Godfather's pizza (Pokhara, Nepal)

When I came back from Nepal, the question I dreaded the most was a very simple one:

"So how was Nepal?"

Put on the spot hundred times like this - every day for a good week or so - is truly tough. Even harder is to estimate who's actually interested in the answer and who's just running the typical water cooler chit chat in the kitchen where even responding "horrible, half of our group fell off the cliff and died in agony" would be met with "that's great to hear, see you later".

My secret plan was thus to finish writing up a blog from the journey before I'd be back and then send around a link, which would turn the kitchen chit chats back to the much less pressure-inducing topics, such as rainy weather or the spoiled milk in the fridge. But since I did not get around to that so quickly, I chose a different strategy of responding to the dreaded question by saying:

"It was great"

That's it. And let those people ask more if they're interested! Muhaha!

But that said, Vinny - always being original - did come with a different question that got me off the rails and had me crash to a huge brick wall at full speed:

"What was the highlight of the trip?"

BOOM! I was utterly speechless and unprepared, trying to pick a single highlight out of all the good stuff that happened.

And so, since I have the whole trip in detail at Fero Writes blog (ok, as of now only 3/5 parts finished, but the main bit done!), let this pizza hunt blog post be the cherry-picked highlights, the best of the best, the brightest of the stars on the Ledar's night sky. For it is together that these highlights make for the most awesome and diverse "highlight pizza" on the menu. Not exactly an edible one, but enjoyable anyway. At least for me. And if you're not interested, then why the hell are you still reading? Go watch funny YouTube vids instead!

So here we go, 10 highlights - in no particular order!

1) People. 

OK, no order to the highlights, but this WAS no 1!

When I was going there, I had this irrational fear that I won't meet any nice people and will spend a month discovering my inner self through silence and contemplation. This somehow did not work out, however, and the people I've met were simply the biggest highlight of the trip. For just like jamming with others makes you a better musician, getting to know other people makes you a better person. And there on the Annapurna circuit it's not only easier to meet the often much more open-minded people, also the get-to-know-you process is somewhat accelerated - by having to share rooms, agreeing on trekking plans or calling each other asshole in the same-name card game.

Yep, meeting new people is like bouncing off the walls in a maze of life, and seeing yourself more clearly in the occasional mirrors that are to confuse you and lead you astray.

They also inspire you to talk psychological shit like this.

My Nepali family - couldn't have asked for better people to trek with!

A friendly Welsh, partly French contingent that I joined for a couple days.

Ri-angelo, a super nice Dutch Caribbean company for exploring Kathmandu

Elbrus home is just the perfect place to meet cool people

An Austrian couple and their guide formed a great company for the descent from Ghorepani

Cheers everyone.

2) Tilicho lake

If there was one highlight that's hard to describe, it's the views. You can wave you arms, widen your eyes, and talk in high pitched voice like an idiot, but the person you're describing the views to will be still prefer you to finish off soon and return to filling out Excel spreadsheets instead. You simply must see it.

And although there were so many, if there's one highlight to mention in terms of the views, it is the one from Tilicho lake area. The pointy Khangsar Kang and Tilicho peak with their huge snowy glacier coats, the incredibly navy blue lake with the desert around it, the whole valley where Margsyandi river is born, peaks of Annapurna III and Gangapurna in the distance and even Manaslu, or the whole range of Chulu peaks somewhere at the horizon. An absolute treat, a view that I doubt to ever get dethroned in my memory...

Can it get better than this? Gangapurna, Annapurna III, Manaslu in the distance and much much more...

Tilicho lake - completely unique, but freezing cold with bursts of wind that get to you

It's a place of close encounter - here the surrounding giants of Tilicho peak and its glaciers literally meet the trail to Tilicho lake

3) Pokhara

I don't know if the ancient civilizations planned it this way already, but the combination of hiking the Annapurna Circuit and ending up at the chilled lakeside of Pokhara with all the bars, food and music seems as if it was planned by God himself. If there's indeed a paradise somewhere, I imagine it's kind of like Pokhara...

Starting the day in the hipster-smoothie-yoga Juicery cafe (where, if you're up for it, Vish will beat the shit out of you with the morning HIT training), continuing with the boat trip on the lake with back-flips to the water and sipping chilled beers, then enjoying some lunch and an afternoon nap in the deckchairs of the lakeside restaurants before heading for a massage... Finally the indecision of choosing among the many choices of live-music venues, open mics and bars which do not match the "Western standards" only in the high prices back home...

