Exceeding Expectations

This was such an amazing trip, filled with amazing experiences and amazing people.  I was not ready to return home to New York City, perhaps the true measurement of the success of a vacation.  Everything exceeded my expectations, and I will have fantastic memories for years to come.  I met so many wonderful people along the way and made some fantastic new friends.  Given my previous travels, I was expecting to be older than many of the people I met along the way, but it turns out I was one of the youngest.  The number of people I met in their 40s, 50s, 60s, and even 70s far exceeded the number of 20-somethings I encountered.  The oldest person I met along the way, my Canadian friend John, was 71, and the oldest woman I met, Nellike, was 70.  They were so inspiring and give me hope for the adventures I will be able to take in the decades to come.  

While this chapter in my life has come to an end, the book has not closed.  I am already trying to decide where I want to go next, so stayed tuned because there are a lot of places I want to see.

India - Delhi and Agra in 36 hours

On my previous trip to India, I stayed at a guest house called the Sunny Guest House.  For my $10/night, I got a private bathroom and a filthy dirty room.  I can't say I was looking forward to our two nights in Delhi prior to our arrival.  In an effort to avoid a similar hotel situation on this trip, Heather and I decided to book a room on hotels.com.  Since we were only staying a couple of nights, we were also willing to spend a bit more money with the hopes of having a clean room.  It paid off.  we stayed at the Hotel Ajanta and I was pleasantly surprised when we walked through the door to a clean room.  The $20/night difference in room price between this place and the Sunny Gueast house made a huge difference.  The hotel also had a travel agency in it, so we were able to arrange for a private car tour of Agra right there.  Our efforts to arrange something online prior to leaving Kathmandu didn't work out so well.

We arrived in Delhi around 5:00PM, and after getting situated at our hotel we walked to down to Connaught Place to explore a bit, but what we found was not the Connaught Place I remember from 3.5 years ago.  The Connaught Place I remember was lined with small handicraft shops, but what we encountered was lined with trendy restaurants and chain stores like Nike and Benetton.  I may not have been in exactly the part of Connaught Place as I spent time in 3.5 years ago, but still, a lot has changed.

We had dinner in a restaurant near our hotel.  It was fantastic!  I had the best mango lassi I've ever had and the rest our meal was the best ever as well.  When we enetered, we were the only non-Indians in the place, so we knew we were in for a treat.

Our one full day in India started early and didn't really end, at least in the sense that there was no crawling back into our beds to go to sleep at our hotel.  Heather and I left for Agra at 6:30AM.  It took us about 4 hours to get to Sikandra, where we met up with our tour guide Ali.  He was a really nice guy, funny too, so we had a really good time seeing the sights.

Sikandra

There are a lot of beautiful patterns found in Indian architecture, and I took a lot of pictures fo them.

Blackbuck on the lawns at Sikandra.

The tomb of Akbar is inside of this structure.

After Sikandra, we headed to the Taj Mahal.  I had forgotten how impressive it really is.

Traditional pose for tourist photos.

Precious stones were carved and inlaid into the marble of the Taj Mahal.

After seeing the Taj Mahal, we stopped for lunch.  It was at a touristy place and wasn't nearly as good as our dinner the night before (but still good).  We also did a little shopping, which included a stop at a place that makes marble items inlaid with precious stones in the same manner in which the work on the Taj Mahal was done.  It was really interesting to see how intricate of a process it is.

The last place we went in Agra was the Agra Fort.  I find this to be a very architecturally interesting place.

Map of the grounds and buildings at the Agra Fort.  It is still used by the Indian military so much of the grouds are closed to tourists.

View of th Taj Mahal from the Agra Fort.

More precious stones inlaid into marble at the Agra Fort.

The drive back to Delhi took longer than the drive to Agra, so we didn't get back in time to have dinner at our little restaurant.  We barely made it back in time to make the midnight closing time of the restaurant in our hotel.  After we finished eating, we had just enough time to shower and finish packing before our taxi to the airport arrived.  Luckily, we had been able to sleep some on our drive back from Agra because there would be no sleeping that night.  We took a lot of time rearranging our bags from how they were packed for our trip from Kathmandu to Delhi.  Both of our bags were overweight leaving Kathmandu, but due to a couple of miscommunications we managed to escape paying the overweight luggage fee.  We moved our heavy items from our checked baggage into our carry-on luggage.  Naturally, when I checked in, my suitcase was fine, but they weighed my carry on bag and said it was too heavy.  I ended up having to move stuff back into my suitcase.  Heather and I had been a bit suspicious that the scales at the Kathmandu airport where not calibrated properly and this incident just confirmed that they were way off (likely a scam to rid tourists of their money - I'm glad we got away without paying).  Heather had bigger issues.  She had planned to have two carry-on items, but they would only let her have one. She was able to repack and get down to only one.  I imagine both her checked and carry-on bag ended up overweight, but the woman at the counter was kind enough to ignore that detail.  By 5:00AM we were on our way to Moscow and then back to New York.

