Trek

3rd of October

It's always a struggle meeting new people, no matter how socially adapt you are. I've left Pokhara to go trekking in the Himalayas for a couple of days, which means I'm still on the run from the actual volunteering. In this case it could be described as a convict fleeing from a warm bed and three meals a day.

The group had taken a quick stop for lunch after a not too smooth bus trip followed by a shorter walk down through a couple of tiny villages. There are tourists everywhere, geared up to the teeth with different gadgets and tools to ease the walking, often with a local man just behind carrying the rest of the backpack. It's even sometimes pathetic when the sporty rich couple, going through their midlife crisis, load up a native with the 60 kilos they're not capable of carrying and then take a stroll through the Himalayas, just to ease their conscience.

The quick part of our lunch stop was somehow confused with a long part, but since most of us just met the rest was this a good time for some people studies. Everyone keen on telling their own experience of travel lead to a lot of embarrassing silences when you really could hear the heads work out a proper follow up question to the current discussion. I quite enjoyed it, not even remotely trying to help the conversation but instead leaned back and observed. The reason to this could also be the massive headache I had, most likely from last nights drinking and dancing.

The big brown river thundering by replaced the constant sound of crickets, with the sound bouncing back and forth on the steep slopes surrounding the valley. The embarrassing silence was occasionally interrupted and the discussion took speed again. I lightened up when it ended again.