Pokhra, Nepal

Yesterday there was a strike in Nepal. Meaning that all shops were closed.
and no traffic. It was great to walk on the streets in Pokhra lake
side. In the city centre there was a protest against the government.
To stop the protest the police use violence. In one case they fired on
the protesters with bullets resulting in someone shot in the head and
someone shot in the leg. Yesterday there was also bom blast near
policestation.

But here in Pokhra lakeside we are not aware of any problems it is
just a nice and very relaxing place.

According to a lot of people in 10 years of problems tourist were
never the targets by any of the party who use violence . The parties
are the Maoist and the Government. They use violence only against the
local people, which is very regretable.

I think I will stay here for another 2 or 3 days.

happy travels

Meinoud

--
Meinoud Rijnen
http://www.rijnentravel.blogspot.com
India overland met de bus, trein en auto

Pokhra

Since yesterday afternoon I'm in Pokhra. Pokhra is a really nice relaxing town with hammocks and garden pubs. The view over lake and the mountains is magnificent. The bus ride from Kathmandu to Pokhra was fast and easy, because I took tourist bus with only tourist we never had to stop for any of the police checkpoints. In just 8 hours we arrived in Pokhra.

After a little hassle I had a free ride to a hotel. Which I did not like it was very close to damside  But still it was east lake side, from there on I walked to central lake side. Last night I stayed at Pokhra Peace Home it is a nice place with a garden and a hammock (1,80 euro). For that you get an inside bathroom. I'm the only one at the hotel but tomorrow I will move to another place little bit more basic only 100 rps (1,10 euro) but at has a very nice feeling and a meditation Hall it is called Ganden Yiga Chopen Meditation centre.    

 

Last night I saw Rens and Marjolein again I met them more then a week ago in Kathmandu.. The first Dutch people since Risikesh (so in 5 weeks). Today they went on a track to Jomson. Last night we had dinner together it was great meeting them again.

 

The coming few days I will stay in Pokhra and later on I will go to Sarnath (India) for a 10 days Vipassana course

Enjoy live!!!!!

  

Meinoud

kathmandu

Yesterday I had a very nice day. In the morning I went to the Himalaya
Buddist Meditation Centre to meditate and after that I indulged my
self with a very nice coffee at the Himalaya java cafe. There are only
a few places in India were you can have nice coffee so since i'm in
Kathmandu i relay enjoy proper coffee.

The day before yesterday we were under curfew during the day so we
could not leave the hotel. Most of the time I watch television, read
my book and practise fluut. At 6 Pm we could leave the hotel till 9 pm
for the night curfew.

Yesterday I went to Patan a very close by city. Kathmadu was still
quite from day before yesterday curfew. A lot of shops were closed and
traffic was also slow the result was that the was not so much smog and
I could see a huge range of mountains in the late afternoon sun..While
I was enjoying the later afternoon sun, the mountains and Patan Durbar
Square something else was happening in the centre of Kathmadu Durbar
square.Troubles broke out between protesters and police resulting in
more arrest by the police.

The troubles were shown on the bbc despide the problems they changed
the curfew time from 9 pm to 10 pm.

Today I walked trough the city on every corner in the city you see a
heavy present of police in riot gear and sometimes armed with big
guns.

In the evening at I had chowmein and a Tibetan beer. Tibetan beer is a
hot beer. They make it with hot water and something ...... I have to
look that up..The beer is not bad. It is a lot better then butter tea.
Butter tea is not very tasty. Todays curfew starts at 11 PM.

In the coming days I hope to travel to Pokhra.

--
Meinoud
http://www.rijnentravel.blogspot.com
India overland from amsterdam to the south of India by bus and train

Kathmandu

Today we had a 10 hour day curfew. This started in the morning at 8 am and ended at 6 pm. We had to stay for 10 hours in our hotel. At 9 pm the evening curfew start.

