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At the evening of the 16th of July the hindus, who inhabited the Om's Home in numbers held their evening group worship or whatever at the centre of the Hotel - so it could be heard very(!) loudly everywhere, also at our room. After it they didn't stop talking aloud(!), etc. and we had to go to sleep very early since our 4AM wake up and the flight..
So we banged our door a bit, so that they'd understand to be more quiet, but no! They did not. After listening to it for awhile and waiting for them to stop (they never did), I lost my nerve. Put my clothes in, went to the balcony which gave to the inner yard of the hotel where they were still making noise, and clapped, got their intention, told them that they we're in a _hotel where there were other people as well, NOT in a temple, requested that they would now be quiet 'cause some people were trying to sleep because of an early wake up, thanked and went back inside. Ok, I was polite but the sound of my voice certainly suggested that I was reaaally annoyed. But - after that in about 5 mins, they DID shut up!! :D But they sure did get my anticipations atm. Got to sleep then, luckily. Even though they did start the same loud worshipping again at 4.15 AM, but fortunately that was also our time to wake up. But if it wouldn't have been, they would've got a lot louder "request" to shut up.. ;D
The morning rose as rainy and cloudy, which was not so good concerning our flight to Pokhara.. And like could be guessed, we ended up waiting and waiting and waiting from the 5.30AM, when we had to be at the Jomsom airport to about 9.45 AM when Agni Air decided the flight was cancelled for that day, because of the bad wheather. We waited, had breakfast, coffee in peace and hoped that the clouds will fade away so that we could fly through the mountains..but no, they didn't. :-/
So...we had two choices: either to spend one more night in Jomsom and wait if they could fly the next day OR try to take the land route to Pokhara. Which could be tricky, 'cause of the
Monsoon season. Local bus to Ghasa (1. leg) would leave at noon. We of course wanted our money back from the cancelled flight, which was not easy.. Ended up in a two-hour quarrel first with the Agni Air staff in Jomsom office, then with our travel agency's manager, who had booked the flights. Agni Air guys ended up helping us in the matter, though, so in the end they were ok. Not a bad word to say about them. The manager of the BLUE MOUNTAIN TRAVELS, though, ended being a total a**hole!!! He was very hard to do business with and frankly; full of s*** and hasty untruths. So my advice: rather book your Nepal mountain (domestic) flights straight through the airline itself or be very sure that your travel agency is reliable! Ours wasn't. So mark the name for never using it: Blue Mountain Travels company!!!
We ended up then choosing the land route, since there weren't any guarantee that they could fly the next day, either. And then we'd be f***ed and would miss out our flight to Bangkok the next morning at 10AM. Via land there was a chance, even though it'd take forever in hours, 'cause of the Monsoon and never sure would all the roads exist anymore because of that and if so, in what confitions.. So we took the public bus to Ghasa first. My gods it was slooow and frightening, when the buss went at the very edge of the narrow road, tens and tens and tens of meters drop below to the Kali Ghandaki.. And with a full bus. Then came a point where there was no road, bus stopped, everyone took their luggage, and walked with them down to a steep slope, across a hanging bridge (A bit flooding Kali Ghandaki below), and up from the other slope, to where another buss waited, where there was road again. If you'd have a fear of hights, you would've been f*cked, I tell you!! Even _I felt tingling going across that hanging bridge, with the low edges.. ;P And it was hard with the heavy backpack and stuff. Went to the other buss, which when FULL, turned itself into the right direction - backing up to the very edge of the gorge, where it almost got stuck, with coupla guys giving instructions outside (!) for not to back up too much and fell into the gorge. That moment I was truly scared!! :-/ 'Cause we saw the drop below from the bus window.. All went ok, thank gods, and we continued our journey towars Ghasa, the first changing point. Got there after still one change of a bus, not so dramatic than the first one: only one bridge which was so tiny and easily built that it couldn't bare the weight of a buss, so we again walked with our backpacks down and up of a hill, went around the bridge and continued with another one. Then in some hours' time with a bumby ride, again narrow "bridges" and waterfalls we finally reached Ghasa we changed to a 4WD public jeep (full of people, of course, but we got the seats beside the driver in front - best seats, so try to always get those!). With the jeep we had to get the longer route/road forwards, 'cause the shorter one was too damaged by the Monsoon rains. A young guy then drived us within the next hours with the jeep through such a places I wasn't even aware of you even COULD go with a jeep; "road" full of mud at least half meters deep, on very narrow roads, mountain waterfalls which rained on top of the jeep, even _tiny&narrow bridges over waters&gorges, where there were actually half of the boards of the bridge missing!! :-O Gotta say that I have a huge respect towards those young guys - they REALLY know HOW to drive!! Then the jeep stopped, and we walked across a bridge with our stuff again to the final bus which would take us to Beni, where we could catch a taxi to Pokhara. The final buss ride was as thrilling and scary as the other ones, occasionally the buss rocking from side to side on the edges with a huge drop below. And the darkness was already falling...which made it a bit more scary.
