I’d gotten off the mountain and was in Pokhara when news of the monsoon broke. Pokhara is a town where travelers don’t look each other in the eye and you can book a summit Everest expedition from a sandwich board. I was staying in Priya’s lodging. A three story guesthouse with a painted turquoise iron gate, where motorcycle was parked in the alley down the side. I’d stripping off my dirtiest socks, put on riding gear, and was shoveling steamy momos into my mouth from a grocery bag on the sidewalk. Priya came out to see me.
“Let’s keep your eye on the ball here, Craig. You aren’t going anywhere.”
I looked up from my bagged lunch to see her cropped black hair standing above me, arms folded like a lunch room bully.
“Nope, you’re not stopping me.”
“Come on, didn’t I show you this,” pointing to the weather app on her phone where seven days of unhibitsted rain was predicted to drench Nepal, “The monsoon is coming. It’s going to rain for one week straight.”
“I only have one week left” standing up, I began putting the finishing touches on my packing routine.
“You don’t understand, the roads are worse. There are landslides. This is dangerous. You have a son, remember.”
I’d heard the stories of the roads. Like gossip in school halls at every gas station and grocery store, when pedestrians saw me driving they’d ask how the roads were driving in and out. It was a system of communication more reliable than phone networks, but her tone was frank. For a brief moment, she was right…This was dangerous, but those moments don’t last very forever. I pulled out the picture I’d brought of my son and handed it to her.
“I’ll swing back by on my way home. Keep this for me.”
“You’re a moron”
“I’m going”
She placed her hands on my handlebars, grunted, and then said, “fine, you’re going to need these.”
She disappeared into the guesthouse and handed me two ponchos: one grey and one yellow. While placing them into my luggage, I said, “thank you.”
“Who do you think you are? It’s 500 ruppes a piece” she snapped her fingers and opened her palm.
“Why Rara anyway” she asked, as I retrieved money from my pockets.
“Because, it’s away from the tourist track. It’s got peace, quiet, cabanas in a lake. The hardest part about seeing a country is getting somewhere that’s worth seeing but seeing it surrounded by people from the country. I want to see the real Nepal.”
Her eyebrows got big, “I’m the real Napelese, Craig. Look at me.”