Getting ready for the outdoor screening of The Beach @ The Movie Garden

The Doors cafe - open mics every day. A truly awesome place. Did I join?

With Angelo and people from his hostel - sailing the lake Phewa, back-flipping to the water, sipping beer and listening to Pokhara Love. The ultimate chill

Yep, Pokhara love, baby.

4) Yak meat

Sorry vegetarians. And sorry yaks. You're such amazing creatures. But being a mortal, I was simply too tempted to try, and once I did, I was an addict. A simple chow mein was a treat already, with added yak meat it was simply a ceremonious feast.

But now seriously - yak meat tasted great, but all the food was just excellent, be it with or without it. Simple, tasty, digestible and inexpensive, I would gladly stay on the Nepali diet for much longer. Time to learn new recipes!

Yak sizzzzzlerrrr

5) Lemon ginger honey tea

When the omnipresent cold gets to you after the sunset, when you undo your sleeping bag in the morning, or when even huddling together like penguins in the down jackets doesn't help, there's always the ultimate combo to save ya:

"Lemon ginger honey tea".

It is everywhere, it is superbly tasty and healthy, and it is fucking expensive. Up in the 4000s and above, a big pot of LGH tea (~2.5 litres) could easily leave you 15 quid poorer.

In fact, if I ever return to Annapurnas, I'll gather some data and plot a scatter plot of the altitude vs. the price of this warmth-bringing brew and I am sure we'll see at the very least linear, at the very most exponential trend. I mean, I would not return just for that - I'd also sip gallons of the best tea ever ;-)

Rounds of card games + lemon ginger honey tea. Beat that

6) Nepali people

I don't recall such hospitality - ever. One simply feels safe and welcome wherever they go. Ok, perhaps not wherever, as I did not really venture too far off the beaten track, but wherever I did go, I left with the best of impressions.

They may not always be super positive or carry a wide smile, for people have lives and they have shitty days too. Those that know me know that I call this principle "authentic", and that's what makes the true moments of care and smile even more enjoyable.

It was the young waiter in KC's who did not speak a word of English but still tried to talk us through the food on my first day in Nepal, the random guy striking a conversation on the street and not trying to sell or advertise anything, or the crazy taxi driver who'd drive pedal-to-the-floor in the opposite direction lane after finally getting out of the stuck traffic in Kathamandu.

Ok, perhaps not always safe, but welcome for sure!

Bunch of students of hospitality, once I've responded to their questionnaire

7) Pandas

It's an excellent Python package for data science and data wrangling.

Ha, in these days (and my circles), one would almost forget that pandas are first and foremost THE BEST animals ever that make you smile even if you just got off a long Ryanair flight in the middle seat. Looking at them is simply like a constant stream of funny and cute YouTube videos, only it's not videos but REAL shit! Sometimes real shit literally, but most often it's the opposite thing - these guys snack on bamboo virtually non stop, and the rest of the time they seem to be filming for those YouTube videos, the kind that gets million likes in first five minutes. The one I filmed in Chengdu's Pandas research center during a long layover back to UK got only 49 likes (at the time of this writing!), but nonetheless it's simply cuteness overload. See for yourself.

Cute pandas

Very cute pandas

Cute and hungry panda

And give me a panda, please...

8) Deluxe buses

Right. To put things straight, the buses in Nepal are almost without exception ultra-old, bombed out, jumping around like crazy and one wheel off the cliff wherever there actually is a cliff (it's a traffic rule in Nepal and you could get fined if all the wheels are safely on the road). Nothing to fancy, right?

But then, after Peter told me that "he actually enjoyed the journey to Tatopani" - true, a bit of masochistic statement - I came to see the point. The experience is definitely surreal and memorable, even if not something you'd want to repeat. It's just another type of adrenaline thrill that people seek...

Finally, one simply must be amused by the fact that all of the buses are without exception marked as "DELUXE" and are (as advertised with stickers at the back) featuring A/C, Air suspension, MP3, DVD or even Facebook (whatever that means for a bus). Is all of that really there? Find out for yourself ;-)

Deluxe bus from the back

Deluxe bus from the front

Fancy a free wifi or air suspension?