 

Meinoud

 

Under curfew in Kathmandu

Since the 9 of February I'm in Kathmandu. Yesterday and today we are under a strict curfew starting at 9 pm in the evening.

This due to the fact that tomorrow there will be a protest by the opposition parties. However this rally is forbidden by the king. In this case
both parties don't want to back down . Tomorrow will be an interesting day... I probably stay in my room and watch live the "Australian open". 

 

On the 8 of January I took a bus from Varanasi bus station to the border town of Saunali I slept one night there. The next day I took a day 6:15 am bus  to Kathmandu. Due to the many roadblocks we we arrived around 8 pm in Kathmandu. The roadblocks are police check posts, the police check  the luggage from the Nepalese people. They don't check the tourist people. 

 

The first 3 nights I stayed in Hotel Elite, the hotel was OK but i did not like the staff so I moved to hotel Tashi Delek???? this is a very nice clean place with nice staff. 

 

Kathmandu  is a very nice, relaxing clean place with at the moment just a few tourists. The food is amazing all the western food is available. It is great if you travelled overland from Amsterdam to Kathmandu and then arrive in Kathmandu and i can eat a lot of yummy western food. There are pizza's in India then they try to make them but there is always this little Indian taste in the pizza. Here in Kathmandu there is pizza with a real Italian pizza taste. 

 

There is also " frituur" in Dutch a "patat zaak" here you can get the best "Finger chips"  or "Patat"  since leaving Amsterdam. So the first few days I had a very nice "patatje oorlog"  yummy.

 

But all this nice food comes with prize tag It is expensive compared to India. So I'm back at the Thentuk (Tibetan soup) this is a very nice soup and the more cheaper foods like momo's. The day before yesterday I  had some Samosas I start to miss the Indian food.

 

Since 3 days I do meditation at the Himalayan Buddhist Meditation Centre. This is a nice place to meditate they have a nice gompa and after the meditation we have breakfast togther.

 

Saturday I will move to Kopan Monastery. Kopan is just outside of Kathmandu and I can stay there for a few days for a personal retreat aft that I will move to Pokhra and then to Lumbini and back to India.

 

I'm looking forward to go to India.

 

Varanasi

meinoud 203,
originally uploaded by mjrijnen.

I Uploaded a few new pictures from Varanasi.

Have fun and click on the picture

New Year 2006 in Varanasi

On 31 december we made some food like nice lentil cakes, Papaya chutney with an unkwon vegetable,Spinage, fruitsalad and yummie chocolate balls. Later in the evening Vinod ask a few friends to perform. So we had a private concert with 2 indian dancers, after that Vinod played fluut toegether with the tablar player rajef???? and later we Rajef playing tablar together with some one who played sitar. The music was awesome.

Some people start there new year with tapas like stopping smoking. But we I had my first beer since 8 november, the last beer for Julien was 4,5 months ago. Sara had some alcohol but that was probably more than a month ago. She had some problem to drink the whole bottle (0.5 litre)

One think was sure I'm not used to drink alcohol anymore because next day I had a light headache.

New Year in Varanasi is not a very big deal there is little fire work Dawali is a much bigger festival. The people of Varanasi celebrated New year on the 1 of january with boat ride on the Ganga.

The first of januari was for me very relaxing I woke up at 11:30 am (rather late) had breakfast in Mona Lise (cheese toast), walked along the Ganaga, did some clothe washing, drinking chemicals like miranda and pepsi (both I did not drink for more 1.5 months) drinking lemon tea at my hostel Vishnu on the terrace and reading Sophie's World and enjoy the warm sun.

At 5 PM I was supposed to have my fluut lesson but that was cancelled because Vinod had an event. Had a chat with Julien who made a trip last night and found himselve this morning on sleeping on the floor. Fortunatally he still feeling oke because the nights can be rather cold (7 degee)

I'm now in Mona Lisa doing some internet and waiting on a free tablle for some korean food.

Concluding the first of january was very relaxing.

Happy New Year, may all your dreams come true..