Leaving Lakeside

After returning from the mountains and relishing a Pad Thai and other tasty treats I decided to be lazy for the final days of the trip. So some short hikes, shopping and drinking and eating good food have prevailed. I have spent time with the Dutchies and been out for group dinners with a bunch of us from Oz, Canada, US, Holland and Israel. A particular highlight was being talked into a party supported by an Isreaeli guy we met trekking. We arrived at 10.15pm totally out of sync, as most bars wind up at midnight as the absolute maximum. We experienced what could only be described as the village disco in a trance format. Someone's bed sheet was the back drop for the visuals (single I think) and light levels were sketchy. Some travellers were moving like they had been secretly diverted into some spiritualist church activities and others oscillated like they were trying to simulate the actions of an invertebrate that should be moving along the floor. Babs had not even had one beer and was wholly underwhelmed. Maurice and I had had one beer and it wasn't much better. We were "forced" t leave when it all finished at 11pm. On the way back we were enthusiastically asked to join Mr Israel and friends for a shake. I thought they meant an after party. No, they meant a milkshake. I suddenly felt very old......
Following some discussion two nights later at 10pm I am persuaded to leave Pokhara and its Lakeside delights at the crack of dawn due to two days of strike action, or bhandas. These have been frequent, at least 8 in the month I've been here. There has been a three year span where the lawmakers try to thrash out a constitution. The Maoists won a landslide victory three years ago. The Maoist leader spent 9 months trying to implement policies, apparently with resistance mainly from the US and India. He withdrew to consider his options for a bit and different political groups leapt in to try to hash it out together to include their political interests. So aside from different factions within the Maoists themselves, there are numerous other political groups involved with trying to write this common document in law. Its a task and a half. The army are supposedly very loyal to the deposed monarchy and are not keen to merge with Maoists or their supporters. So people strike and everything stops, shops close and transport grinds to a halt. Motorbike rallies happen and yesterday here in Kathmandu there was a huge fire lit rally......