9) Ledar

It was a day when I split off for a bit from our group. I was in need of some quiet thinking time and this moment - a couple of days before crossing the path - felt like the right choice, with a plan to re-join the fellowship for the D-day itself.

I trekked by myself to Ledar and got into the first guest house I've seen - which turned out to be the best choice. Was it only because it had the nicest guitar I found on the trek, the beautiful Givson electro-acoustic that took 2 hours of my life, playing almost my whole songbook to the rest of the dining room? Yes, kind of.

But also, good company of Kirsten and Jack, great food as usual and the nice peaceful atmosphere of the sun-lit dining room all played an important part. The whole plan worked out great, including re-joining the others the next afternoon at High Camp.

After all, it's nice to have time for yourself. But the best memories come from being with people ;-)

Mine was the left-most

The best guitar of the trek. The color symbiosis with my "North face" jacket is purely coincidental :-)

10) Godfather's pizza

Now we're coming to the point, and to the reason why these words are published on my pizza blog. Maybe the pizza wasn't good enough to make it to the top 10 of Nepali highlights. But the evening for sure was.

It was the first - and only - evening in Pokhara when almost all of the nice people I've met on the trek were around. I have to say "almost", as it would be impossible to fit everyone in, or to align the stars so that all the varied schedules would get an overlap. But the original Fellowship made of Chris, Oli (A) and Oli (G), Emma and Maik was there, so were Jack, Kirsten and Amy. Add the new friendly faces of Pokhara - Julie, Angelo and George - and the starter was mixed for a great night.

After a few "sex on the lake" drinks and having two Aussies present, the discussions inevitably turned to snakes and spiders, and how usual it is to find these lovely creatures hanging around Australian rooms in the sweltering nights, when it feels like a sound idea to crack the windows open to let some air in. Emma listened carefully and seemed reassured about her upcoming trip to Australia, following Nepal.

The pizzas were surprisingly good too - I was quite impressed by the quality of the crust, which was kind of in the Roman style, my all-time favorite. The base was nicely cooked too, with the right shade at the bottom. The only more obvious lacking for me was some more taste from the ingredients - the Godfather's special that I got could have been tickling the taste buds some more with all the ingredients it was loaded with!

I forgot to say it looked SPLENDID

Nicely in the mood, we continued exploring the lively music scene of Pokhara, ending up in Busy bee with a swarming dance "pit" full of Nepali people. The end of the night seems as bit hazy, but I recall me and Oli behaving like idiots getting some fast-food momos, Oli shouting "Freedom!" in German on the streets and (once more) Oli making a lot of noise trying to open a gate to our hotel for good two minutes, after which we simply entered through the adjacent door.

Awesome people, and a random guy in the pic (who's probably also awesome)

Good times...

What else?

Well, there's still too much to mention...

But perhaps if you pushed me to say one more thing, I would say this. Nepal and Himalayas are simply the place where one can rest. Where one can free the mind from the worries and nuances of the everyday life, which seem so incredibly far away. A place, where one can distance themselves from the ordinary and look for answers to questions.

It's simply a place where you can change, if you're up for it. For as the guidebook put it:

"Nepal is there to change you, and not for you to change it."

Wise shit. But true shit.

Cheers Nepal

PS: If you want to read some more - which I doubt by the time you've reached here (if at all) - check out the detailed version.

PS 2:


Dough - 8/10
Ingredients - 8
Sauce - 8 (can't really remember, but good)
Atmosphere - 10 (obviously - thanks to the people present :-))
Service - 8 (can't really remember, but always good)

Princi (London)

I was packing up the sandwich from the hotel breakfast (I am Fero and I do things like this, nice to meet you) at the bench outside the Travelodge when I saw him coming towards me. He wore a reflexive jacket and some sort of headphones/earmuffs/ear protectors around his head, and my first guess would be that he was some sort of construction worker or airport engineer. Equally likely, he could have been homeless though, as I judged from his rather haggard look and long beard. Either way, his face showed a certain signs of determination that I found strange right away...

