"A double dose for Deshain" (of blog not diahorrea!)

Now then, it's a while since we put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard). That's because September and October have been busy months... we've had the run up to Deshain, which is the major festival in the Nepal calendar of "many festivals" to contend with.

It seems to go something like this...everyone spends most of the year talking about Deshain and how disruptive it is "nothing can be done then because of all the government holiday's and nobody is around"...so just when it's nearly here everyone madly starts planning to do really important stuff in the two or three weeks before...and then you have the Deshain festival itself and it's true everyone goes on holiday! - A bit like Christmas and New Year really but in October.

Anyway we've been very Nepali and followed these rules to the letter. So for me that meant two trips out of the valley before the festivities, one with the Ministry and one with VSO, followed by a week of courses then a lovely holiday to recover from all that hard work!

The run up to Deshain - So my first trip was to Nepalganj in the West and the second was to Biratnagar in the East. Both places were hot, flat and close to India (so the curry was good), sounds awful but other than that not much difference that I could see between them.

The Neplaganj trip was with my colleague and was notable only for the inevitable confusion over the accommodation arrangements. Before we went I was assured it would be separate rooms in a decent conference centre. Of course when we got there a "confusion" nay " c*** up" had occurred and we ended up in a shared room (again) doing our now famous "Morecombe and Wise" routine, Arjun in his white silk pyjamas and me eating Nepali style for four days. Still next time he tells me it will be different! SEPERATE rooms, air conditioning and a mini-bar...

Second trip was Biratnagar. This was a more luxurious affair as our small group included a visiting Tory MP, Tony Baldry, who'd signed up for a week or so of "volunteering" as part of a "pol/vol" initiative to help publicise VSO's 50th Anniversary. So rather than the "standard" VSO accommodation package we got a sort of upgrade and stayed in a slightly more salubrious hotel. "Slightly more" sums it up - but hey it had a bar and sold beer so can't be all bad. Neither is Tony as he kindly picked up the drinks tab! And we also all had separate rooms so a step up from Nepalganj.

Now in case you're worried, M seemed to keep herself busy while I was away attending seminars, socialising with the other vols and getting her clothes dirty and stuff... when I got home from Nepalganj around lunchtime, I found all her clothes in a pile in the living room and her in the shower. Aye, aye what's going on I thought..."I slipped and fell in a muddy puddle as I was leaving a seminar building" came the reply...oh how we laughed!

Part and parcel of life in Kathmandu unfortunately and I got my comeuppance a couple of days later, when I jumped out a taxi to run to the bank...straight down an open manhole! "Hurry up would you...stop mucking about" came the shouts from M and co in the taxi..."Look I'm stuck in a fxxxing hole" replies I with my legs swinging in black nothingness and my elbows keeping me above ground...oh how they laughed, still I lived to tell the tale so that's the main thing.

Deshain itself - Now after 6 months of hard work, with no breaks and all the stresses and strains (cue the violins) of being new volunteers in a strange new land working every hour God sends for no thanks and no pay etc, etc, etc, this was an opportunity to get away from it all and out of Kathmandu and see a bit of the country and pamper ourselves to boot. First stop Pokhara, a lovely lakeside town at the foot of the Annapurna range.Of course every man and his dog that we know in Kathmandu had the same plan, so after saying hello to everyone at the airport instead of goodbye we realised we were unlikely to get through the week without bumping into a few familiar faces (at least they're nice familiar faces).

Anyway we were busy blowing our budget and had booked into the Fishtail Lodge which is one of the plushest hotels in town. Lovely it was too, with stand up showers (first things first), a swimming pool and great views. Well the views are great if you get up early enough (the mountains tend to cloud over as the day heats up). M was most disconcerted to be woken up at 5.30am on our second day (by me) to be told that the mountains were out! Still after a bit of grumbling she did admit they were fantastic and we enjoyed the view with all the other guests in their pyjamas on the lawn outside our room (I'd been stirred by the noise of camera shutters and "cor blimey look at the view in case you were wondering!). All in all we had a lovely few days there and managed a couple of hikes (short treks as they are now called) up to a village called Sarankot (800m above town) and around another couple of lakes nearby. Fabulous scenery, clean air and loads of friendly Nepali villagers keen to know "what is your name? where are you from? and where are you going?" these being the three standard questions every Nepali asks - replies vary depending on mood.

After Pokhara we headed East back towards KTM and stopped for a couple of nights in Bandipur. A delightful village draped like a silk scarf on a ridge over the Trusuli valley...says the guide book...and it's right, a lovely spot and we stayed in a really neat old Newari building "The Old Inn" and everything was lovely, even the Dhalbhat dinner, which is something as I'm not usually a fan.

Then it was off East again in a jeep with no brakes we'd hired for the trip, to a place called Manakamana where there's a nice resort and a cable car and stuff to keep you busy. The resort was odd, it was nice but it's on the main East / West highway and felt a bit like a motorway services (albeit with a very nice pool). So we relaxed and swam and managed to take the cable car trip to the top of a nearby hill. Loads of queuing unfortunately as there is an important temple up there which was busy with sacrifices for Deshain. It's probably the only cable car on the planet with separate gondolas for goats (they only have to buy a one way ticket of course!)

So the end of our holiday was nigh and all that remained was a simple bus ride back to Kathmandu. But hey nothing is simple in Nepal. We'd booked a tourist bus that was meant to stop outside the hotel. One came and went which wasn't ours and we thought damn we've missed it. So we rather boldly decided to take the next public bus that was passing. Now public buses are an adventure in Nepal as they only usually have four wheels and are always overcrowded. This one was no exception, standing room only, although the bus boy kindly set up a bucket covered by a bit of carpet for M in the aisle. At one point I counted 70 in the bus (not including those on the roof) as we wound our way up mountain passes back into the Kathmandu valley. Four hours and a bout of claustrophobia later we made it.

Great time and it's only a week or so now until we head off on our next holiday (next big festival come holiday) to Royal Bardia National Park with other vols for a spot of safari. Never let it be said that volunteering ain't hard work!