They say that NEPAL stands for “Never Ending Peace And Love“. I think they should try to work in never ending traffic jams, construction and near misses on the road. That is too strong of a statement but (after a quick stop at Swayambunath, the Monkey Temple) we made a somewhat grueling 8 hour, 200 km drive from Kathmandu to Pokhara, a beautiful lakeside resort town.

The country is beautiful and diverse due to the changes in altitude. Nepal is very fertile with an extensive array of farms (raising fish, mushrooms, rice, wheat, corn, coffee……) in addition to being an adventure destination with hiking, rafting and, of course, mountain climbing.

We traveled on a Saturday, so the towns and villages were busy with people doing chores, shopping, resting and celebrating at Hindu, Buddhist and political gatherings. (The work week in Nepal is Sunday to Friday so Saturday is the only day that people get off).

During the trip, our guide K.B. explained the recent history of Nepal including the ousting of the king, creation of 2 governments (consisting of 31 different political parties!) tasked with creating a constitution, the earthquake, introduction of the constitution and the recent local election. The election was the first in 20 years and the first step in working towards a federal election in coming years. The recent election will allow the creation of local government infrastructure that will begin to provide services such as law enforcement and education. (Education is currently not mandatory in Nepal. There is a recent push to eliminate child labour and move towards education for all.)

The journey reminded my of India, very tough but exciting. We took a short cut through the countryside to avoid a major construction project in one of the nearby cities. It was mildly disconcerting to see the driver ask for directions a few times but they don’t normally take this route and it saved us several hours of travel time and lots of dust. The roads were rather rough: narrow (almost single lane) with lots of potholes, traffic and switchbacks. There is a ton of road construction in Nepal. In one area, they were scrambling to clear a landslide before rainy season starts. In others, they were widening and modernizing the roads. This leads to extensive traffic jams – some roads were open in one direction for a few hours at a time (so you don’t want to miss your window!), others were just shut down completely for several hours a day. This leads to strategic planning when making a road journey and miles and miles and miles of traffic in some areas……but as they say: no pain, no gain. The Nepalis seem to happily put up with construction frustrations. Maybe that is because they are in the middle of a never ending quest to improve the country that is the source of their never ending pride.