Although he was walking towards me, his eyes seemed to be focused on a point somewhere beside me. And he was speaking. But to who? I could not see any phone, hands-free device or cables coming down from his "headphones", which did not really look like headphones anymore, now that he came closer, and more like some of those ear protectors worn by airport engineers and the likes. And close he came - too close for comfort in fact, standing just half a metre away and saying something along the lines "you cannot touch me now darling".

"Ok, just some weirdo" I thought, putting my backpack calmly on my back and about to make my way. I moved to the right to walk past him but just as I did, he moved along with me. I then moved to the left. So did he. I tried to the right again but he'd mirror every of my steps. With a slight warning sing flashing in my mind now, I tried to force my way past him. And then it happened. The eyes, as so far focused somewhere in the distance, suddenly turned the attention to me. "You touch me?!!!" he shouted and straightaway followed with a kick to my ankle, effectively tripping me down, me falling at my backpack with two laptops in it. "What the fuck are you doing?" I somehow unnecessarily spurted out, now it being clear that that this person is a bit psycho and that I am unlikely to get a reasonable answer.

"You touched me first, the camera has seen it!!" he shouted, pointing a finger towards the Travelodge's entrance. Be there a camera or not, I decided not to investigate, or get into "who started" discussions and hang around any longer. For all I knew, the man could be pulling out a knife should the whole thing continue, and so I started to quickly move away, the psycho luckily keeping to his spot. His screams of "You touch me one more time! One more time!!", however, echoed through the long street all the way till I finally turned behind the corner and shook my head in disbelief.

Part of me was obviously happy that nothing really happened: the ankle was fine and all the other stuff in backpack (including a yummy breakfast sandwich) seemed to do a good job protecting the work laptops. Another part of me was however curious and would have liked to know - Who? What? Why?

Ok, the man seemed to have mental issues, possibly a trauma from the past. But going through the busy streets of London, observing the ever more complicated structures built all around, the rushed flow of people in the underground, the inconspicuous bombardment of advertisements from every corner and the constant feeling of pressure - get more, do more, be more - I couldn't help but feel that cracking down is now easier than ever before..

Another spark to these thoughts was a presentation of Nvidia's representative at the first day of the hackathon, which was actually the reason I was in London. "...so we're doing our bit of good in this world..." the NVidia rep says, referring to the fact that they participate in a cutting-edge research on self-driving cars. "Good", the word now resonated in my head, and I couldn't help but wonder... Cool? Definitely. Useful? Likely. But is it really "good" ?

I tend to think of it as a magic circle. We live in a world based on money, the need to make money and the fact that if you want to make more money, there's one primary way of doing it: to improve something. Advance a technology, make something more efficient, automate... Self-checkouts? Awesome, people don't need to do it anymore! Better search engine? Perfect, you can find things more quickly and efficiently! Automatic translation? Neat, no more of that tedious shit! If someone in 1920s was told we now have all these things, he'd probably go all jealous, imagining how we all hang around the corner and do a spitting competition for the mere reason that there is just nothing else left to do...!

Yet, that does not seem to be the case. For one, I have never participated in a spitting competition. But also where is the time we save those cashiers from dull scanning of the goods, or those hopeless folks from aimlessly walking around and trying to locate a hairdresser or that poor Spanish dude who just received a letter from German autorities (with no less than 2 paragraphs full of frightening and long German words) and spends hours to translate it? How come we still work ~40, or even more hours per week? Why isn't there a 3, or even 4 day long weekend already? Why?!!

My take on it is that we, as humanity, spend too much time improving, making things better, faster and more efficient. One way to look at it is to say "Ok Fero, but where would we be if we stopped all the progress 50 years ago? Hah?" which is fair enough. On the other hand, maybe the real question to ask should be "are we really happier now?" .

If we take Google, for example - it unquestionably gives you some sort of an edge and opportunities. Instead of spending hours in a library going through books, you can now say "OK google, how do I construct minimum spanning tree?" and get the answer in seconds. On the other hand, since this "edge" is given to all of us, you not only can take advantage of it, you are expected to. In other words, you are unlikely to satisfy your employer by saying "gonna check this in the library, see you in couple hours", when you can just use Google, get the answer, and move to the next question.

Similarly, you may be now "expected to" keep in touch with many friends just because the social media give you such option, or to keep up to date with all the news because news aggregators provide you just the digest you need.

So is it really "an edge" that we gain from the new technologies? Or is it just another speedup of our already fast-paced lives, on the way to the next one?

