Katmandu, Nepal – The Earthquake

I left Pokhara at 7 a.m. in a bus. My fellow boat rower recommended me the night before not to book any bus from the hotels but to go directly to the bus park and choose the bus I wanted. There was choice enough.  I chose a nice bus that after 7 hours dropped me at the entrance of Katmandu where my friend Sampurna was going to pick me up in his motorcycle.

Sampurna arrived in his motorcycle. It was nice to see him after almost 6 years when we graduated from the university. He hadn’t changed a bit. He looked exactly the same as time had not passed. He took me that afternoon to the old and cute small streets of Katmandu. It was a charming old city with old buildings and old houses. We stopped in a small bakery where he made me prove amazing Nepalese baked sweets and then he took me to this nice tibetian restaurant to feed my addiction: The momo’s.

After that he took me to his house outside Katmandu. He and his family received me with their arms open. Then we went to one of the rooms in the house to have something delicious Sampurna’s wife had prepared. Sampurna told me that all that food his wife just made, was not dinner yet. Surprised and with a happy but full stomach I told him that I was amazed of how many times they ate per day. As the food was so delicious I wouldn’t mind but that day I had used all my energy level and somehow I could not take any further step. After showering and eating the pre-dinner with Sampurna we had a nice talk remembering the university times and catching up about our lives. The it was time to sleep. Sampurna was surprised that I couldn’t eat anymore but he let me rest so the next day we could go and explore the nature and then see Katmandu.

The next day, I did not know that every single step me and Sampurna were taking, were perfectly accommodated and timed so we could be safe at the moment the big 7.9 earthquake came. These are the steps that we took before the catastrophe:

Eating breakfast

Get in the motorbike

Visit temples

Go up to the mountains

Ride along the mountain paths

Stop to pick up some wild berries on the way

Walk through a narrow crack in a mountain

Stop to buy some juice in a store

Taken in te exact same moment of the earthquake

And then it happened. It was maybe the last decision taken that put Sampurna and me in a safe place. Because after we stopped to get some juice, everything started. Sampurna bought the juices and he handed them to me. I remember how I was observing that one guy was delivering some baked sweets to the store when the circle closed and the ends met. Everything happened in a matter of seconds. I started hearing a hard sound, followed by screams coming from the owner of the store shouting something in Nepalese. Suddenly I had Sampurna next to me holding my shoulder telling me that we had to get out of there. I could not understand what was going on yet until Sampurna told me: “It’s an earthquake, man!”

We ran to an open space 20 meters from the store. The sound of the earth shaking was getting louder, the screams of people were everywhere, dust coming up from everywhere you say. A house fell down in front of our eyes and Sampurna got more worried thinking that the worst could have happened to his family. They say the earthquake lasted for 86 seconds, to me it felt like eternity. The worst thing is that you don’t know for sure when it is going to stop and when you will be really “safe”.

Everything comes to an end, and so the earthquake finally stopped. Everyone still in shock didn’t know how to react or what to say. Sampurna and me grabbed the motorbike and we drove carefully to his house to see how his family was doing. Thankfully they were all ok. We all were shocked and very alert and every aftershock that came later was putting everyone in an alert mode.

People were not ready to come back and sleep in their houses that night. Nobody dared. I went with Sampurna and his friends from the village to look for shelter. We found some framing greenhouses with a plastic roof that could give us shelter for the night. I helped them to prepare them and roll the plastic roofs over so we had a place to spend the night and be covered in case it rained. I helped Sampurna to locate the rest of his relatives across town so he was sure that all his family was safe. 

We spent the night under the plastic roof feeling united and safe all together. Two aftershocks woke all of us up and every time screams of people were heard. It was still a tense moment. 

We all woke up that morning very early. Around 5 a.m. there was already light and people were getting up. So, I went to Sampurna’s house and I found everybody already gathered outside their house. We had breakfast and lunch. That afternoon, I had a plane scheduled to Bangkok. The big question was to know if it was possible to get out of Katmandu with all that had happened.

Sampurna took me to the airport on his motorcycle. On our way there we saw destruction and lots of people still camping outside their houses. It was a very sad and hard image to take what my eyes were seeing at that moment. 

When we arrived to the airport, we saw tourists camping outside, queues of people everywhere and a it felt like nothing was moving. I told Sampurna to leave me at the airport, to not worry that I would be ok. I had to find my way to take my plane. We made sure that my plane was not cancelled. 

I managed to get in to the check in area. The queues seemed to last forever. When I had my boarding pass and my backpack checked as luggage I ran to immigration. I had still 30 minutes before the plain departed. Just before the security check, we were caught by a strong aftershock that lasted quite a few 10 seconds. We all felt it and we thought that we were not going to make it to the airplane. Then the worst thing happened: A blackout! 

With no power to go through the metal detectors, there was no way to go to the gates. We all started to get worried when the security closed the ways through the metal detectors. You could see some injured or pregnant people arguing and trying to convince the security guard to le them through. Some of them could get through but most of us stayed behind. 

