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

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.