Fewa Lake

So I am sitting in Mike's Restaurant, at the Lake Side, Pokhara. It is more expensive than when I was last here, and it now has a path built through it. There are many more tourists. Richer tourists. I last sat here three years ago. When I had absolutely no idea what the future would hold. Now I again have no idea what the next three years of my life will reveal.

Watching as a square flat peddle 'boat' is being maneuvered backwards and forwards. Filled with Nepali tourists who laugh as they keep arriving back at their starting point. Now a group of kids have just arrived. A straggly haired girl is asking for my pens, picking up my tea, opening my bag, shaking my book. She is tough. Too Tough. Her friends come. One has a bloody elbow. A small graze. It turns out he fell off his bike – riding on the stony dirty road too fast. “Next time go slowly” I say. He wants money “to clean up my arm” he tells me. I laugh at him and tell him to be a “strong man”. Another shows me a tiny cut on his knee and once again asks me to “fix it” with his palm out turned. I work my Magic. He is unimpressed. I give him some more 'tickles' as he stifles a smile.

This is something which has changed in three years. I am no longer scared of these pushy little street wise, life wise people. I have a new respect for them as well as a new barrier against them. Laughing and Laughter.

The small terrorists move onto the next table to terrify a Northface clad North American couple. The elderly couple look dressed in preparation of a safari rather than for a cup of tea by Fewa Lake, but then again, maybe their uninvited guests are providing them with adequate adventure. I stop watching their obvious discomfort and instead find myself staring at their Nepali counterparts: A traditionally dressed elderly Nepali couple who are skillfully climbing on board a rowing boat. The bent woman bends further to slowly release the rusty chain, freeing their little boat from the muddy root covered shore. The topi topped man sits at the back of the boat and slowly maneuvers the shabby wooden vehicle 180 degrees to face the distant bank across the flat calm of the lake. Slowly – so slowly – they (he) paddles across the dark liquid water. Their rehearsed controlled movements are in such a contrast to two small pirates who have just hijacked a tin yellow peddle paddle boat and are mercilessly ramming it backwards and forwards into the row of rusting tin yellow peddle paddle boats.

A little further along the lake shore gathers a group of women. Their vibrant pink sairees shout out at my eyes; a strange but beautiful juxtaposition against the dark brown of the soft mud they are squatting on. Their gold piercing dangle along their ear lobes and travel up their ears. Their golden noses glimmer in the equally golden afternoon sun, as they tilt their heads backwards and forwards in rhythm to the movements of their working arms. If you focus, if you really isolate your ears, it is possible to hear the rangle jangle clang clung clink of their rows of bangles which they bash together as they rub their piles of bright washing (what appears to be) clean. I sit and gaze and stare and wonder what happens during the time they pick up their wet clothes stamp them next to the muddy soil and then lift them back into the air - washed?

Another woman appears into my field of vision. She walks towards the water with her back to me. She is wearing a printed batik lungi pulled up to her armpits. She stands knee deep in the clam still water and bends towards the liquid lake, sending velvet ripples outwards from an equal direction all around her. She washes her lengths of hair as the other women scrub their clothes, the children play in the paddle peddle boats and somewhere between the muddy soil in front of me and the shadows of the same muddy shore fading beyond my vision, drifts a small wooden boat, with two ageless figures, who are silhouetted by the sun; suspended by the water.

The word 'suspended' triggers an association. This makes me look upwards. Momentarily blinded by the brightness of the sun, my eyes finally focus and latch onto what my thoughts were searching for. Sure enough I spy a rangi changi multicoloured parachute bellowing up and around, outwards and contained, with two gliding bodies suspended below. Lifted by the warm air currents, circling the town. Further in the distance the same distinguishable dots appear to be circling the clouds. Clouds which pad the beautiful snow covered peaks of the Annapurna range.

Again – if you listen carefully it is possible to hear the 'Whaooo' of excited floating screams, which echo down on the same living air which carried them on their wonderful journey to no where in particular.