L'Arte di Viaggiare - Art of Travel - Francis Galton
17 August Mahendra Gufa
Namaste Nepal En
This lies to the north of Pokhara. We take the usual bus and then walk the final stretch in torrential rain.
At the ticket booth they try to make us take a guide for the caves. Marcello, my Roman companion of misfortune, is about to give in, but I, having read my Rough Guide [one of the four guide books I always have with me], don't think it's necessary. It should be a small cave. In fact: we can scarcely believe that such a small ugly 'hole' can be included in a guide book. It's pouring even inside. When I slip on the damp ground my dreadful curse echoes around the 'cave'. It is at this point that I realise just how much fear I've been keeping bottled up inside me since the two frightful falls, which could have had fatal consequences, during our trekking.
I read my Rough Guide more carefully: these caves were famous for their limestone stalactites, which have all been taken by vandals, though. There's another cave near here, but, the guide book says, it is more dangerous and for 'serious spelunkers only'. Let's forget it! I'm more interested in going to Batulechaur, a village famous for its 'gaines', a kilometre from here. The 'gaines' are minstrels who sing serenades at ceremonies, accompanied by the sarangi.
A local youth takes us to a house with a small porch. The head of the family emerges, instrument in hand. In a few minutes, a crowd of men and women, old and young, all singing, gathers around us. I begin to suspect the worst and I say so to Marcello. Because, after so many journeys in Asia, Africa and South America, I am nobody's fool, I tell our local guide that we have no intention of paying out a huge sum for their songs. Also because he keeps repeating and stressing that the owner of this house goes frequently to play in the hotels at Lakeside [including the Fish Tail, $150 a night, do you know!] and he is very successful.
Given that every Nepalese firmly believes that all tourists are wealthy, you often find yourself faced with requests for money, which would be ridiculous if they were not in fact deadly earnest.
Despite my having been explicit, the final request is for $20.
“Okay”, I reply, calmly with a smile, “however, you will have to take into consideration the cost of my own performance, which is $25. Which means you owe me $5, but I'm willing to wave that.”
In fact I, too, had pulled out my repertoire of Italo-Nepalese songs and had started to sing!
Then, I put my shoes back on with great dignity and left.
Before going back to the hotel, we went to see the waterfall they call Fadke or Devin's/David's Falls, a couple of kilometres south of the airport. David, from the name of a tourist who fell into the falls with his girlfriend, so we are told.
The falls are, in fact, an underground river which emerges just before falling into another river, and at the point where the falls are the river goes down into a hole in the earth and disappears.
This waterfall is close to a refugee camp for Tibetans: the women leave the camp in the morning and pester tourists all day long to buy their products.
The village is called Tashiling Tibetan and, surprise, surprise, working the looms there are numerous Nepalese!When there is unpleasant, boring, laborious work to be palmed off on those who are less fortunate, all the world is the same!