Pokhara, Nepal
03/19/10
Liam, Boxie-boo and I sat on the shaded patio of Chilly Bar restaurant facing the main street that curved lakeside in Pokhara. A public transit bus passed over packed, causing young boys to hang out the open door, while the driver swerved away from a cow who decided the middle of the road was a great place to sleep. A backpacker woman with a shaved head, dressed in all white, pulled up on a one-speed bicycle with a pink basket strapped over the back tire. Inside the basket was a small kitten that meowed as she walked into the restaurant. Beyond her, garbage covered the alleyway, while we enjoyed our soda water, content to people watch and relax after yesterday’s long day of safari and travel. Little did Boxie-boo know that our people watching would be something she’d soon regret. Her boyfriend would come to see too much and come up with a brilliant (albeit, insane) game plan.
Sitting beside me, Boxie-boo wore a beautiful long, red and white dressed covered in flowers and elephants, which she had bought in Thailand. This was the “wrong dress” she felt I had forced her to buy by rushing her. I thought it looked great. While I continued scanning the streets - spotting young men wearing t-shirts with professional wrestlers on them - she leaned across my lap and examined my bed bug bite trail, which had extended from my left hand, up my arm to my shoulder. She was always keeping an eye on them to ensure it was not a spreading rash that required a doctor’s opinion. Although it was terribly itchy, I paid them little attention. I was focused on the bizarre sight of professional wrestling fans I continued to spot in Nepal.
Minus the incredibly poor service, we liked Chilly’s, but the 20 minute wait for a drink, added to the waiter pushing Boxie-boo’s feet aside so he could stand closer to the table, meant it was our last meal there. We had grown fond of two Nepal meals, dal bhat and mo-mos, and ate them both twice on this day. On this patio, we ate vegetarian mo-mos. They tasted like samosas wrapped in dumplings, which we dipped in a curry-like sauce. It was half-Indian half-Chinese in flavor, which maade sense when I considered the location of Nepal, smack in the middle of the world’s two biggest populations.
Our meal was interrupted when a large truck covered in billboards drove by, blaring information from outward mounted speakers, old and bizarre in shape, looking like the ends of large trombones. As the vehicle neared, I noticed the small truck was wallpapered with posters of professional wrestlers. Young boys cheered, chasing the vehicle, while a date noted an event began the next day.
I suddenly had a crazy idea, but immediately discarded it. No way! This is insane!
I then thought about it again two seconds later.
Liam knew what I was thinking. Liam and I knew what we needed to do. We walked over and spoke to our waiter. It turned out, he was able to provide directions on where to buy tickets. We returned to the table and I tried my best to hide my excitement, failing miserably, I also may have yelled “Do you Smelllllllll what the Rock is cookin’!” on the way back to my seat.
“Babe..” I paused, making sure she was looking me in the eyes, “…I got us directions for the wrestling show.” I proudly showed her the waiter’s hand-drawn map.
“Sounds awesome,” she replied, rather more boringly than I thought she intended, so I indulged in her gusto. I pointed at the truck, now parked across the street in front of a group of flexing children. Then smiled at her. She did not smile back. I then realized that, perhaps, a young woman may not share a childish man’s enthusiasm for fake wrestling.
I scanned her brown eyes, searching for clues for how she really felt.
“Do you really think it will be awesome?” I asked, my eyes pleading.
“No,” she answered, with the monotone pitch of a hospital flat line. Okay, it was actually at this point I realized she was previously being sarcastic.
“I thought you loved fake wrestling,” I responded, thinking back to amateur shows we had been to back home. But then I remembered we were drunk at those events. She may have been too sober for this conversation. She gave me another blank and strong no, as if she was able to answer without really contemplating the question. This was one of those situations where a well-timed joke would have been perfect, but I had none ready. I then asked her if she wanted a drink.
She shook her head. Another no.
Okay, maybe it was at this point I finally, 100 per cent, understood that she was being sarcastic. I must say though, it was specifically because Boxie-boo hated fake wrestling that I had forgotten she hated it. Since she does not like to wear Hulk Hogan t-shirts or rock spandex outfits with capes, combined with the fact that we never fake wrestled together, and, we never watched it on TV. Therefore, essentially, the topic of her hating fake wrestling was not something we spoke about. In summary, my forgetfulness was caused by her.
“How could you forget?” she responded. Sometimes women lack rational thought. She looked annoyed, but agreed she would attend, noting I would owe her something. I agreed. I immediately was overcome with excitement, again, while Boxie-boo appeared to be contemplating her suicide, at which point, Liam showed me his awesome impersonation of the Macho Man.
As I wondered about fake wrestling’s popularity in Nepal, I was hit with the same confusion I would feel if someone bought me a breast pump for Christmas. Across the street, I watched the young boys as they began to wrestle each other. In their flexed positions, teeth growling outwards, for some reasons, the sight of these young wrestling fans hit me harder than King Kong’s head butt. I could not believe in a city in the Himalayan Mountains I would be watching a fake wrestling show. Nepal. Fake wrestling. The two together made as much sense has having a free speech convention in China. For the first time in a long time, I wanted to rip off my tank like Hulk Hogan and scream, “It’s on, brotha!”, but I was on a tight budget, so ripping it would have been a bad idea when I only owned two.
Sorry Boxie-boo, but it we were to set to watch Nepal’s version of the Macho Man, the Undertaker and Ray Mysterio.
That’s all for now.
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