nepal 2

VI. THE SECOND CITY
pokhara is the second city of nepal...much more tame, though still touristy...the world peace pagoda overlooks the town...one day we rented a boat and went out on the lake...you can see the mountains behind the city while on the lake...gorgeous...pokhara was also our first opportunity to use computers in nearly three weeks...we were both a bit overwhelmed with being in contact again...as this was only three days after the events in mumbai, it was especially intense...while we were in pokhara, we found out the dates for something we had read about in the guidebook, and decided we had to go...
VII. WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS
after two days in pokhara, we rode two buses to the village of meghauli...it's just outside chitwan national park...there is only one time of year, and one reason that foreigners ever go to meghauli...each december, for a week, it hosts the world elephant polo championships...how awesome is that??!! on the second bus,i got to talking to the man sitting next to me, and he offered to let us stay at his house...so we did...his house happened to be a 30 minute bike ride past meghauli, in an absolutely tiny village...we got off the bus at the last stop, then walked 20 minutes through fields to get to his house...attracting attention EVERYWHERE, of course...it was a traditional house, one room downstairs, with a ladder leading up to the one room upstairs...it had electricity, but no running water...the kitchen was a straw covered shack of sorts...in the middle of the front "yard" was a huge haystack...that evening our host took us to the house (a 40 minute walk through more fields, we were totally lost) of one of his relatives...she served us local rice beer, and a fantastic curry...obvioiusly, i didn't drink the beer, but layna said it was good, and it certainly smelled good...kinda lemony, though he said there was no lemon in it...walking back to his house was interesting, as it was completely dark...walking where you can't see is difficult, and we all know my level of coordination, even when i can see!!! the following morning we got up, and our host led us (all three of us on bicycles) to the grounds in meghauli where we watched the WORLD ELEPHANT POLO CHAMPIONSHIPS...it was AWESOME...the game moves a lot faster than you would think...there are 9 elephants on the field at a time...4 for each team, and a huge referee elephant...each elephant had two people on it...a player and a handler...the players were using mallets with 2m handles...funny to watch them try to hit the ball and make sure it didn't hit the feet of the elephant...the elephants seemed to know not to use their trunks to do anything with the ball...occasionally they would step on the ball, which of course frustrated the players...hee hee...we saw a lot of missed hits, sometimes three or four times in a row!! there was a team from new york there, it was their first time in the tournament...lots of locals turned out to watch the tournament, it's probably the excitement of the year in that area...there was a british guy doing play by play, he was amusing...he kept referring to "the greatest nation on earth"...hee hee...at least he knew the important stuff...lol...we had so much fun watching that we watched the entire day's worth of games...as we were leaving, i couldnt help but wonder, how exactly does one get into elephant polo? it's not exactly a worldwide sport...
VIII. BACK TO KATHMANDU we hopped two buses again, and made our way back to kathmandu...we had lots of errands to do, and wanted to see a few more sights...laundry, email, etc...we took a microbus one day to a stupa called boddha...it's especially important to the tibetan buddhist community here...it's HUGE...anywho, as we got off the bus, the guy who collects money tried to tell us that the fare was 200NRps each...when he first said the number, we both thought he was talking about the entrance fee to the stupa area...but he was talking about the bus fare!!!! we were both shocked, and weren't about to pay that...it was just another example of a local trying to rip off a foreign traveler...we paid 20, and knew we had overpaid by 5 or so...in american dollars, 200 rupees isn't a lot...but it's more than 10x the fare!!! he had no choice but to accept the money we were willing, but as he got back on the bus he kept calling us idiot girls... we also visited several travel agents in order to get prices for the permits and tickets we needed for the next trek we had decided to do...the last agent we visited was by far the best...he explained what we needed, and even told us we could get the permits ourselves...he also told us that the TIMS (trekkers information management system) cards are actually free...the other agents were telling us that they could get them for us for 500 rupees each!! in addition to their markup on the permits...needless to say, to book bus tickets we were happy to go to the honest travel agent...he told us the price of the tickets, as well as the commission he charged...we were happy to pay that...