Hotel Green Park, Part II

Remember this place?

In the Himalayas above Pokhara, the first rays of dawn illumine Macchapucchre

Yes, Nepal.  I live here.  Remember, that’s a lot of why the puppy has been so sick.  Kathmandu sanitation not so good.

(Again, today, Alaska’s marginally better, still happy and playing and stomach slightly improved.  Hooray medicine!)

Back before our little Alaskan Himal got so sick, we spent a few days away from her gazing at the massive Himalayas all around Pokhara.  And I put up a post about the exterior of the Hotel Green Park, where we stayed.  Here’s the companion post, for its interior.

We actually stayed in two different rooms while we were in Pokhara.  Apparently, since we arrived later than they expected on our first day there, they’d assigned the room reserved for us to someone else.  The next day, they offered to move us into their nicest room.

Really, the two rooms weren’t that different.  And they were neither awesome nor terrible.  The “nicer” room had a better view of Macchapucchre Himal, though the view from the first room had been impressive enough.  It also had an actual tub in the bathroom, as opposed to the simple spout and drain for showering in the first room.  Still, both cost only about $20 a night, and at that rate, absolutely nothing in the US could beat them.

The queen-sized bed in our room at the Hotel Green Park. There was also a double bed against the opposite wall.

The bed was a little too hard, but not so uncomfortable as to keep us from sleeping.  The sheets and blankets and pillows were clean, and warm enough even in the chilly nights.  (There was neither heat nor air conditioning, but there was a ceiling fan that cooled things off nicely in the heat of the day.)

A coat hanger, chairs, and working color TV with cable.

The TV worked fine — except, it was initially missing a remote.  When we let them know about the problem, instead of bringing us a remote, they brought us a different TV… with a remote!  Both TVs functioned just fine, with good quality images, and I watched a Bollywood movie and parts of various soap operas in Hindi.  We also watched CNN and the BBC.  Quite a luxury for us, since we can’t even get television signals in our house here in Kathmandu!  (We live far enough outside the city center that the cable lines don’t yet run this far.  Apparently, we live in the urban sprawl part of Kathmandu, where productive farmland lay not too many years ago.  I do feel a twinge of guilt over it, though we didn’t build the house here or even pick it out, and we’re certainly crowded in with plenty of Nepali neighbors on every side.)

The most… interesting… part of the hotel room was the bathroom.  Ants had somehow tunneled their way up to it, though we were on the third floor.  And the room wasn’t quite clean enough for my standards, and the toilet splashed alarmingly with every flush–good to make sure the lid was down before touching the lever!  But, again, for $20 a night, it wasn’t bad.

Um, the mirror's cock-eyed, and so's the toilet lid... but everything works!

Yes, there's a bathtub too.

So, overall, for $20 a night, in Pokhara, Hotel Green Park’s definitely a decent place to stay!

Nepali of the day:

himal:  snow-covered mountain

bahira:  outside

bhitra:  inside

kotha:  room

sutnu:  to sleep

sutna kotha:  bedroom

charpi:  bathroom/toilet

Hotel Green Park, Pokhara

[BTW, the bandh was over by Friday.  As usual, daily there are small protests around the Kathmandu Valley, but no Valley-wide bandh since Thursday.  I haven't heard any real resolution to the issue in Nepali Politics 104, but perhaps just the government's assurance that they would investigate the issue has calmed the grievances.]

My ever present problem here is that I take more pictures than I could possibly post; yes, we have days of fairly boring routine, but each occasional trip supplies enough pictures and events to keep me busy for days and weeks.  I never finished putting up the details of our trip to Bhaktapur, for example–and we’re going there again in 2 weeks, and I’ll probably again end up with even more to post then.

Over the weekend, too, we ascended halfway up our Pretty Mountain Hill (which is actually named Shivapuri, remember?), and I have limitless pictures of that trip, too.  Not quite as bad as Pokhara, though–I have 800 pictures just from the first 2 days there, and trying to choose the best to post, and the way to describe the events, is bewildering.

At the very least, today I want to make sure I include some information on our hotel–especially since the hotel itself doesn’t have its own website.  So, though we had a good recommendation from a friend, I was a bit leery about heading to a $20 a night hotel, sight unseen.

The hotel where we stayed in Pokhara, the Hotel Green Park.

But it actually turned out to be perfectly fine.  The building exteriors were kept up well…

One of the twin buildings that make up the Hotel Green Park.

…and the courtyard garden was absolutely gorgeous.

A view of the courtyard from a second floor walkway.

And how was the interior?  Well, given that the internet has been acting up again, and I’d prefer to go to sleep before 11 (especially if the goofy puppy is going to wake us up twice in the night again, like she suddenldy did last night), you’ll just have to wait until tomorrow!

