Po-KHA-ra

At first, Pokhara was not too adverse to my psychological approach to tourism. I got in at the dawning of a rain storm. I had my indigenous Nepali tongue whistle. I mooched through all the taxi driving sister-fuckers and made my way towards Lakeside in an assemblage of lush falling water.

But then, inevitably; in consideration that I was orientating myself in that direction (yes, to my own demise) I followed an array of gradually increasing tourist advertisements.


Then, inevitably, Lakeside. I hadn't felt a cynicism like this since Chandigarh.

Pokhara, itself; doesn't have the pulse of Kathmandu, instead it seems like a listless area straddling the borders between a town and a city; a no man's land of settlement that inevitably finds tourists at Lakeside. This strip is somewhere between Thamel, which resides in a city ripe with its own definition, and Vien Vieng in Laos; a complete vacuum of indigenous anything that exists exclusively so people can get drunk and tube down the Mekong.

In Pokhara, you can swim or be boated in the beautiful/tranquil/serene lake;


and stare at the quite esteemed view of the sometimes visible Annapurna. You can also trek those mighty mountains, which I didn't do; one of the prime considerations being a colour throwing festival that was due to commence shortly in a much larger country to the south. Furthermore, my days in India would be numbered by investing in a pair of hiking boots.


Despite my lack of enthusiasm, I rented a bicycle to get as far away as I could from this:


The time elapsed before my vigor and/or dehydration left me expended was one hour; which proved to be repeated three times with the same fruitless desperation. But I satiated my lens with the my hunger for capturing Maoist propaganda:


Which I deduced, in certain sectors, must embrace the recreational embrace of soccer. Sorry - football.


So: some good Maoist slogans, school girls on a field trip burning garbage, one airport, no temples, and a desperate need to get the fuck outta there. I loitered on the internet, avoiding the numerous establishments with rattan chairs advertising fine red wine and mackeral on chalkboards that could have perched on Victoria's harbourside.

I ended up saddling through my evening hidden behind a concrete wall by the lake, watching a man from the Fish Tail Lodge jetty mostly Japanese tourists in vibrant visors across the 30 meter lake gap.



The second last man to leave during the onset of rain was wearing a topi ,


and the last carried his freshly laundered garmets atop his head; his dress inverted against the painted bases of the trees; like that of the flags for Poland and Indonesia.


I tried: I couldn't ingest the natural beauty of the place without being disgruntled by the snaking tourist strip giving the lake ringworm.


So I wandered the bookstores. Through their plethora of material, which included full catalogues of Agatha Christie, it appeared; the book for which I was searching. An edition over ten years old; accentuating its serendipitous placement through its rare pop art cover, its well-read wear, and an inside note inscribed from a son to his father, disclosing the nickname "saucepan lid". And so my purpose in Pokhara was evident: to be united with Jitterbug Perfume.


Now then, a bus back to Bandipur.