Back in Kathmandu

I took the 7:30AM tourist bus from Pokhara to Kathmandu on the morning of 11/9.  I arrived back in Kathmandu around 3:00PM and headed for my guest house.  Heather wasn't going to be back from Bhaktapur until the next day, but she had reserved a room for us before she left.  It was nice having a place to go to.  I spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing and reading.  I had purchased the Time and Newsweek magazine about the election and sat in an outdoor cafe for several hours reading, having dinner, and drinking tea.

Heather returned to Kathmandu around 1:00PM on the 10th, and I met her at our guest house.  It was so good to see her again and hear about all the things she had been doing while I was trekking.  She had spent time in Pokhara rafting and paragliding, Lumbini visiting monasteries, Chitwan riding elephants, and Bhaktapur exploring the historic kingdom. 

On our last full day in Kathmandu, we spent the morning making arrangements for our day in India and contacting members of the family that our friend Melissa had lived with while she was in Nepal for Peace Corp.  We were able to meet up with Bindu and her husband for lunch and we all went to Bodhnath together.  We spent the afternoon walking around and admiring the giant stupa.

Bodhnath

Buddha Eyes

Prayer flags at Bodhnath

The top of a bell at the Bodhnath stupa site.

Our flight was scheduled to depart Kathmandu a little before 3PM on 11/12, so we had time to do some last minute shopping before heading to the airport that morning.  We also swung by the International Mountain Explorers Connection to drop off my t-shirts and sneakers for their porters' clothing bank.

Bindu and her youngest son met us at the airport with gifts to take back for Melissa and her family.  She also gave Heather and I a wonderful Hindu farewell, complete with tikas and marigolds.

Heather, Bindu, and I at the airport in Kathmandu.

Pokhara

I arrived in Pokhara at about 5:00PM on 11/7.  As I was trying to figure out where exactly I was in relation to the guest houses I was trying to find on my map, I met an American (Mark) who got me pointed in the right direction.  He also invited me to dinner later that evening with him and a few other folks, which was really nice.

The first guest house I went to only had a dormitory room left, and since I was tired and really wanting a shower I went ahead and took it.  I was able to get a bottom bunk (key to my staying) and ended up sharing with two really nice guys, Fred from Brooklyn and Ben from England.  Ben left on his trek early on 11/8, and Fred and I were joined by three new people for my second night.  They were asleep by the time I returned that night and I left really early the next morning to return to Kathmandu, so I never got their names.

After my shower, I started exploring the Central Lakeside area of Pokhara where I was staying.  I was able to get my bus ticket back to Kathmandu purchased for the morning of 11/9 and reserve a spot to go paragliding on my one full day in Pokhara.

I met up with Mark and others he had met in Pokhara for dinner, and a few us went for drinks at the Jazz club upstairs afterwards.  Another thing I never thought I would encounter in Nepal - live jazz.  We ended up running into the two French men (Sebastien and Pascal) that Laurence and I had chatted with in Thorung Phedi.  

The following morning (11/8), I ate a quick and light breakfast before heading to Sunrise Paragliding to await my jeep to Sarangkot, the location of the paragliding launch.  There were six women in my group, including me.  One, Katrina, was from Ireland, two were from the Netherlands, and I think the other two were from Russia.  We arrived at the launch site around 9:30AM and were told we would wait for the good wind to come.  The launch pad itself was a bit frightening, although I'm not toally sure that is the right word to describe it.  It was wide enough to lay out 2 paragliding parachutes and "long" enough for the chutes and to take about 10 steps before going off of a cliff.  The time from when the harness was strapped on me to when we were airborne was the most nerve wracking of the entire experience.  The flight itself was amazing.  I was soaring above Pokhara, literally with the birds.  The views of the mountains and Phewa Tal (the lake next to Pokhara) were breath taking.  My half hour flight went by so quickly.  I took several pictures and am surprised at how well they came out given I couldn't see my view screen.

Sign at the launch site.

My tandem guy.

My chute

Paragliders

Views from paragliding

Paragliders and Phewa Tal

Agriculture terraces below me

Coming in for a landing.

After my paragliding flight, I rented a bicycle and rode to the other side of the lake to see Devi's Falls, Gupteshwor Mahadev Cave, and the World Peace Pagoda.  The bike was a bit small for me.  Even with the seat all the way up, my legs were still quite bent on the down stroke and came higher than the handlebars on the up stroke of my pedaling.  It did have a basket though, which definitely came in handy.  I broke my rule about wearing a helmet, and in Nepal of all places.  Traffic wasn't so bad though, nothing like the traffic in Kathmandu, and it was probably safer riding there than in Manhattan.

Once I got over near the sights, a young Nepali boy around 10 became my guide.  I'm not entirely sure how it happened, but I went with it.  He took me to all three sights and got me back to the Lakeside district of Pokhara where my guest house was.  All in all he worked for about 3 hours taking me around, so I was happy to give him some payment afterwards.

Devi's Falls and Gupteshwor Mahadev Cave were a bit disappointing, but I'm glad I went none the less.  The World Peace Pagoda was well worth the 45 minute hike up to it.  The views of the mountains were amazing.

Devi's Falls

Gupteshwor Mahadev Cave (view of Devi's Falls from underground)

World Peace Pagoda

Phewa Tal and Mountain views from the World Peace Pagoda