Pokhara

November 20, 2011

After Bandipur, my dad and I did not really see the sun or the mountains again. I learned what a bummer it is when the tourist draw of a city is views. The beautiful reflection of Annapurna on the Phewa Tal? Yeah, never saw that. But I was thankful that we did not fly further into the mountains as I had considered, because lots of tourists got stuck in Jomson and Lukla due to bad weather and they ran out of beds in the guesthouses. We spent five nights total in Pokhara, with a jaunt over to Tansen in the middle. Pokhara’s a great little town; it’s definitely touristy, but in kind of a nice way. For me, the highlights were (in order):

1. Quality time with my father. I think the period immediately after college is the equivalent of middle school for the parent-child relationship. It’s full of lots of growing pains, new interactions, and experiences that can be at times unbearably awkward, but when you get through it, the person (or in this case, relationship) that comes out the other side makes it all seem worth it. The ah-ha moment in the transition with my dad was fall 2010 when my friend Melissa asked me a really basic question about him that I no idea what the answer was. This was the moment I realized I had to stop expecting my dad and I to magically make the transition to parent-adult child relations and put as much effort and thought into it as I do all my other relationships. My dad’s two-week trip to Nepal, and especially our last three days in Pokhara, was a great culmination of a year of us trying to move into a new kind of father-daughter relationship. Perhaps Pokhara was the equivalent of eighth grade graduation. 

Ok, I cheated, this isn't Pokhara, but it's cute!

2. Paragliding! Oh yes, I, Elena Harman, formerly terrified of heights, went paragliding. I decided in the spirit of embracing life outside my comfort zone and pursuing historically neglected pursuits, it was time to leave the heights phobia behind. Of course, in the back of my mind, the memory of the last time I tried to will away my fear of heights was crystal clear: I ended up stuck at the top of a tree in Costa Rica in the rain.

3. Gurkha Museum. Some of the museums in Nepal look like elementary science fairs. It makes me really sad sometimes, because they are really trying, but somehow it just don’t work, and then the entrance fee is only 50 rupees (about 60 cents) and I always want them to charge me some more. Case in point, the Natural History Museum in Kathmandu:

Educational or creepy?

Anyways, the Gurkha Museum in Pokhara is a diamond in the rough. It’s well curated, with a ton of great old photographs, and is quite educational. Since 1815, there have been a number of Nepali regiments within the British Army (and still are). Interestingly, Nepal was never a British colony, but during the border battles between the Nepal Army and the British East Indian Company, both armies developed a mutual respect and decided they would rather fight together. Basically Nepalis are now hired guns in the British army, and the salaries and pensions are generous, so every year thousands of young men compete for the positions. It’s an interesting contrast to scientific research. In scientific research, it is considered unethical to offer compensation at a level that would be difficult for potential participants to turn down, because doing so would take advantage of vulnerable populations. Yet we have militaries (still, in the 21^st century) that rely on non-citizen regiments, compensated at persuasive levels. To me, this seems like a gross double standard, especially since the level of potential harm of war is much higher than most scientific research. Interesting.

Gurkha Musuem