(no subject)
Well, I took a bit of a holiday. So I am going to probably write about my adventures (hopefully as entertaining to you) and I will try not to ramble as much as possible. Ready ok.
So, it’s wasn’t always so pretty on my vacation away from the library home. If you refer to the statement bellow from the last blog I was suffering from bad Karma. This led to my Kathmandu extravaganza with Emma and Mike to be cut short not only because of our illnesses but also because we are in Nepal. And what happens almost as often as the sun rising in Nepal? Strikes! So this meant that we I suddenly had to pack up and leave a day early. So the next morning Emma and Mike and I said goodbye (I love them so much!) and I was sent off on a bus at 6:30 in the morning next to an old South African woman. Awwww sounds sweet right. Wait for it. This old South African woman was also a missionary and an Anti Semite! Oh AND we were also on a bus that was filled with Israeli tourist! For 10 hours!!! So for 10 hours I got to hear whenever one of the Israelis did ANYTHING “ughhh. Jew. But don’t get me wrong! I love the Jews. They’re God’s chosen people. But sometimes they are just so …… “Fill in the blank to whatever the situation required. It was a long bus ride to say the least.
But then I arrived in Pokhara. A beautiful city surrounded by a gorgeous lake and mountain range that was pretty much built for tourist so I have been taken aback over the past several days by the amount of white people I’ve seen! I feel like a Neplai judging tourist with their hemp shirts and baggy pants. Or the ones who are just decked out in northface prepared to go to the Annapurna Base Camp trek. And then I think … why the hell am I judging them? I am no better?! Then my friend kindly reminded me… we are a different breed. We are… volunteers! So then we continued to mock all of them. Oh yeah! I haven’t introduced my friends to you yet!
When I arrived in Pokhara I met up with my two friends Freddie and Andy. Both gap year kids (… more gap year kids) both are from England though Freddie has lived in LA for the past 10 years and let me just paint a picture for you as to what the first 4 days of Pokhara were like for me. At one point we were sitting in the middle of the lake in a rented boat as I sat between the two of them belting at the top of their lungs Robbie Williams “Angels” and then had our picnic aka peanut butter sandwiches. Life has been pretty lovely. Later that day we went to the top of the World Peace Pagoda where I was reminded of how out of shape I am (which will come into play again later) and then as we arrived at the top of the mountain (more of a hill for Nepal standards) what are greeted with as we stand on top of the giant white dome honoring Buddha looking out at the Annapurna range? Who else but Taylor Swift. YES! Tay Swift was there for the epic moment as she should be for every moment. What else would I want when I was staring off at the epic landscape then to wonder if Tay’s best friend aka love of her LIFE! Will he realize that she is the girl for him and not the other girl because Tay Tay wears sneakers and the other hussy wears heals?
After Taylor visited me at the world peace pagoda we had another epic journey. This time Freddie, Andy and I met up with the two girls that are fondly known as the Scottish girls aka Jessica and Katie. They are also gap year kids! I know people probably can’t tell, but I feel like all the pictures from this weekend are like “Something here is not like the others!” but anyways, the Scottish girls got us to join them for white water rafting. Soooo amazing! Considering our boat was epic compared to the other boats filled with middle aged Asian people we were booking it through the rapids! Doing what? What else but, singing more Robbie Williams “Angels” of course! We just kept on hearing our captain Ram Yelling “TEAM! NO MORE SINGING! TEAM NO SINGING THROUGH THE RAPIDS!” After we would listen to Ram I would notice that the very quiet Nepali man who was behind me started singing quietly to himself (and me apparently) My Heart Will Go On. I just slowly turned around and stared at him and said nothing else. But now that it was in my head it was only appropriate that when we all fell out of the boat on purpose (Ram, our captain tried to play this game with us and after he explain “ok…. We tilt boat. And you fall out boat.” So… wait a minute Captain Ram… you want us to fall OUT of the boat. Didn’t you just spend 20 minutes before hand telling us how to stay in the boat?) Anyways after we fell out of the boat playing Ram’s fun “game”, and after it took him about 10 minutes to collect us again as we floated down the river calling out “Is anyone alive out there?? COME ABOUT!”” It was just like that scene in Titanic when they are rowing through the bodies but in that case the bodies were dead that they were rowing through. In my case I was very much alive and the stupid Asian tourist who didn’t know what the hell she was doing took the oar straight to my FACE!
