The Long Road to River Side Springs (By Triston)

(below) J Takes Off

(below) T's Flight


MUCH ADO ABOUT SOMETHING
Our time back in Pokhara was a much needed set of relaxing days after the extremes of trekking. Right when we got back, we were stopped in the street by some kids. Our first impulse was to avoid eye-contact and say "no thank you, not interested," as this is what you have to, for better or for worse, because of the huge amount of beggars, scheisters, impostors, and swindlers (young and old) one encounters all over this great land. This group of kids, though, was quite different. They were in school uniform and wanted us to come see their school's performance of Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet"! After a deep tissue massage that had both J and I in tears (they found our most painful points--usually in the calves after the trek--and dug into them with their elbows) we limped over to the bar where the performance was to be held. The accents were adorable, and the dance interlude where the entire caste danced to "I'm a Barbie Girl" was priceless. My favorite part was when they drank the poison and then laid there on the stage for 15 minutes because the other kids forgot what came next! Justyna and I were even persuaded to get up and dance with the kids at the end of the play. Very cool. TEAM TRISTYNA TAKES FLIGHT After a night of feel-good play-watching and a feast of grass carp (not haploid in case Bryce is wondering), Justyna and I decided we would do something chilled out and low-key, in light of the intensity of the previous week on the mountain. We decided to strap ourselves to insane men who were themselves strapped to parachutes, and then hurl ourselves off the tallest mountain in the Pokhara valley. Some people call this activity "paragliding." To be honest, it was a smooth ride and I had a great view of Justyna in her own paragliding harness, floating high above me as we both soared thousands of meters above Pokhara. The only negative side to the experience was when we had to land. The guy I was strapped to said that we were "going down"--which I took to mean something bad and undesirable. When I asked: "Is this supposed to happen," as we began what seemed like a death spiral downward and my stomach was sucked up into my larynx, he replied: "No....not good...." Strangely, although I was terrified, the adrenaline seemed to win over fear and I let out a "yoohoooooo!" with a big stupid smile on my face! Turned out the flyboy was just messing with whitey as he probably usually does. It made my day though. Oh, and the other negative thing was that I was sick as a dog for about two hours after the flight. Never though I would get motion sickness, but this thing was pretty different than plane turbulence or a trip down a winding road. Justyna flew seamlessly and calmly like a cool, collected veteran. THE BUS FROM HELL After our flight, we decided we hadn't had enough of putting our lives in the hands of risk-taking, testosteronized youths, so we decided to take a public bus to this famed resort (cue tabla drums and mystical sitar lick....."RIVER SIDE SPRINGS RESORT-SORT-SORT-sort-sort-sort.....")which was on the way back to Kathmandu. At first the bus ride was sweet. I bought a big coke that was frozen solid so it was a rare opportunity for ice cold drinking pleasure for the first few hours. We also bought some good food from a vendor outside the window at one of the thousand villages we stopped at. The boys come up to the bus, see you are foreign (a breathing, talking bag of rupees basically) and then press their food, drinks, veggies, on your bus window and pester you until you buy them. We usually say no to them (which in our minds means "no" to various bacteria and potential cultural incidents). This time, though, I decided to give it a shot. I bartered, haggled, hummed, hawed, tried to walk away (but I was in a bus so that didn't work) and finally acquired some mangoes and coconuts for a decent price.... and they were really good! As we were enjoying the bountiful fruit of Nepal, we started to realize three things: 1. There were already three times as many people as seats on the bus. 2. The bus was traveling at speeds and rates of acceleration/deceleration that we had never experienced before--especially atop the precarious river-side roads with nothing between you and the canyon but a garbage heap and (if lucky) a stubborn, urinating water buffalo. 3. Whenever the bus was not careening around blind corners atop the canyon of death, it was picking up entire Nepalese cricket teams and wedding parties who had now started to hang on to the sides of the bus (outside) and were sitting on top of each other in the isles. It is one thing to be terrified in a vehicle but to know that, if truly necessary, you can at least try and run to the front, yank the emergency break and wrestle the driver to the ground. It is quite another situation when there are 78 strangely calm Nepalis between you and that much-needed locus of control......After five hot hours of the insanity, the bus assistant assured us that we were at (cue choral "ahhhhs" and banjo breakdown....."RIVER SIDE SPRINGS RESORT-SORT-SORT-sort-sort-ort.....") In reality, we were 5KM from the riverside resort, so we got our back (which had miraculously not fallen off the top of the bus) and set our bodies into the familiar pattern of one-foot-in-front-o-the-other. RIVER SIDE SPRINGS RESORT-ORT-ORT-ort-ort-ort..... You know that feeling when you unwrap a McDonald's hamburger and think to yourself: "Man! This is not like the picture! The patty looks like clay. The bun is paper thin, the whole thing is hobbit-sized!"??? You know that feeling of injustice???....like you've been had by false advertising!? That is kind of how J and I felt when we got to the famed "outdoor, spring-fed swimming pool" of the River Side Springs Resort. It wasn't so much the pool itself, which was kind of shabby but not too bad. It was more the cheesy Indian dance music blasting out at us and the rude (most insanely rude people we've ever encountered) clients who were sitting on the bar, hawking loogies into the pool, smoking in the pool, discarding beer bottles in the pool, and generally being complete buffoons in the pool. It was so rude and obnoxious that J and I laughed hysterically...but that wasn't what made us feel ripped off. That happened later on, when Justyna opened a roti (kind of like naan bread) to find a giant bug seemingly baked inside. Right about then, the power went out and our quasi-romantic time at River Side Springs Resort came to an abrupt end. The next morning, instead of staying in town for one more day, we took an air-conditioned tourist bus straight to Kathmandu.