Nepal, where the dream ends {5}

09/30/07
Till the last night, nothing captured me in Nepal. I hoped there would be no regret as some friends joked on me “spend money to buy suffering”. But who knows?
We got up early on the morning to catch up the bus on 7:00 o’clock from Kathmandu to Pohkara. So there was no time to take more glances on the streets, buildings, and people. We gathered at 6:30 at lobby of hotel pyramid that is held by a Chinese boss from Canton. This hotel is well known in Chinese tourists as “phoenix hotel” which is the direct translation from its Chinese name. The owner is a Cantonese and his wife is from Si’suan province of China. They know how to run business. Although we didn’t live in his own hotel, the boss was willing to help on confirming our return tickets with Royal Nepal Airline. His local staffs can speak frequent English as well as enough Chinese. Personally, I felt so fortunate to know him meanwhile all of us were proud of such a successful Chinese businessman in overseas. His hotel acts a warm family house to all Chinese in Kathmandu.

We followed our guide who works for “phoenix hotel” to bus station. I saw so many street dogs stretching legs across roads neglecting walkers’ steps. The public streets become the territory under dogs’ control. Here came a question from me to our guide. “Do Nepalese eat dogs or not?” He smiled with a little surprise on face, “Why? We don’t eat dogs. People like dogs” Oh~ that’s why. I realized, “but how come so many street dogs? How are they able to survive?” “I don’t know. Sometimes people give left food to them. Sometimes they search food from nearby garbage or restaurants. So many ways to live on.” I guess this is the spirit of Nepali dogs? Or this is the western culture influence on nowadays Nepal because Nepal has ever been a colony of England. As far as I know, almost all eastern countries eat dog meat. It’s not only Chinese eat dogs. Taking Nepalese religion into consideration, dog is not the saint animal like ox. So the phrase “lucky dog” is vivid to describe dogs in Nepal.

We finally found the bus station was not really a station. It’s just buses staying along the street. This means when buses are gone, there’s just street. We waved to our guide for goodbye. And bus ran. It’s written on my Lonely Planet that the highway road from Kathmandu to Pohkara is full of attractive scenes such as a sudden appeared mini waterfall, green mountain foot, or a babbling brook. On the contrary, I didn’t see any interesting sight along the route. Until we arrived at Pohkara bus station, I was more upset than yesterday. Is this the famous city for snow capped mountain views recommended by most tour books? I doubted it!!! It’s a bare square with a few local residents holding reception boards and canvassing tourists to live into their hotel rooms.