So then when we finished our white water rafting we went to go catch the bus that was supposedly included in our package. What they meant was that we would pay for it and the guys would hail a bus for us going back to Pokhara. This ended in us sitting on top of a kayak on top of a bus in the middle of a hail storm singing, of course, Robbie Williams “Angels”. Everything was pretty smooth till we got to a city and suddenly y the bus driver threw a tarp over us saying “hide! Police.” Basically, everything ended well.
Two days later Freddie left us to be a beast and trek all of the Annapurna circuit by himself, while Andy and I departed for our own adventure! Trekking Poon Hill. Now I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. This “hill” is in Nepal, which means this hill would eat what we consider hills back home for breakfast and then vomit it back up because it was just completely unsatisfying and unsavory for it. Poon Hill, which Andy and I renamed, Destruction Mountain (follow this, Poon Hill, Doom Hill, Doom Hell then it just jumps all the way to Destruction Mountain because it’s fitting.) So this “Hill” almost destroyed me. Like I mentioned earlier, I am out of shape. So the first day was ok. We hiked for about 4 hours from Nayapul to a place named Tikhedhunga. Only had to deal with 1 Shelob (oh yeah, I also want to thank Andy for putting up with every one of my Lord of the Ring references, which came up about every ten minutes.) But it was the second day after we left the shire that we reached the stairs going to Mount Doom. Now apparently there were only 3000 steps. Andy and I felt them to be more like 5000. I wanted to shoot myself. And I really wanted to shoot anyone who was travelling down hill! They would give you this face like “Ohh, yeah. There are a lot of stairs. But keep going it’s worth it!” As they would briskly walk down without breaking a sweat. Probably because they were not even carrying their bags! They hired a Sherpa who is half my size height and width and has a bag on his back that is double my height and width. Everyone is a show off. Ughh there was this one couple. This beautiful French couple that was just finishing and they looked soo smug with their we’re almost finished faces drinking their milk tea! Ohhh we’ll give you suggestions. Oh you, lazy American girl. You should probably go slowly. Acclimatized! Did Frodo and Sam Acclimatize! I think not! Moving on!
So the stairs were bitch and after 8 hours of walking I was ready to die. I was a tad sick by the end of the day and we ended just in time because it had just started raining and hailing. So luckily we found the Kingdom of Rohan, but the locals don’t call it that so they call it Garopani or otherwise known as Donkey water. Surprisingly we did know this already when Andy decided to jump in a water fall on our walk up. It’s was on his list of things he has to do on his gap year…ughhh gap year. Oh yeah! I didn’t mention that part of his to do gap year list was to do a Welch accent for a whole week. So I have now come to Nepal and have acquired a Welch accent which is pretty much me impersonating Andy impersonating Spike from Notting Hill.
So the next morning we woke up with everyone at 4:30 to walk up to the very top of Poon Hill to watch the sunrise. This would have been amazingly wonderful if I had not been sick and thrown up on my way up and kinda missed it. I mean I didn’t really miss it because I was pretty much at the top of a 3200 meter mountain, or sorry “hill” and so I still saw an AMAZING sunrise! I was just a few yards behinds everyone else. But when I finally got to the top it was amazing! Just seeing the mountains pop out of the clouds and the sun shining over the top of peaks was beautiful! And I was really happy because that meant that the rest of the journey was down hill!
So the rest of the journey was spent climbing through Fangorn Forest, Eskiliad (sorry Ariel I know I spelled that wrong) Gondor, for a minute Mars and oddly enough the place that we ended at looked a bit like the village in Batman Begins (Casey this is for you) when the little guy tells Christian Bale “You go back. Sometimes you go back.”… Why must everything in my life stem back to a movie? But instead of turning back, we kept going and we found after travelling 1700 meters the day before in 8 hours and finishing up the next day with over 2000 meters crossed in another 8 hours, we found a lovely hot spring!!! That was incredibly needed.
So we stayed at a lodge that looked more like a prison as I recouped (finding that the weight of the ring was more than I thought I could handle… again I would like to apologize to Andy for the Lord of the Rings analogies through the trip.) Then in the morning we went to our hot spring took our 6 hour bus ride back to Pokhara had our reward Milk shakes! And now we are in our hotel room my legs hurt so much that I can’t stand and Andy is singing me Daydream believer by the Monkeys. I don’t know what happened to Robbie Williams but as for this moment it’s about the Moneys…. and Savage Garden apparently.
