The Blog Hits Nepal: On Gas Lines, Mountain Views, and Comfy Dresses

As you might know, Nepal is not a huge country. As you may not know, its main road connecting its urban centers is only one lane in each direction. Throw in a very serious fuel crisis (more on that later) and it takes a long time to get places that would only take a few hours in America.

I have this thing where I do not like wearing jeans for long periods of travel. I think it's the waistband? Hard to say for sure. Anyway, I made sure, when I was packing, to have non-jeans options for the days that we were spending a lot of time on the bus. The journey from Chitwan to Pokhara was one of those days.

 The bus ride from Chitwan to Pokhara required even more hours than expected because we ended up having bad gas. (Warning: dramatic oversimplification ahead.) Because of the new constitution put forward by the goverment, some of the people in the south, who feel they are getting a bad deal, have taken to throwing rocks at buses and trucks, breaking their windshields. (If you want to see something terrifying, see a windshield-less bus driving down the street.) Meanwhile, India, not much of a fan of the new constitution, has claimed that it is too dangerous to allow its oil truckers into the country, thus imposing an informal blockade and throwing Nepal into a dramatic fuel crisis. Everywhere we went, there were gas lines where people would wait for days to get petrol for their bikes or cars, or oil for cooking.

A tiny portion of the gas line.

The crisis has done even more economic damage than the earthquake, to give you a sense of its scale. And unfortunately, there's no resolution in sight. Our tour company bought us gas on the black market, but apparently not everyone out there can be trusted to be a good guy, which meant we ended up with contaminated gas, which made going up some hills very stressful. And of course, we were lucky to have gas at all. Needless to say, we all breathed a sigh of relief when we pulled into our hotel.

Pokhara is a beautiful city near the foothills of the Himalayas and on a gorgeous lake. Because of its location, it had by far the most foreigners we saw anywhere, mostly because it's a common starting point for people who are going to do some serious trekking. (We were not among them.) It was-- spoiler alert-- where we would see one of the most extraordinary views I've ever seen a few days later. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

When we arrived in Pokhara, they gave each of us a flower. I wore it in my hair the rest of the day, as you can see below (in addition to a close-up of the fun zippers on the shoulder of my dress.) You know, like that famous rock classic-- if you are going to Pokhara, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair...

With my good friend the purple bus.

No? Don't know that one? Anyway. Pokhara was where we had our rest time. The lake is incredibly beautiful and dotted with these gorgeous wooden canoes painted in bright colors. We were there for Shabbat, so I spent a lot of time just wandering around exploring the city. If ever you want to buy a North Face jacket on the cheap, this is the place to go. And as you can see in the pictures below, there was a gorgeous view pretty much everywhere we went.

It was very much appreciated to have a small break from the rapid speed of our travel, and it's hard to imagine having had a more beautiful place to spend Shabbat. Not a bad view, right?

With my parents and one of my two lovely aunts

Modest travel tip: Cotton stretch dresses are ideal for travel. They are lightweight, don't wrinkle easily, can be dressed up or dressed down, and are comfortable for long stretches on the bus. Plus, I would like to think in this case, they can be super cute!

What I'm wearing: Nepali flower, H&M headwrap (similar here), Boden zipper detail dress, polka dot Toms via Zulily (similar here)