Thoughts like that were still whirling through my mind few days later, when I was again in London, this time on the way to an ESSNet meeting in Vienna and also using the opportunity to see some friends, mainly former colleagues from ONS and our Big data team. Getting off the Tube at Piccadilly Circus, soon the vibrant atmosphere of Soho took over my mind and when I entered the lively and bright interiors of Princi, it was time to switch to the pizza mood.

The place being packed, we waited for a good while to get a free table, until finally a chatty group packed away and we were seated. Conversations were varied, but with the impending vote on Theresa May's Brexit deal (this was back at the end of November) and Simon working in the department for exit from EU (effectively the Brexit department), we were drawn to the subject like Gollum to the Ring. Also Simon seemed really like the right person at the right place, clearly enthusiastic about his job, and I straightaway felt that Brexit is in good hands. At one point, he even said something along the lines "moving spreadsheets around gives me energy". This forever changed the way I look at him.

The waitress came soon and, for a moment, we were forced to ponder less heavy topics such as what pizza and what wine to get, Alessandra and Alessia acting as main advisors using their Italian DNA. I went for a white-base pizza (fior di latte) with slightly spicy sausage and some funny green vegetable looking like spinach. The hustle-bustle of the rush hour soon calmed down and so it did not take long for the stunning, charred-crust beauties to land in front of us.

The AI camera on Honor 10 makes excellent pictures, albeit identifying Simon, me and Kim as background...!

Ok, it got it right the second time.

And the beauty did not lay just on the outside, but also inside! It was indeed a proper treat, great quality and tasty ingredients, delivered on a solid-sized base with typically soft crust with touch of crispiness. As this was not a pizza hunt for the sake of pizza hunting, but rather a by-product of meeting friends, I did not take too many notes, but one mental one stuck with me - it was all damn good. Add the excellent (and quite strong) wine, friendly (and authentic) service and super vibrant ambiance of the restaurant literally decorated with the most colorful food, this experience rated well above the average pizza hunt! Not to mention the great company! Yep, shall be back.

We later moved on to a bar for some more pints and discussing questions progressively closer to the core of our existence. This should come as no surprise, given the composition of our group, with people having backgrounds in fields such as geology, data science or even cognitive science and formal logic! Inevitably, we concluded the evening with the following 3 core life advises, that from now on form the rock-solid foundation of our lives:

• Don't give a fuck
• Follow your calling
• Ask questions

But it was eventually time to say goodbye and I shuffled towards my hostel near Liverpool street station. Here I had enjoyable 3-4 hours of sleep in a dorm room with 8 or so other people, some of who were snoring louder than an Airbus 380 about to take off. Once woken up, I set off to meet Martin at Stansted for a super early Ryanair flight to Bratislava, unfortunately not exactly an Airbus 380 experience, but definitely "low fares made simple"!

By now I also finally came to understand the steps of boarding a Ryanair flight at Stansted. It goes like this:

• "go to gate" - Ryanair is looking for an airplane and trying to hire pilots for the flight
• "boarding" - the plane just took off from its previous destination and is on the way to Stansted
• "final call" - the plane is about to land in Stansted in about 40 minutes

Somehow, however, all the passengers like to queue up from the earliest possible moment, thus creating even more peer pressure on everyone else to join the queue - much like people joined the queues for the sake of there being a queue under the communist regime in Czechoslovakia.

in Bratislava!

Anyway, getting off in Bratislava, now freshly sprinkled with snow on 1st of December, Martin had a lovely (thankfully indirect) encounter with Slovak hospitality. As we entered a public transport bus, a Spanish lady came to ask the driver if he can wait a bit, as her husband was buying a ticket in the machine on the stop. Having a complete understanding of her request, the driver nodded "OK", promptly shut the door and set off. The lady screamed "stop! wait!", the driver indeed stopping, angrily getting out of his seat and shouting at the Spanish lady in perfectly fluent Slovak: "JA NEMAM CELY DEN" (I don't have the whole day!), pushing her out of the bus and leaving. I thus turned to Martin and said: "Welcome to Bratislava".

But bright sides of my motherland showed themselves too, as we had a fun night with some of my friends and their friends, who were not only welcoming and open, but also helped me get Martin drunk, a true mission of this trip, even if officially we were sent to an ESSNet meeting in Vienna from work. But don't get fooled - that was fun as well. For example, we even conceptualized a big data framework for mobile phone data!