Any who sorry so long but I had to fill you all in.
LOVE!
So, it’s wasn’t always so pretty on my vacation away from the library home. If you refer to the statement bellow from the last blog I was suffering from bad Karma. This led to my Kathmandu extravaganza with Emma and Mike to be cut short not only because of our illnesses but also because we are in Nepal. And what happens almost as often as the sun rising in Nepal? Strikes! So this meant that we I suddenly had to pack up and leave a day early. So the next morning Emma and Mike and I said goodbye (I love them so much!) and I was sent off on a bus at 6:30 in the morning next to an old South African woman. Awwww sounds sweet right. Wait for it. This old South African woman was also a missionary and an Anti Semite! Oh AND we were also on a bus that was filled with Israeli tourist! For 10 hours!!! So for 10 hours I got to hear whenever one of the Israelis did ANYTHING “ughhh. Jew. But don’t get me wrong! I love the Jews. They’re God’s chosen people. But sometimes they are just so …… “Fill in the blank to whatever the situation required. It was a long bus ride to say the least.
But then I arrived in Pokhara. A beautiful city surrounded by a gorgeous lake and mountain range that was pretty much built for tourist so I have been taken aback over the past several days by the amount of white people I’ve seen! I feel like a Neplai judging tourist with their hemp shirts and baggy pants. Or the ones who are just decked out in northface prepared to go to the Annapurna Base Camp trek. And then I think … why the hell am I judging them? I am no better?! Then my friend kindly reminded me… we are a different breed. We are… volunteers! So then we continued to mock all of them. Oh yeah! I haven’t introduced my friends to you yet!
When I arrived in Pokhara I met up with my two friends Freddie and Andy. Both gap year kids (… more gap year kids) both are from England though Freddie has lived in LA for the past 10 years and let me just paint a picture for you as to what the first 4 days of Pokhara were like for me. At one point we were sitting in the middle of the lake in a rented boat as I sat between the two of them belting at the top of their lungs Robbie Williams “Angels” and then had our picnic aka peanut butter sandwiches. Life has been pretty lovely. Later that day we went to the top of the World Peace Pagoda where I was reminded of how out of shape I am (which will come into play again later) and then as we arrived at the top of the mountain (more of a hill for Nepal standards) what are greeted with as we stand on top of the giant white dome honoring Buddha looking out at the Annapurna range? Who else but Taylor Swift. YES! Tay Swift was there for the epic moment as she should be for every moment. What else would I want when I was staring off at the epic landscape then to wonder if Tay’s best friend aka love of her LIFE! Will he realize that she is the girl for him and not the other girl because Tay Tay wears sneakers and the other hussy wears heals?
After Taylor visited me at the world peace pagoda we had another epic journey. This time Freddie, Andy and I met up with the two girls that are fondly known as the Scottish girls aka Jessica and Katie. They are also gap year kids! I know people probably can’t tell, but I feel like all the pictures from this weekend are like “Something here is not like the others!” but anyways, the Scottish girls got us to join them for white water rafting. Soooo amazing! Considering our boat was epic compared to the other boats filled with middle aged Asian people we were booking it through the rapids! Doing what? What else but, singing more Robbie Williams “Angels” of course! We just kept on hearing our captain Ram Yelling “TEAM! NO MORE SINGING! TEAM NO SINGING THROUGH THE RAPIDS!” After we would listen to Ram I would notice that the very quiet Nepali man who was behind me started singing quietly to himself (and me apparently) My Heart Will Go On. I just slowly turned around and stared at him and said nothing else. But now that it was in my head it was only appropriate that when we all fell out of the boat on purpose (Ram, our captain tried to play this game with us and after he explain “ok…. We tilt boat. And you fall out boat.” So… wait a minute Captain Ram… you want us to fall OUT of the boat. Didn’t you just spend 20 minutes before hand telling us how to stay in the boat?) Anyways after we fell out of the boat playing Ram’s fun “game”, and after it took him about 10 minutes to collect us again as we floated down the river calling out “Is anyone alive out there?? COME ABOUT!”” It was just like that scene in Titanic when they are rowing through the bodies but in that case the bodies were dead that they were rowing through. In my case I was very much alive and the stupid Asian tourist who didn’t know what the hell she was doing took the oar straight to my FACE!