But we got there, slowly but eventually, and it was all dark already. At the bus stop we caught a private taxi for ourselves for 2500NPR to Pokhara. But heard, that the 1hr road was shut, because of landslides, but the 2hr road would be drivable, so the whole journey from Beni to Pokhara will took 3hrs. Off we went, our driver did not speak much English, but we were so tired already, so it didn't matter. He drove us on the road sometimes very badly shaped and at the end of the "highway" part about 1hr-1/2 hrs before Pokhara, it started to rain _heavily, and the visibility trough the windshield was like -10, we really were scared again. But we still trusted him (then again, we really didn't have a choice, did we?!). On the way in the jeep to Beni and in the last part of the journeybin the bus we were debating with the manager of Blue Mountain travels on the phone and via sms weather he'd arrange us a car to pick us up from Pokhara or not. Firstly he promised to arrange it already to Beni, then he sent an sms that he suddenly "couldn't" - because of a road block/landslide near Beni.. Well, the other road would've been possible..like we learned in Beni. Then he promised to get the car to Pokhara. And after a while again(!) reversed that he "can't get a driver from anywhere"..(?!), and sent just: "cannot arrange. Sorry. Do yourself.". Can you imagine?! It was Bulls***, he had already promised, so we did not except that, we demanded and demanded that he HAS to arrange that, 'cause already promised and he had already slipped from the car arrange from Beni, lying that it would be impossible to drive to there.. A really a****** of a guy, he is! So beware!! Do not EVER book of anything through them if you really want help in a troublesome situation!!! And Basu, an employer of the company which had sent us emails like: "If you ever have some trouble in Nepal, call me I'll help. Etc.". Well, we did call, spoke to him once when we asked to help us arrange a transportation from Beni to Pokhara and he never responded/called us back, even though he promised. So much of that help, "surprisingly"..
So all in all, in the end after a whole lot of arguing, the manager arranged us a car from Pokhara to Kathmandu. Our first taxi got us to the meeting point at around midnight at some hotel named "The Green Tara" in Pokhara. We waited there about 15 mins or so, and then our second driver showed up. This driver from Pokhara to Kathmandu then drove us pretty liably all the about 5hrs to Kathmandu. We were also convinced that our driver was one of the best ones available and that he had drove the journey many times, so we trusted him. Even so much that we dared to try to sleep on the way. We'd awaken 4.15AM last morning, so being awake like 14 hrs already started to show..
One "incident" happened on the way: at about halfway the journey, we sropped because there had been a car crash; our driver stopped to ask wheather they had the situation under control already. Coupla cars had parked at the side of the road. They had. We saw in the headlights of our car a guy lying on a wooden pairs, hands put on top of his chest - which certainly suggested that he was dead. When we continued our journey, our driver confirmed our conclusion: the man was dead. Had driven in the ditch, drunk. The sorry and a pretty "shocking" efect that I had first felt for the victim of the accident pretty quickly faded away, to be honest - since he'd been drunk, and luckily he hadn't killed anyone else at the same time, only himself.
In the end we got to Kathmandu in 5hrs, at about 4AM, so we would catch our flight to Bangkok!! :D
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