Chitwan National Park and Kathmandu

One reason why we hauled butt on the trekking trip was the fact that we had a limited amount of days left in Nepal before our flight and we really wanted to see the other side of the Nepalese nature, the jungle in the Chitwan National Park.
 
After the trek I treated myself for a straight edge shave in Pokhara, it was a very pleasant experience. The barber did a great job making my cheeks smooth like a baby’s bottom plus finishing the treatment with a head massage. All this for 2 dollars! The same day we treated ourselves also for a full body massage done by blind masseuses, I would love to tell you guys it was great but it wasn't. K.G and I were put in the same room which we thought was nice in the beginning but then the masseuses chatted with each other the whole time sometimes even forgetting to massage us! I received a massage by a blind person in Cambodia 8 years ago and it was great so my expectations were high, but this time it was a miss. At the massage we met Suzanna who was working behind the counter helping the blind staff to run the business. We were chatting about Nepalese food and all of a sudden we were invited that night to her place to tasted her cooking. Man it was good, she made us Dal Bhat, which is a very common dish in Nepal except this one was done the traditional way not the tourist or the "tex mex" way. Suzanna got married 2 months ago and her and her husband knew each other for 2 days before they were married. The match making was done by their parents, they had the chance to say no but they said yes. No need for match.com or Tinder when Mom and Pops are professional pimps!

The next day we took a bus to Chitwan, 6 hours southeast from Pokhara, Chitwan National Park is the place in Nepal to go see some wild life like Rhinos, Tigers and Alligators. On the bus we met Dino, Katrin and Sonja from Germany, we ended up hanging out with this great trio the whole time in Chitwan and even in Kathmandu. Dino's family is originally from Sri Lanka and that is where they are right now. He had some fun stories about emigrating to Germany as a child. The 5 of us booked a jungle walk the day after we arrived and headed into the jungle with 2 guides, it's mandatory to have a guide due to the fact that Rhinos and Tigers can be cranky when poked with a stick to get a better selfie. By the way, how long is this selfie craze going to last before people realize how badly framed pictures they make? Why don't people just ask someone to take their picture so the rest of us could actually see the Eiffel Tower behind the person making the "duck face".

Sorry about that rant, back to Nepal. The trek was fun and it went through some thick jungle where we spotted some monkeys, lizards, deer and Rhinos. The first hour of the trek was done by boat on the river and we spotted a lot of alligators, crocodiles and king fishers. The guides finished the trek a little too early and we felt we didn't get enough bang for our buck so we complained and they had to organize us another trek for the afternoon. The second trek we saw less but learned more about the plants and trees in the jungle. The closest to a tiger we came was the tiger's paw print, judging by the size of that paw you probably don't want to meet the owner. All and all a fun way to spend a day after 10 days of trekking in the high Himalayas in a completely different scenery.

Chitwan to Kathmandu bus ride was supposed to be 4 hours and as per usual ended up being 6 hours, luckily the scenery was beautiful and there wasn't a goat on the roof peeing on our back pack like on our earlier bus. Kathmandu was busy and the scars from the earth quake were still very visible. It is also an extremely polluted city surrounded by mountains that keep the pollution in the bowl that Kathmandu is located in. After 2 days our throats were hurting and we were coughing like Marlboro Man. We enjoyed sightseeing the sights and hanging out with our German friends in the many bakeries of Kathmandu. In the pictures above you can see some of the damage done to the buildings by the earth quake a year prior, some of them were protected by Unesco but Mother Nature don't care about those things. Sad seeing large poles holding up what remains of falling and crumbling brick buildings everywhere.

From Kathmandu Airport, small as most of the bus stations we have been in, we flew to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. And that my friends is where we currently are while writing this. Finally, done with banging our heads on the wall with Nepalese internet connections and constant power breaks. Goodbye cool Nepal, hello giant heat-wave and humid Kuala Lumpur!