So then when we finished our white water rafting we went to go catch the bus that was supposedly included in our package. What they meant was that we would pay for it and the guys would hail a bus for us going back to Pokhara. This ended in us sitting on top of a kayak on top of a bus in the middle of a hail storm singing, of course, Robbie Williams “Angels”. Everything was pretty smooth till we got to a city and suddenly y the bus driver threw a tarp over us saying “hide! Police.” Basically, everything ended well.
Two days later Freddie left us to be a beast and trek all of the Annapurna circuit by himself, while Andy and I departed for our own adventure! Trekking Poon Hill. Now I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. This “hill” is in Nepal, which means this hill would eat what we consider hills back home for breakfast and then vomit it back up because it was just completely unsatisfying and unsavory for it. Poon Hill, which Andy and I renamed, Destruction Mountain (follow this, Poon Hill, Doom Hill, Doom Hell then it just jumps all the way to Destruction Mountain because it’s fitting.) So this “Hill” almost destroyed me. Like I mentioned earlier, I am out of shape. So the first day was ok. We hiked for about 4 hours from Nayapul to a place named Tikhedhunga. Only had to deal with 1 Shelob (oh yeah, I also want to thank Andy for putting up with every one of my Lord of the Ring references, which came up about every ten minutes.) But it was the second day after we left the shire that we reached the stairs going to Mount Doom. Now apparently there were only 3000 steps. Andy and I felt them to be more like 5000. I wanted to shoot myself. And I really wanted to shoot anyone who was travelling down hill! They would give you this face like “Ohh, yeah. There are a lot of stairs. But keep going it’s worth it!” As they would briskly walk down without breaking a sweat. Probably because they were not even carrying their bags! They hired a Sherpa who is half my size height and width and has a bag on his back that is double my height and width. Everyone is a show off. Ughh there was this one couple. This beautiful French couple that was just finishing and they looked soo smug with their we’re almost finished faces drinking their milk tea! Ohhh we’ll give you suggestions. Oh you, lazy American girl. You should probably go slowly. Acclimatized! Did Frodo and Sam Acclimatize! I think not! Moving on!
So the stairs were bitch and after 8 hours of walking I was ready to die. I was a tad sick by the end of the day and we ended just in time because it had just started raining and hailing. So luckily we found the Kingdom of Rohan, but the locals don’t call it that so they call it Garopani or otherwise known as Donkey water. Surprisingly we did know this already when Andy decided to jump in a water fall on our walk up. It’s was on his list of things he has to do on his gap year…ughhh gap year. Oh yeah! I didn’t mention that part of his to do gap year list was to do a Welch accent for a whole week. So I have now come to Nepal and have acquired a Welch accent which is pretty much me impersonating Andy impersonating Spike from Notting Hill.
So the next morning we woke up with everyone at 4:30 to walk up to the very top of Poon Hill to watch the sunrise. This would have been amazingly wonderful if I had not been sick and thrown up on my way up and kinda missed it. I mean I didn’t really miss it because I was pretty much at the top of a 3200 meter mountain, or sorry “hill” and so I still saw an AMAZING sunrise! I was just a few yards behinds everyone else. But when I finally got to the top it was amazing! Just seeing the mountains pop out of the clouds and the sun shining over the top of peaks was beautiful! And I was really happy because that meant that the rest of the journey was down hill!
So the rest of the journey was spent climbing through Fangorn Forest, Eskiliad (sorry Ariel I know I spelled that wrong) Gondor, for a minute Mars and oddly enough the place that we ended at looked a bit like the village in Batman Begins (Casey this is for you) when the little guy tells Christian Bale “You go back. Sometimes you go back.”… Why must everything in my life stem back to a movie? But instead of turning back, we kept going and we found after travelling 1700 meters the day before in 8 hours and finishing up the next day with over 2000 meters crossed in another 8 hours, we found a lovely hot spring!!! That was incredibly needed.
So we stayed at a lodge that looked more like a prison as I recouped (finding that the weight of the ring was more than I thought I could handle… again I would like to apologize to Andy for the Lord of the Rings analogies through the trip.) Then in the morning we went to our hot spring took our 6 hour bus ride back to Pokhara had our reward Milk shakes! And now we are in our hotel room my legs hurt so much that I can’t stand and Andy is singing me Daydream believer by the Monkeys. I don’t know what happened to Robbie Williams but as for this moment it’s about the Moneys…. and Savage Garden apparently.
Any who sorry so long but I had to fill you all in.
LOVE!