Weekend at Borderlands

I was supposed to go on a heritage walk in the morning but Anil, the guy giving the tour, was busy so it was rescheduled for Wednesday. I got up and packed for my weekend getaway to Borderlands, a resort on the border of Tibet. Hayley and crew were the ones who organized the trip, and I was really excited to be invited along. I had driven from Lhasa to Kathmandu the last time I was here and remembered the drive being beautiful, as well as the location being a really interesting place to visit.

The drive was amazing, if super scary for me. I’m not used to driving in mountains so I wasn’t expecting the road to be so narrow, barely enough to fit two cars. These huge buses will come barreling down the road with the only warning being their very melodic horns. I’m not sure who started that trend, but they all sound sort of similar to the trailer from Meet the Parents.

We stopped twice on the four hour ride; the first place being a little roadside café where we grabbed some lassi’s and used the bathrooms. It was amazing how quickly things became rural; we probably had only been driving for an hour. We were driving out of the Kathmandu Valley and it was incredible to see the next valley over.

The second place we stopped was next to a river, where we had some snacks as all of us were starving. Hayley, Dipenka(Oz’s cousin) and Pravena and I all played in the super cold river for a bit and then came up and had a bit of a dance party. They’re a really awesome group, so much energy and fun. It was then that I saw that my camera batteries were dying, which really sucked. They had lasted for a super long time, I hadn’t charged them since I came to Kathmandu, but I also hadn’t brought my charger so I now had to be more careful about when I was taking pictures.

After we spent some time at the river, we finished the drive to Borderlands. It was late by the time we got there, so we really couldn’t see anything, but the river was so loud you could definitely hear it. There were also dozens of fireflies everywhere. I didn’t know that they were native to Nepal, but they were amazingly beautiful. I chased them for a bit, but wasn’t able to catch any.

We had a huge buffet feast at Borderlands, and then proceeded with the drinking and partying. My eating with my hands technique has gotten better, and I even got a bunch of compliments from the Nepali’s. We were the only ones there, which was good, because things got pretty rowdy. It was raining, and even though I had only one pair of pants, I joined the other girls dancing in the rain. They were playing primarily Hindi songs, but with some English ones thrown in. It was a great night, I had an amazing time. It was nice falling asleep to the sound of the river; it was similar to the ocean but more chaotic.

After sleeping in tents we got up early in the morning and I took some pictures of the place. It was so beautiful and peaceful in the morning, and it was really cool that you could see like six waterfalls in the distance. You could also see into Tibet, but borders are pretty arbitrary in my opinion(the Chinese would probably disagree). On the drive back we stopped by one particularly big waterfall, but there were dozens more. The ride was less scary this time because I was used to looking at the spectacular views.

We stopped at a Hindu temple on the top of a mountain on the way back. These roads were even narrower, now only fitting one car at a time, and higher up in the mountain. I had to take some deep breathes to relax, but everything went fine. The temple itself was gorgeous; apparently the master who had carved the statue of the goddess had done it with his feet. The story goes that he had made one statue for a king, who then cut off his right hand so he couldn’t replicate it. He then made a statue with his left hand and had that cut off too. So finally he made this statue with his feet. I dunno if those were cut off too, but maybe.

Before driving back to Kathmandu we had a few drinks and some snacks at this resort place, where the view was amazing. The power went out so they all sang Hindi songs, which I guess is a common activity. Pravena had an amazing voice, I was quite jealous. The drive back to Kathmandu was uneventful, but I’ll never forget the weekend.