adventure

Nepal 63: Slowly, Slowly

Daniel 6 Comments

“Slowly, slowly,” our guide says as we leave lunch behind, and step back on to the trail.

He doesn’t tell us this, but we still have 1,000 meters of vertical to gain today. On Day 1 of our trek. Of course, if he’d told us this—and if we understood what it entailed—we probably would have turned around and hailed the nearest taxi back to Pokhara.

Our guide was a pro though. He knew all he had to say was “slowly, slowly.” We didn’t need to know the struggles that lay ahead of us, We could overcome them, but if we spent too much time thinking about their magnitude, we would surely convince ourselves that it was impossible.

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Nepal 52: Something to Do With Your Hands

Daniel 12 Comments
Pokhara Cafe

I shook hands with my opponent across the chess board. Beams of early-afternoon sunlight broke through the roof of the Pokhara cafe where we were sitting.

My opponent grinned a toothy grin. He was dark-skinned, freckled, missing one of his front teeth, and had a big, bushy white beard. He wore a light scarf wrapped around his head. This was the Malaysian.

Fifty-one years old, professional itinerant, and damned good chess player.

He’d just taken four out of five games from me, smoking hash almost the entire time.

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Nepal 48: Paragliders Over Sarankot

Daniel 7 Comments
Sunbeams flying

I was sitting alone on terrace in Pokhara, Nepal, sipping coffee. My eyes stared out across a serene lake, looking but not seeing. My mind was far away, across the ocean.

Instinctively, I looked to the hills above the lake. The mountains behind the hills still remained shrouded in haze. I’d been in Pokhara for a few days now, and still not caught a glimpse of the famous Annapurna Range; the towering Himalayan massif I’d come to Pokhara to see.

The Lonely Planet guidebook I had plundered from the Hotel Snow Leopard suggested catching a sunrise from the high hill of Sarankot was the best way to see the mountains. So as I sat on the terrace, I looked to Sarankot.

Above the promontory, a swarm of paragliders circled.

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Nepal 36: Harassed at the Lake

Daniel 18 Comments

I woke up the next morning with the intention of spending my day lounging by the lake.

There was a nice little park right down the street from Hotel Snow Leopard; I had a nice little Instagram photo in my mind of me sitting on a bench, reading a book or writing in my journal next to this impressive mountain lake.

I had American breakfast at a cafe by the lake, and then went to go sit down.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t going to get the peaceful morning I had imagined.

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