We returned to India. Today across the border feel some relief when you return.
And that we were reconciled to Nepal in Pokhara, because the arrival of Katmandu was terrible. We seem to be made about girls, or that we are very pesaditas, but did not find the dot in this country.
After almost 24 hours from Darjeeling, spending all night on a bus not only tired but we got sick of the stomach and malaise. We do not know if it was what we ate on the road, water (if sealed) and the wobble of the road for 20 hours, many km unpaved or in very bad shape and on top of us played on the sidewalk musicians, back bone .
And since everything we bounced discomfort, dirt, traffic, temple offerings (food and general rub the statues of the gods), rivers sewer, air pollution and the number of people, many of them very very poor. Katmandu, the capital is a great people, chaotic, is overwhelmed and the problems are concentrated in this valley.
Fortunately Baktapur are near Patan and retaining older neighborhoods where one can be isolated and admire its architecture. And the hotels are clean and cheap (3 Eur double room with bath), with gardens to shut out the din of the city. The food is less expensive than India, and is also not so good.
The best for us has been Pokhara . Since the city itself are the Himalayan mountains, snow, the Annapurna massif with 2 peaks over 8,000 and many of more than 7,000. The impressive thing is that they are only 20km from Pokhara in a straight line and the town is only 850m, so the Himalayan looks like a huge wall. It is surprising that right there is rice and banana terraces.
And now we do not like. Abuse with tourists, we believe idiots and swimming in money, so abused, they all agree and have no one to clarify the real information, especially with transportation. A lot of trekking or activities are European price directly say in dollars or euros. The country is very cheap but not for tourists.
What you get is cheap mountain clothes, bad copies Nepalis or better quality from China or Korea. They are bad sellers, in Katmandu get angry if you ask a dust-free clothing, everything is dirty to take years to show and not discounting anything. A little haggling to insult you if you do not buy.
We left the country fighting. We are teased with a tourist bus service to the border, bus turned out to be normal (half-broken, stopping at every turn-and many-crowded with people standing up to the ceiling. When we reached the village where we were planning to spend a couple of days we confirmed that there was a general strike for 3 days and would not have transportation out of the country.
It is not known at the international (or at least we did not have no idea), but Nepal has about 15 years in conflict, the Maoist guerrillas trying to make the King understand that there is no monarchy, no constitution, corruption is at all sides, in short, seems to Colombia. We did not want to see how they kill each other and we are now in Varanasi (or Benares), back in India.
We just got here, it's night and we have not seen anything. We're going to rest that have been another 10 hours of travel in addition to the 10 yesterday. At least currently do not have diarrhea.
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