back in Delhi, India

I survived the long couple of bus rides from Pokhara, Nepal here to Delhi. I left Pokhara around 1 in the afternoon, on a typically creaky, rattling bus, except that it had once been a deluxe bus so the seats were actually pretty comfortable, which made all the difference. I ended up sitting next to a Nepali college student who spoke some English, which helped the time pass a bit. So it was a rough ride through the night, but could have been worse. Then I arrived at the small town of Mahendrenagar, Nepal on the western border of Nepal, just a few miles from India, at around 8:30 the next morning. From there I took a shared auto rickshaw, went through both Nepali and Indian immigrations without incident (thanks to that 10-year Indian visa that I got when I went to India two years ago. Otherwise I would have had to go to Kathmandu first to get another visa from the Indian embassy, which I've heard can take as much as 11 days) and then got a bicycle rickshaw to the nearby little Indian town of Banbassa. A bus was waiting from there going direct to Delhi, so I decided to scrap my plans of going to the lakeside town of Nainital, which I'd been to my first time in India, since it would have been out of the way and I wouldn't have had time to do anything there anyway. The bus from Banbassa wasn't leaving for about half an hour, so I had just enough time to eat a quick thali and have some mango juice, then hop on the bus, which took off about 10:30 in the morning.

That bus was supposed to take about 8 hours, but as things go of course it took 10 1/2 instead (but at least was a pretty interesting bus ride, with tons of people-watching through the towns and cities along the way), arriving in Delhi at around 9 pm. Then one more auto rickshaw (which I bargained down to 72 rupees, since that was the last of my Indian money) got me to the backpacker's area of Paharganj, and I got a cheap room. I still had a Nepali 500 rupee note on me, so I changed that this morning, then sold my India guidebook for 150 rupees. So after paying for my room and breakfast, I will have just enough money left to pay for a couple hours of internet usage, get a really cheap lunch, and then catch the cheaper bus, rather than a taxi, to the airport. My flight leaves at 12:45 am, so I've got plenty of time to get there this evening.

So I'll fly into Bangkok tomorrow morning, and most likely head for Bangkok's backpacker hangout area of Khao San Road. There's one hotel there (the Khao San Palace Hotel) that's relatively affordable, and has a rooftop pool which would be worth paying a little extra for, so that I can have a relaxing couple of days in Bangkok, after the rather hectic past month or so of traveling from Rajasthan to Nepal and then back here. I'll probably stay in Bangkok for 3-4 days, do some shopping and see a few more of the sights that I missed the last time I was there in December, as well as ponder whether I want to pay to send some of my stuff back to the U.S. I doubt I'll be needing the two winter jackets, big boots, long underwear, two pairs of gloves, extra shirts, warm hat, etc. in Thailand, considering that it was pretty dang hot when I left Bangkok last December. And this time I plan to head further south to explore some more of the islands, where it's definitely going to be warmish, if not downright scorching, plus humid. My other possible travel plan in that area is to go to see the temple complexes at Angkor Wat, in Cambodia. This will require going back up to Bangkok and then heading east into Cambodia, so I'll just save that for the end of my month there, when hopefully I'm feeling ready for dealing with another long series of bus rides and the border crossing. On April 24th I will then fly from Bangkok back to Kauai, Hawaii for two weeks to hike out to the Na Pali Coast again, then I'll fly to California early May. So that's all for now, I'll be writing next from Thailand.

PS. check below for a photo from the trek to Annapurna, and later for some more pictures, as I got a roll developed in Pokhara and will try to scan a few more...