The Greenline tourist bus we took from Kathmandu to Pokhara is billed as a 'luxury' vehicle for its comfortable seats, air conditioning, and high center of gravity, which is no small thing on the narrow, winding cliff-side roads. But when those roads are bumpy and, coming out of Kathmandu, clogged with a seemingly endless line of diesel-spewing trucks, it's going to be a crazy ride no matter what.
When the traffic cleared our driver hit the gas. During the 8 hour ride we stopped twice along the way, once for a snack and bathroom break and once for lunch. Not long after lunch the 'Fishtail mountain' came into view, and we got our first look at the Annapurna range of the Himalayas.
Although the bus ride was no picnic, it afforded us glimpses of life in the Nepali countryside. To say that people live modestly in the country is an understatement: each tiny town has its 'main street', a row of shops with roofs of corrugated sheet metal, sometimes secured by tractor tires or rocks. Pepsi and Coke ads are everywhere, as are painted ads for San Miguel beer. Women of all ages in colorful sari's or basic cotton wrap skirts work the fields; children in navy and light blue uniforms make their way home from school; a family living on a sloping hill spreads their clothes on the grass to dry in the sun.
Matt's video, below, taken as he rowed a boat across Lake Fewa in Pokhara, shows how peaceful this lakeside town can be, despite all the tourists (like us, of course).