It was until the security guards received an order to let passengers go through but first we had to go through a manual and visual check of our hand luggage. We all went through without much of hassle and there I saw before my eyes the departure gate. It felt like I was almost there, all the effort, ups and downs were finally getting to a final point. When I arrived to the gate, they told me that the airplane that was there was one before mine. I had to wait at least one more hour. I spoke to the guys and I asked them if they had room in that plane I would be ok with boarding it. There were also many people there waiting to take the same action. The guy at the gate counter printed a list and he had a couple of free sits.  I could be able to manage to get one and I boarded the plane. 

The experience lived in Katmandu was very hard. Nepal has been a very amazing country and I have been well received and excellent treated by the Nepalese in every single stop I have made. It’s really sad to see them go through this difficult period and wishing only strength to the families for all their losses. I leave Nepal not with the memory of a catastrophe but with the memory of a beautiful country with beautiful people who will always be in my heart.

Here some pictures before the earthquake:

And here some pictures after the earthquake. How everything could have changed so fast.

Nepal, Pokhara - A walk on the clouds

I left Chitwan from the Bus Park at 5 minutes with a Jeep of the hotel. I had arranged the bus trip through the hotel, of course it was going to be a couple of hundred rupees more (2-3 euros) and I did not have to worry. The bus who took us to Pokhara was a very nice bus with air-conditioning and believe ir or not with Wi-Fi!

It took me 7 hours to reach Pokhara and we arrive with a heavy afternoon rain and from the station (Tourist Bus Park) I arranged a taxi and a look at a couple of places. The first place recommended by the taxi guy was good enough to stay and settle. It was called Himalaya Inn. Arriving to the hotel, I was liking the city a lot. Green mountains surrounding a lake and a clean street that goes along the lake and it hosts many restaurants  and bars. It felt like a touristic city but with a sphere that has not been polluted and has lost its essence. Pokhara had still its Nepali character and it was showing it to me.

That night I went to get some lunch and I was feeling like getting a beer that I had not gotten since a long time. I walked from the hotel along the lake street to find a nice cozy restaurant on the second floor. My new addiction, the momo’s (Tibetan dumplings filled with spicy meat) had to be my starter followed by a chicken with mushrooms and steamed vegetables.  Later on I went to buy a SIM card for my telephone so I could get internet and the I ended up in a bar drinking a beer with an American girl I had met for ten seconds in Chitwan. The funny thing about Pokhara is that all bars close at 11 p.m. After that, the party on the street is over and you have to find another way to follow it. That will depend on your mood of on your taste. Walking back to my hotel, I was asking myself what other ways of fun are there out in Pokhara. I saw a massage room/spa still open but as I stayed doubting if it was a place with “happy endings” I will let you also doubting.

Next day, was the big adventure day. What to do? Well, as I normally let my sadistic side run wild with myself waiting that one day I will become masochistic; I decided to push myself once again to face my fears. This time it was paragliding. Being afraid of heights, I tend to put myself up there until they become the most normal thing in the world so I can enjoy them. Ask me if I have succeeded so far. Well, time will tell…

Paragliding was a unique experience. As you are in front of the pilot, you have to lead the first part that is walking directly to the cliff until one point that the parachute will pull you back. At this point you start running towards the cliff until the parachute pulls you up and the fun begins. 

I was up sitting/hanging from the parachute processing what I just cruelly did to my mind. I saw my feet hanging and I was holding very tight to the parachute as an internal reaction that I did not want to go anywhere outside. Bijay, the pilot was a Nepali guy who was very tactful. For him, of course, paragliding was like the driving a bicycle: The most normal thing in the world. He was asking me question so I would relax more. It worked. After a couple of minutes, I was more relaxed (or less tense) and looking at the beautiful scenario that I had in front of my eyes and below my hanging feet. The valley, the green mountains, the white mountains farther away and the lake was something absolutely magical and worth of doing. After 20 minutes, it was about time to land, and Bijay asked me if I wanted to do crazy things. I told him initially not to try it but after thinking it twice, I told him to go for it. He started descending while doing a pendulum motion and at the same time going in circles around and axis. With the heart in my hand and my body full of adrenaline we reached land and with a smile in my face and still emanating liters of adrenaline. I was finally again back to land.  

That afternoon in order to make it more relaxed and let all the intense feelings flow away, I decided to take a very quiet boat cruise in the lake. I  met there my rower who was a 17-year-old guy studying Commerce at the university in Pokhara who was doing the rowing part time job. He told that he came from a very poor family of farmers but he had the luck that there sister took him with her when she got married. That is how he could improve his life and go to school and later to university. The other 6 brothers did not have the same luck.After the experiences that Pokhara had offered me, I was about to live one more that I was not even expecting. Katmandu was going to be my next destination and catastrophe was just around the corner.