Nepali of the Day:

hariyo:  green

koTha:  room

-ko:  possessive particle, like adding ‘s to a word in English

sasto:  inexpensive

mahengo:  expensive

Hotel Green Park-ko koTha-haru ekdam sasto chhan.

Hotel Green Park sundhar chha.

Welcome to Pokhara

(Happy Gettysburg Address Anniversary!  Go read it again!)

Where was I?  Back before I went to a Chinese restaurant with many amazing English teachers, and before another dinner yesterday, and a massive headache…

Oh, of course.  Himalayas!

And we’d nearly reached Pokhara.

My comment the other day about moving to Pokhara may not have made much sense–surely the view from the plane couldn’t be matched by that from the city itself?  Well, first, unlike Kathmandu, Pokhara has a lake:

There are several in the area, but I believe this is Phewa Tol, Pokhara's main lake.

The city is much smaller and calmer, too.  Not such a crush of people and cars and buses and vans and chickens and tuk-tuks and trucks and dogs and bicycles and cows and motorcycles and…

In fact, as opposed to the thousands of houses in Kathmandu, right up to Pokhara itself there’s refreshing countryside:

The rice harvest was on while we were there, but I suspect the yellow-brown here actually indicates wheat.

Then, there’s their funky airport sign:

Um, I think their airport sign might be a ransom note. But that's ok--at least it's pretty.

Oh, yeah, and the fact that all over the city, you see this:

That's one darn striking mountain.

Puppy Update:

Alaska continues to feel much better.  She’s very determined when she pulls on her balls and refuses to give them up to play fetch–she’d rather tug than chase, though she’ll do the latter readily enough.  Right now, she’s asleep on my lap.  A moment ago, she started jerking and crying in what was likely a nightmare–I rubbed her gently and made soothing sounds.  She woke up and pinned me with scared eyes for one second, but then the terror drained away and she settled back into more comfortable sleep, trapping my hand beneath her head for a pillow.  I typed most of this with one hand; she only just released it now.  But she keeps sleeping, with my knee as her newest pillow.

She’s already learned “sit,” too.  I’ve been saying it to her, and making her do it, before meals–somewhat irregularly, I’m afraid–for about a week.  Then, yesterday, when I first ordered her to sit, she did it immediately.  When she did it again today, I decided it wasn’t just a fluke.  Yippee!

Nepali of the Day:

bhata: from

tira:  towards

parcha:  (is located)

uttar:  north

dakshin:  south

purba:  east

paschim:  west

(In giving directions, the structure basically works like this:  “A-from” “B-direction-towards” must be located… this basically leads to a rough literal translation of “From A, B must be located towards this direction.”)

Kathmandu bhata Pokhara paschim tira parcha. =  Pokhara is west of Kathmandu.

Pokhara bhata Kathmandu purba tira parcha.  = Kathmandu is east of Pokhara.

Nepal bhata India dakshin tira parcha.

Florida bhata New York uttar tira parcha.

The Himalayas

On the plane to Pokhara, for a few minutes I enjoyed just peering down at Kathmandu from the sky, and snapping pictures of it.  Here’s another shot of the valley, just for fun:

The Kathmandu Valley, a former lake, is now a sea of houses nestled between towering hills we would call mountains in the USA.

But all the time, as we headed north-west we continued rising.  And once we’d lifted above the hills, and came even with the clouds, I realized it wasn’t just clouds that I was staring at…

Um, wait, not all of those are clouds...

...and that gray's not just a shadow... and the white is... snow? so...

Oh, my…

Forget Kathmandu.  My Pretty Mountain Hill just doesn’t compare.  I’m moving to Pokhara!

Puppy Update:

Our living, breathing, barking Alaskan Himal continues to get better.  She feels heavier now when I try to carry her around with one hand, and she’s eagerly eating.  She can also now easily put her forepaws on the couch cushions, whereas just a few weeks ago she was hard-pressed to reach them with the tips of her claws, even when she stretched as far as she could.  She will never be as tall as her fellow himal-haru, but she’s getting bigger!

Nepali of the Day:

himal:  snow-covered mountain

pahaD:  hill

-haru:  like adding “s” to a noun in English, makes a noun plural

ekdam:  very

sundar:  beautiful

cha:  is

chan:  are

yo:  this

tyo:  that

yi:  these

ti:  those

bhanda:  “compared to;” word used in a comparison:  “A bhandaa B adjective is”, where in English A would come after “than” and B would get “more” or “-er” added, because the B part has more of whatever the adjective is.  For example:

Kathmandu bhandaa Pokhara sundar cha. = Pokhara is more beautiful than Kathmandu.

Yo pahaD bhandaa tyo himal sundar cha. =  That mountain is more beautiful than this hill.

Ti himalharu ekdam sundar chan!