Taxi? Rickshaw? Fruit juice? Necklace? Flute? Have a look!
We're sick. Sick like the kind where you would preferably spend a significant portion of your day in a certain room of the house, if you catch my meaning. Unfortunately, however, the brunt of the illness caught Vin during our one full day in the jungle (ie elephant/jeep/boat rides galore) and me the next day which was a 9 hour travel day. Joy of joys. Now we are cheerfully back in Kathmandu, staying in a guest house which is by far the nicest place we've stayed so far in Nepal, taking it easy for a day or two. Then we have to find a nice cheaper place to settle in to for the remainder of our stay or certainly during the time we are working at the KAT center (Nov 22 for two weeks). 
As a reminder, KAT stands for the Kathmandu Animal Treatment center and primarily does spaying of female dogs for population control. As far as I know, they also see any other street dogs (as in, not owned) for a variety of other ailments.
I thought before getting into our Chitwan experience, I'd like to throw a little in here about what we were doing while we were actually in the city of Pohkara. Pohkara is a much more chilled out version of Thamel (in Kathmandu), with wider streets, less traffic, less begging, and generally a more relaxed atmosphere.
We spent a lot of the time just wandering around- by the lake, up side streets. Took a couple boats out on the lake. We had planned to do a couple of things that we never got to - seeing the world peace pagoda up close or making the climb/drive to Sarangkot on top of the mountain, but eventually discarded these ideas because the last few days in Pohkara were extremely overcast and views from these places would be suboptimal. Most of the rest of the time we spent in the city was eating :-). 
We covered a lot of ground with our cuisine, from nepali to indian to italian to chinese to one of the best steak houses I've ever been to. The steaks were huge and (mostly) cooked perfectly, with a good size portion costing only about 5 USD. I was going to add a picture of the menu but it was sideways and the computer is being slow, so instead you get a pic of us with our steaks....delicious! 
Reading menus has become one of my more enjoyable pasttimes here - too often the mispellings are extremely entertaining. You'll have to figure out for yourself what some of these menu items mean - any thoughts on the last two mexican dishes? We also ate a fair bit of street food in Phokaras which was equally delicious- yes I know what you're probably thinking- we deserved to get sick eventually. The rest of our time in Pohkara was spent trying not to get dragged into shops by persistent shop owners keen on making a sale. 
My ears may ring with "have a look" and "for you...good price" for months to come. We actually did buy as few nice things (for us as well as some of you lucky few) because the buying atmosphere was altogether much nice than in Thamel.
So on the 15th we departed our wonderful guest house and got on a bus for Chitwan National Park, which is the oldest of the parks in Nepal and covers about 900 Sq Km.
We stayed in a lodge called Temple Tiger, which is one of the few lodges that are actually inside the park so we took the financial hit and dove in. The lodge was very nice, with a perfect setting right over a marshy area that was good for seeing wildlife. During our day and a half there we went on two elephant rides, a few jeep and boat rides, and a nature walk. We saw about 6 rhinos, some langurs and macaques (monkeys), crocadilians, a few deer, and many birds and cool bugs and flora. I put a couple pictures of the rhinos in - they were so darn cute.
Overall a good experience, despite some scheduling strangeness and of course sick time. Then as I described before, a 9 hour trip north took us back to Kathmandu, which is where we are now. Its good to be settled in one place again, but its too bad we wont get another chance to return to Pohkara- what a wonderful place. 
In other news, I have been getting frustrated the last few days trying to sort out my future and potential internship matching via crappy computers and expensive internet time. Forgive my lack of information about what my plans are after I get back, but please just let me tell you when I know more.
Ok thats it from me for now- thanks again for all the comments and correspondence - we miss you guys!!!
As a reminder, KAT stands for the Kathmandu Animal Treatment center and primarily does spaying of female dogs for population control. As far as I know, they also see any other street dogs (as in, not owned) for a variety of other ailments. I thought before getting into our Chitwan experience, I'd like to throw a little in here about what we were doing while we were actually in the city of Pohkara. Pohkara is a much more chilled out version of Thamel (in Kathmandu), with wider streets, less traffic, less begging, and generally a more relaxed atmosphere.
We spent a lot of the time just wandering around- by the lake, up side streets. Took a couple boats out on the lake. We had planned to do a couple of things that we never got to - seeing the world peace pagoda up close or making the climb/drive to Sarangkot on top of the mountain, but eventually discarded these ideas because the last few days in Pohkara were extremely overcast and views from these places would be suboptimal. Most of the rest of the time we spent in the city was eating :-). 
We covered a lot of ground with our cuisine, from nepali to indian to italian to chinese to one of the best steak houses I've ever been to. The steaks were huge and (mostly) cooked perfectly, with a good size portion costing only about 5 USD. I was going to add a picture of the menu but it was sideways and the computer is being slow, so instead you get a pic of us with our steaks....delicious! 
Reading menus has become one of my more enjoyable pasttimes here - too often the mispellings are extremely entertaining. You'll have to figure out for yourself what some of these menu items mean - any thoughts on the last two mexican dishes? We also ate a fair bit of street food in Phokaras which was equally delicious- yes I know what you're probably thinking- we deserved to get sick eventually. The rest of our time in Pohkara was spent trying not to get dragged into shops by persistent shop owners keen on making a sale. My ears may ring with "have a look" and "for you...good price" for months to come. We actually did buy as few nice things (for us as well as some of you lucky few) because the buying atmosphere was altogether much nice than in Thamel. So on the 15th we departed our wonderful guest house and got on a bus for Chitwan National Park, which is the oldest of the parks in Nepal and covers about 900 Sq Km.
We stayed in a lodge called Temple Tiger, which is one of the few lodges that are actually inside the park so we took the financial hit and dove in. The lodge was very nice, with a perfect setting right over a marshy area that was good for seeing wildlife. During our day and a half there we went on two elephant rides, a few jeep and boat rides, and a nature walk. We saw about 6 rhinos, some langurs and macaques (monkeys), crocadilians, a few deer, and many birds and cool bugs and flora. I put a couple pictures of the rhinos in - they were so darn cute.
Overall a good experience, despite some scheduling strangeness and of course sick time. Then as I described before, a 9 hour trip north took us back to Kathmandu, which is where we are now. Its good to be settled in one place again, but its too bad we wont get another chance to return to Pohkara- what a wonderful place. In other news, I have been getting frustrated the last few days trying to sort out my future and potential internship matching via crappy computers and expensive internet time. Forgive my lack of information about what my plans are after I get back, but please just let me tell you when I know more.
Ok thats it from me for now- thanks again for all the comments and correspondence - we miss you guys!!!
posted by meadfried at 11:53 PM
1 Comments:
Oh God, sorry to hear you've both had some sick days! What a bummer while you're traveling at the best of times, but given the more rough & ready nature of your travels it must've been even more taxing. Glad you got some relaxing time at a guest house though, I'm sure that was much-needed & very restful. Love those menus too! Always entertaining when you have to guess what you might be eating...
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