Pokhara on the lake, inspiration for trekking and parasailing
There have only been really two instances since I started travelling asia about 8 months ago where the local music has really moved me. I mean yes, I hear different interesting music every single day. Its everywhere from the public transport when it blares out of the cheap speakers of over packed buses on a trip from Bangkok to Chiang Mai, or on the streets of Delhi, when DVD shops play hindi pop music loud enough to hear down the street, or even to the young men who on the train from Jaisalmer to Jaipur turn their tinny mobile speakers as loud as they can go, to share with the carriage the sounds of punjaby hymns for all. This is great, and even memorable I hope, but its different to when you actually begin to understand a culture simply by experiencing the full extent of the traditions through their music. Both of these times the music has been played live. The first happened in Bali, where we saw a performance of the Ramayana story in Ubud, where the tribal sounds just got right underneath my skin, and the second, I can feel right now. In this dark hotel room, with the light of the laptop the only thing I can see, it is Diwali in Pokhara, Nepal. The people in this heavily, touristic town, have totally forgotten about what we are doing, and are spending their evening really partying. Just sitting here, only listening is awesome, and the pitch of the womens voices changing to the rhythm of the local sounding drums is mesmerizing on its own. They have been playing and singing and dancing just below us for the last 4 hours.
