Painting and knitting and reading and things

Namaste!

How has everyone been? Are we all depressed that Geelong won the finals?? Not that I was hoping for Sydney to win. This year's final only made me more happy to be out of the country! And lets be honest, no one likes Ken Hawkins - Yes I know his name is Tom Hawkins but he looks like a Ken doll to me so now he's stuck in my head as Ken Hawkins.

👆🏾 Ken doll

But regardless, big ups to my Uncle who supports the Cats! Hope you celebrated accordingly xx

Anyways, enough about footy.

Yesterday I arrived by bus to Chitwan and am currently on safari. I will do another post for that later. For this one I want to focus on my last week in Pokhara.

Beautiful Phewa Lake

I really enjoyed Pokhara and was sad to leave. The place is beautful, with Phewa Lake stretching out to touch the green mountains, which circle the city like a fairy ring, and behind those mountains to the north are the Himalayas!

In two words: fucking majestic!

There is just something about the mightly Himalayas standing up in the distance. Every single time I see them I can't not look. It's like I get completely hypnotised by them and my brain empties of all my thoughts because I am just in awe!

If you do go to Pokhara don't expect to see mountains though. It is bloody cloudy! Like all the time.

I think in the 5 weeks I was there I saw the mountains (the Himalayas) 3 or 4 times. Could also just be because it's monsoon season. Maybe the skies are clearer in winter...

Besides the beauty of the place I also loved just how relaxed and slow things were. It wasn't a hectic place like I'm imagining Kathmandu is. I shall find out tomorrow just how hectic it is.

For the most part I was left alone too, always a bonus in my books.

As in, very few people bugged me to buy something or asked me for money, and even less followed me until they realised I'm way more stubborn than them (mum can confirm).

Out to dinner and making friends

In my last week I was meant to go to Australian Base Camp but the weather had other plans. Of course it was big thunderstorms all night and early morning (I was set to leave at 4.30am) so the trek got cancelled. But then it was beautiful weather the rest of the day! Murphy's Law.

Or maybe the Universe knew my poor, old lady knees just wouldn't be able to hack it and decided to intervene. In that case, thank you very much!

I read a couple of books that have been sitting in my Kindle for ages, and I very much enjoyed them.

I also took myself out to a lovely cafe every morning and practiced the rare art of slowing down and being still. I hope to be a master of this art one day!

And I finished knitting my Nepal beanie. Just to clarify it's not a Nepalese style beanie but just a beanie that I knitted in Nepal with some yarn I bought at a market stall in Hobart.

Nepal beanie done!

I was hoping to find some more yarn here. Fingers crossed Kathmandu can help me out.

I'm hoping to knit something in every country I visit as a keepsake of my time there.

Oh and just before I forget. I think I mentioned the mural in my last post.

A very talented volunteer I did construction with drew up a gorgeous mural on one of the walls at homestay, but he flew out before he could paint it.

Me and my roomy decided to have a crack. She's quite a talented painter, I was just doing the words to help her out since she was only in Nepal for 2 weeks. She got the mural started but flew out before she could finish so I decided I would finish it off.

Once upon a time I was very artistic, that side of me died in the arse a fair while ago. So my confidence in my artistic skills were not great... at all. But once I got Fish Tail done I thought "OK that's not too shithouse so maybe I can do this"

So I had a crack and in three days (the last day I spent a good solid 9 hours on it) the mural was done and I am pretty chuffed about it.

Not just because it came out way better than I had hoped, but I re-connected with a long thought dead artistic side, and I've helped create something that other volunteers will see in the years to come.

Enjoy!