Wednesday we set out in a 16 passenger van with all our belongings and many of Claire’s, to travel to Pokhara. It is only 200 km. distant, but the road is winding, congested, and often blocked, so on a good day it takes 4-5 hours and can be much more. After we got through the 5-vehicle wreck that looked pretty bad, we encountered another traffic snarl, with stopped buses. Our driver began to squeeze past on the right, then backed quickly out when he saw fists flying—men were reaching into the bus to pummel the driver, and others were pummeling him from the other side. Still others were gathering to try to break it up. The next thing we knew, someone else was behind the wheel and the bus was moving on. Evidently this driver had frightened people both on and off the bus and had been fired, so to speak.
All in all the drive, with a long lunch and pleasant stop, took about nine hours. The hotel in Pokhara is a new one, extremely nice, in the midst of the tourist section, next to a large lake. Sajal and his father Bhuwon met us soon after our arrival and we heard a little about plans for the wedding, part of which would take place at this hotel as a proxy for the bride’s parental home. Later in the evening we all met Sajal’s family at a relative’s restaurant for a wonderful, and overwhelming, Nepali dinner. It was lovely to be rejoined with them exactly six months to the day after Claire and Sajal’s wedding in Louisville December 30.
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