Street Cred

I fortunately was not sick and woke up after sleeping nearly 12 hours. I’m sure there was an element of feeling motion sickness too because every time I closed my eyes, all I could see was stepping down the rocks on the ground, like a weird form of room spinning when you’ve drunk too much!

Feeling tremendously better after the sleep, I needed to get up, but realised that was going to be easier said than done. I couldn’t put weight on my legs as my muscles were locked up tight.

What followed was a weird caterpillar roll as I finally managed to turn myself onto my stomach, slide my legs to the floor and use the wall to get myself upright.

The next challenge was getting myself down the two flights of stairs to the kitchen. Again, I had to shuffle sideways down the steps, clutching the handrail the whole way.

Ambika was already in the kitchen cooking up a storm in preparation for Pramilla’s birthday and was happy to see me, as I didn’t see her upon my return before going to bed last night. She offered me a cup of her hot, delicious spiced tea that never seems to be empty. I will truly miss this tea when I go home.

Krishna came in and was going to organise for me to do a trek to Ghandruk Wednesday, took one look at me hobbling and said “I don’t think you do trek.” I felt so disappointed as although it would be easier than Khumai Dada (my Nepali sons who shared their Snickers with me had told me I could jog to Ghandruk after doing Khumai Dada!), it still involved a fair amount of steps.

My alternative is getting a taxi there, staying and doing walks around the surrounding area to see how I go. Easier said than done though. I couldn’t find accommodation online, so I asked Krishna as he always manages to come up with the goods.

With the state of my legs, I knew I needed to go get a trekker’s massage, specifically created for people returning from treks, but first I needed to drop off my laundry as everything was covered in mud.

I called Kedar, my taxi driver to take me to the laundry, then down to Lakeside. He took one look at me hobbling to his car and tried to take my bags off me and offered to walk in to the laundry with them too. I assured him my arms were fine.

Kedar dropped me at Centre Point Lakeside. Apparently a lot of Pokhara is based around these markers, like the Zero Km one. If I had more time, I’d go searching to see the names of other ones.

I was up and about so early, that many of the shops weren’t even open yet. As I hobbled along the street, I came upon a cafe called CinderMint that looked light and fresh, so I thought I would stop in for a little pastry and coffee.

When I saw the menu though, that changed and I ordered avocado on toast with poached eggs and freshly squeezed pineapple and apple juice. My mouth was watering at the thought of such a fresh, light breakfast.

After ordering at the counter, I went to find a table and was surprised as I turned the corner to see it open up to a white, industrial style space that would have been completely at home in Melbourne.

I was perfectly happy whiling away a couple of hours here, catching up on everything and the staff left me to it, regularly coming by, simply to fill my water glass.

I knew I needed to leave at some point to get a massage, especially when it was taking me so long to move anywhere. Before leaving, I went to the toilet as it was beautifully clean, had toilet paper and an actual toilet as there was no way I could squat today.

I smiled when I saw the sign on the back of the door though…

I finally found a spa place that didn’t require me to walk upstairs to get there, so booked myself in for a 60min trekker’s massage, pedicure and hair wash and blow dry for the grand sum of $70.

After I paid, the muscle gods had the last laugh because even though the reception was on the ground floor, through the door, I then had to climb upstairs!

As I hobbled up with the woman at reception, she asked me where I had been. When I told her Khumai Dada, she sounded most impressed and asked me questions about it, saying she wanted to do it.

When I went into the massage room, the woman giving me the massage told me take all my clothes off and put on the disposable underwear as the massage would also do my gluteus maximus, otherwise known as my butt, so would be better to protect my undies from the oil. No problem.

She walked out and I managed to get my top and bra off without issue. Managed to slide my pants and undies off while using the wall as leverage. No problem.

The problem came trying to put the disposable undies on. The massage table was too high for me to sit on to ease my legs into them, so I was trying to lean and bend at the waist to step into them without having to lift my legs, but because they are flimsy with a tight elastic edging, they kept flicking away.

I managed to roll myself on to the massage table and tried getting them on with my legs stuck out to the side, but I couldn’t bend enough to reach my feet.

I was rolling on the bed with my legs half in the air, my butt hanging out and one foot in the underwear when I heard her knock on the door to ask if I was ready. I yelled No!

Somehow, I finally managed to wrangle the other leg into the underwear, roll onto my stomach and be in position when she came back, but I felt like I’d run a marathon!

That was nothing compared to the massage though. I knew I was in trouble when she started to pull my limbs away from my body to “stretch” them. That hurt, but when she started to knead my legs, I thought I would pass out from the pain.

My torturer masseuse seemed to have only one pressure – hard. When I was breathing through gritted teeth, she asked me, “pressure ok?” When I panted out no, she said ok, then proceeded to massage at the same intensity!

At one point, I heard someone come speak on the other side of the door. My masseuse then asked me if I was doing 90mins as she had my left leg in the air kneading the muscle running along the side.

I somehow told her it was supposed to be 60min, but at this point, to go with the 90min. Maybe that was her plan all along, torture me into a longer session!

When she was finally done and left the room, I rolled sideways to swing my legs down and held onto the bed to stand upright. I then had to go through the same motions to get my clothes back on, before shuffling out the door for my pedicure.

This was a far more relaxing experience. Plus, it felt so nice to have clean, polished feet after feeling like a hobo for the last three weeks.

Next, was my hair wash, so I shuffled to another room. I had a moment’s thought of cancelling this when I saw I had to climb up to a chair, but the need to wash the sweat and grime out of my hair was too much.

With help from one of the ladies, I managed to get up the step and lie back. While I may not have walked out of the place gracefully, I certainly felt fresher.

As it was Pramilla’s birthday, I wanted to buy her a nice shawl in pink as this was her favourite colour. I knew it would be more expensive to purchase here as I was in the tourist area, but nothing could bring me to travel to the local shopping area.

I passed by one of the multitudes of trekking shops and the storekeeper tried to invite me in. When I declined, he asked if I wasn’t trekking. I told him I had just finished one and when he heard I did Khumai Dada, he also sounded highly impressed.

Suddenly, in all my hobbling, I felt like I had a bit of street cred by doing this particular trek.

I finally made it home with Chatpat to share and joined Jill and Sula, saying some choice words to them as they teased me about my inability to go up steps or bend down without hugging a wall.

After playing some card games, we decided we needed to go to the shops to get wine and beer for the night. Our usual place was closed, so we had to walk to the main road. I felt like I was walking like the tin man before he got any oil, but I made it there and back.

The kitchen was hectic with cooking and family arriving for Pramilla’s birthday, so rather than going in to get glasses, we just drank straight from the bottles. When in Nepal…

There were new volunteers due to arrive today, but by 6:30pm, they still weren’t there. My bus trip to Pokhara had been 10 and a half hours. This would have been 11 hours for them and still no sign of them.

Jill was extremely tipsy by this point, and Sula and I couldn’t stop laughing, thinking of the poor volunteers walking in after a long, dusty bus trip to a houseful of loud people, partying in true Nepali style and drunk Jill.

At 8:30pm, they still hadn’t arrived and Pramilla’s family were wanting to leave, so we went downstairs and shared in cake and singing happy birthday, with snow in a can being sprayed everywhere.

While we were dancing, the volunteers finally arrived, nearly 14 hours after they had started their journey and were pulled into the festivities.

It was a wonderful evening filled with music, dancing, singing, laughing, family and friends and will not be an evening I would forget any time soon.

I had to use photos from Jill’s phone of the celebrations because I made the mistake of leaving my phone upstairs and could not bring myself to walk back up and down again.

I’m feeling great sadness to depart a family that have become very dear to me.