Strike Two

A strike is starting in Pokhara in just under one hour. Of course, it is "indefinite", so I have no idea how long or short it will be. The previous strike was related to an ethnic group's fight for its rights, which I was actually planning to write about today. This strike is because there was some kind of student election on March 19 and on March 20, vote counting stopped because of a dispute between the student unions, which are extensions of political parties. One of the parties called a strike to push for the resumption of vote counting. About 8,000 votes were cast and roughly half have been counted.

We are hopeful that this dispute will be resolved quickly and the strike will not last long. Apart from the fact that it may disrupt my plans to go to the tourist part of Pokhara tomorrow and then to the Chitwan forest on Wednesday, however, even an extended strike will not be as bad for me as the last one. I am not in a remote area this time and I am with people who speak English well. Also, I understand that, if necessary, I should be able to leave Pokhara by taxi and possibly fly from Pokhara to Kathmandu, so that I am not in danger of missing my flight out of the country on April 13. I hope it will not come to that as I really want to visit the Chitwan forest and spend some more time in Kathmandu before I leave, but I'll just have to wait and see what happens.

I walk into town to use the internet and assume that I will not be able to do so during the strike. If I leave for Chitwan on Wednesday, however, I'm not sure whether I will have internet access before Saturday or Sunday anyway. I will post an update as soon as I can.