a huge Dal Baht plate in honor of his ridiculous ability to eat more Dal Baht than any Nepalese person. Dorothy got a bottle of vodka--Polish people love drinking vodka on St. Nicholas day...and many other days of the year, and Peter received a traditional Nepalese goat and tiger game, which we still haven't figured out how to play. After opening presents, we spent the evening gnoshing on some more mouth-watering food and swilling down a few libations. So Pokhara was a delightful time of relaxation that we all felt we very much deserved after our trek.

First stop on our way back to Kathmandu was in a small town called Bandipur. It was nestled up in the mountains and consisted of the most charming, twisting, twining little streets. Seriously, this small town was the place to stay if you wanted to see gaggles of giggling, chortling little school children. From when we arrived (about 3 pm), until after dark, throngs of school children of all ages, clad in navy, sauntered, strolled, and covorted down these streets. We were bemused by several choruses of "Hellos" and "How are you's?" followed by full body laughs or shy little chuckles. Seriously, watching the kids definitely added to the whole experience in this town. We ate some dal baht, of course, and strolled around the streets. After a nice, charming, breakfast the following morning, looking over a misty little valley, Greg had decided that he wanted to shave off his uber-fluffy mustache. He said he had enjoyed the fun and didn't want to look back at too many photos and wonder why he had decided to have that mustache. The other three ran off to see if they could find out about a bus as we had heard some mixed information about how often the bus comes and at what times. It seemed that it ran simply if there was a need. Pete returned shortly, yelling that the bus was about to go. Hurriedly, Greg finished snipping his mustache down to a short shave-able length--no time for an actual shave, and the two of us ran with our packs just in time to catch the bus pulling away. Elizabeth caught up to it and started slapping on the back of the bus and yelling for it to stop. It eventually came to a hault just long enough for us to pull down the ladder from the roof, climb up top, and barely get settled, before it started heading back down to the world below.

We eventually caught a bus to Manakamana, home of the longest, and only cable car in Nepal. Manakamana was unlike anything we have ever seen. It is is the most reverred temple in Nepal. You can reach it in one of two ways, either by foot which is an approximate 5 hour hike (covering 1000 meters in elevation), or you can take the cable car. We were all still quite satisfied with ourselves so had no problem shelling over a considerable sum of rupees to plop our butts down in the cable car. We noticed that the cable car was equipped with a quite rustic, open air, metal car that was fit in the rotation every so often. This was not for people but for livestock that would be sacrificed at the temple. Ahhh...that makes a lot of sense. We wondered how many people took on the five hour hike with a goat in tow. After riding the cable car, we walked past loads of vendors selling everything from souvenirs to samosas, and goats and chickens for sacrifices. As soon as we arrived at the temple, we saw a water buffalo carcass lying in a large pool of blood and it's head was to be found about 6 feet away. People were walking around barefoot and we observed one pilgrim dip her finger in the blood and dab her forehead. Coming from a land where we slaughter animals for food on an overwhelming scale, with not so much as a thought about it when we pick up the plastic covered package in the super-market, we found ourselves thinking that this way of sacrifice (and thanks) had something to show us. All of the sacrifices are made in hopes of something (many times in hopes of having children), or in thanks for a blessing received. All sacrifices are carted back down the mountain to be consumed amongst family and friends. We had the eye-opening experience of witnessing a number of goats being sacrificed; they lost their heads in two swift chops by the hands of a young man that couldn't have been more than 18 years of age. At first, as you might imagine, we didn't know how our presence as foreingers in such a local holy place would be interpreted. About 30 seconds after arriving at the sacrificial altar, a man came up to Elizabeth and asked where she was from. He was Nepalese but had lived in New York for a long time, and was currently living in Germany. She had a difficult time being attentive to him as she saw goats' heads sliding across a blood covered stone floor behind him. He alluded to the fact that he was sorry if the sacrifices seemed offensive to us, but it was the Hindu way. She replied by saying that all cultures are different, and as a visitor, she of course respected these differences. After the goats had been sacrificed, they would be stuffed into a plastic shopping bag, hooves out, and carried away from the altar by the individual(s) who had made the offering. The whole ritual took place in a matter of seconds. We were all very surprised how quickly everything seemed to happen. We found that almost everybody smiled at us, and made us feel welcome. We were contented to know that we weren't being viewed as interlopers. The five of us walked around a bit and were amazed at the number of people, of all different ages, praying, chatting, laughing, taking photos...and yes, some of the little ones were crying. It was quite an eye-opening experience.
We hopped on a bus to Ghorka. We arrived amidst a power outage and stopped at the first hotel we could find thanks to some candles in the entry-way. The following morning, after checking out the Ghorka Durbar (extremely old fort, palace, temple), we caught another bus back to Kathmandu.