But more on that perhaps later ;-)

PS:

Dough - 8
Ingredients - 9
Sauce - 9
Atmosphere - 9
Service - 9

Ask Italian (Cardiff)

Times are changing.

It was a funny February. This time last year, Cardiff was covered in snow, traffic stalled, schools and offices closed and shelves in the stores depleted after panic reactions of Britons to the scary white substance falling from the skies. Almost exactly one year later, a heatwave swept through the UK, temperatures soared almost to the twenties, sun shone brightly and people had picnics in the park as if it was mid-July.

As the weekend was approaching though, Mordor's clouds would once again form on the horizon and eventually fill the sky for what was to be the second named storm of the year - Freya. And so Martin decided to pack up and leave.

Ok, it was not entirely that sort of decision, but the dude sitting on my left for close to 2 years was indeed saying goodbye to Cardiff and moving on to brighter future in Home Office in Croydon. Now if you don't know Croydon, here's a fun fact about Croydon: when you type in "is Croydon" into Google, the autocomplete suggests: "is Croydon safe", "is Croydon rough" and for just "Croydon" the autocomplete goes "Croydon cat killer". Martin will be in good hands.

Anyway, we gathered on Friday evening to ensure he does not leave Cardiff without sufficiently high state of inebriety. But first, we went for a pizza. The original plan was The Stable, but since it was booked out, Ask Italian came as the second choice.

As for the pizza experience, there's not too much to say. Ask Italian is one of those modern chains with shiny interiors, well-thought out menus with fancy design, expensive drinks (>6 GBP for a beer!) and young professional service. It works well, is hassle free, but if you want a unique original pizza prepared and served with love, you'd have to search elsewhere.

Anyway, all of us opted for a pizza, some of us upgrading it to a "Prima" option, which was promoted as being a longer version of the original pie and also baked using a different technique. The result, however, did not really look bigger than the original circle (more like the original base being squashed), and the main difference thus remained the higher price tag.

It did not look particularly impressive either, although overall it was a tasty one with a nice soft crust, and a touch of crispiness - definitely enjoyable dinner. However, with a quite a thin base and relatively underwhelming size, I thought 19 pounds (including one beer) was a bit too much even for Cardiff's city centre.

We then moved to The Stable for beers and ciders. Here we discussed heavy topics such as Target operating models, mainly as a result of Alex's unshakable interest despite warnings from Phil that once that door is open, it cannot be closed, leaving permanent marks in your life. On a similar note, Martin enlightened us with a surprisingly clear and well structured narrative (considering the amount of beer he went through by then) of what shall happen once we go past a tipping point in terms of climate change. Adding that we have actually probably already gone past that point, we decided to finish the ciders and whiskey and off we went to the moon for some green shit.

If you're now thinking the last sentence sounded weird, you may be right. But The Moon is indeed a unique place and they indeed sell a drink called Green Shit, that, to a great success, Ellie and Ben introduced me to weeks ago. Likely the best thing about that drink is being able to go the bar and ask for a "green shit", something you don't get to ask for in your every day life, unless you have a certain perversion. The taste is then of secondary importance, but please be reassured that it tastes better than it sounds. Unfortunately, Moon was a bit empty, without live music and, instead, with quite a loud DJ who seemed to eventually drive everyone out of the place, us including. And so it was time to go.

Times are indeed changing. While e.g. my mom would have the same job throughout her whole life, living in the same city for past decades, I have already changed jobs 3 times since I graduated and moved countries as many times. And the same thing happens all around - people move for work with almost frightening simplicity. Martin is not the only one and few more people have either left Cardiff or are about to in near future. And while this means that wherever you go, you are more likely to find a friendly face, it also means you're losing those friendly faces around you in your everyday life and have to look for new ones. And despite all the Meetups, Facebook groups and social opportunities we have today, the process of getting to know someone and eventually calling them a friend has not become - and I think will never be - quicker.

And so we did not say goodbye to Martin, rather a "see you later". Good luck in Croydon!

Times are changing and people come and go. Maybe next one will be me.

PS:

Dough - 7
Ingredients - 7
Sauce - 8
Atmosphere - 7
Service - 7