The gem stone fraude (second and final episode)

To be honest, I didn't really know what to do. Who could I trust? Who was involved in the fraude? The people from the guesthouse: were they supposed to keep an eye on me, or were they just normal spectators? The first thing I did was making my creditcard useless, with a phonecall to Belgium. After that, is was already 11.45 pm, so I decided to go back to the hotel, make sure my backs were packed, so I could leave asap. My mind was still trying to think of the best plan and all the options. Being back at my hotel, I didn't get any further than my original thought; I have to get out of here! That night I slept for one hour, my heart beating to fast, to much on my mind to really get some sleep. I put my alarm clock at 6.30 am, but it didn't turn out to be usefull, because my hour of sleep must have been somewhere between 3 and 4. I got up at 5 and kept on looking at my options. The people from the guesthouse shouldn't be outside, there shouldn't be to many people on the street yet, but the streets also shouldn't be abandoned. At 5.30 am I heared a door open. Was I too late for my silent escape? Did the owners already wake up? I looked outside the window, and saw one of the other guests leave her room and heading for the front gate. The front gate was still closed, and that was the sign for me to take my bags and leave. The gate still being closed was my sign the owners were still inside their house, because otherwise they open the gate. My thoughts turned out to be right, and once I was on the street, it was a matter of minutes, before I would reach my safe haven, a guesthouse I used to stay before I went to the trekking. Somewhere between five and ten minutes later I arrived in the guesthouse, but everyone was still sleeping. I hid on the rooftop, which gave me a clear view on the entrance as well as the rooms of the owners of the guesthouse. At 6 am the youngest brother got out of his room, and he didn't even seem to be surprised when he saw me there. It was like I was there every morning. A few minutes later his father woke up, and I told him the whole story. He was listening very quite to me, and after I did my story, he assured me I was safe and I could stay there until my Tibetan friend was going to pick me up. Last night I had already send a text message to my Tibetan friends, the people I really trusted around there. Telling the whole story again to the manager of the guesthouse, and one of my Tibetan friends, it turned out the man from the guesthouse knew the owner of the travell-company, where they swapped my creditcard. He assured me he was completely trustworthy, and he was not involved in the whole fraude, him being a very respected businessman in Pokhara. One phonecall to him, and he assured me the money wasen't withdrawn from my account at that time, and it wouldn't be, after he heared my story. He said he knew one of the men I was in the office with, the day before, but never had any problems with him. He told me to come by the office the next day and we would solve the problem. My Tibetan friend took me to his village, as we both agreed I would be safer there. Still we didn't know who we were dealing with, and what they were capable of. In the village, I was threated like a king. I think I never had so much to eat in one day. (well, I propably had, but not this kind of delicous food) The families were all together in one house, and we moved from one meal to another, from one house to another, figure of speech! I got to experience the real life in a Tibetan village, as part of a Tibetan family. Protected and taken care of by them. The whole village feeling sorry for me, and praying. I got to sleep in a room with my two new brothers, after spending the evening in that same room with all the family. It really was a unique, and wonderful experience for me, specially after the tension that had been going through my vains the past 24 hours. I felt safe, and home. A welcome feeling at that time, but I had to go back to Pokhara, Lakeside the next day. I had to try and recover the 2000 USD. Next morning, one of my Tibetan brothers drove me back to Pokhara, on the motorbike. I was instructed to go to the travell agency, return to their shop, they would call me a taxi that would return me to the village. When I entered the Travell agency at 9.30 am, the owner was not there yet. I was told to come back around 11 am. Walking back on the street, I went to send some e-mails, contact the credit card company again, to recieve a new credit card. When I came out of the internet spot, I saw two of the "bandits" passing by on the motorcycle. I turned away my head, so they didn't see me, but all the tension was back inside my body. Were they informed by the clerk at the travell agency? I decided to take a place at the rooftop across the agency, so I could keep my eye on when the owner arrived, as well as who else was entering or leaving the travell agency. After the relatively quiet hours since the afternoon of last day, I was feeling unsure, and therefor insecure again. At 11.15 am, I saw the clerk of the agency leave, which he told me ment his boss was there, so he could go to lunch. I had seen a man going in the agency, which must have been the owner, because I had never seen him before. Even in my logic, one and one is two! After telling the owner my story again, he gave me back the two receipts from the VISA transaction, so I recovered the money. He also confirmed they booked a ticket to Londen with part of the money, which was canceled immediately. The rest of the money, the company was supposed to pay to them. A business they seemed to find pretty normal, so I assume it happens more. The company owner advised me to let go of the 40 000 NPR, after having a telephone conversation with one of the men, asking for some explenation. Their story was they already send the stones, and also had their expenses. I decided to leave it that way, and go back to the shop of my friends, to go back to the Tibetan village, where I could feel calm and safe again. After arriving in the village again, it was an easy day, like the last one. Talking with the family, exchanging stories about what happened to me, and similar cases that had happened in the past. Cases that they only heared about that day, but that made them a worried about my safety. One of the brothers contacted someone he knew that drove a microbus between Pokhara and Kathmandu. They agreed on taking me out of Pokhara the next day, back to Kathmandu. The bus would pick me up, somewhere on the road, not on the normal bus parks. So it happened, that after spending the evening with my new family, I returned to Kathmandu in the morning, in what I would call a little bit western style. Crossing the bus on the road, stopping, changing from the car to the bus and I was on my way to Kathmandu. What happened in Kathmandu is a whole different story. Nothing compared to this one, if you compare it to the tension. Kathmandu had some nice surprises ready for me. A story I might write on later, or maybe even not, We'll see, but this one I really wanted to share with you. Bottom line; I'm ok, and I had a special experience that made me wiser, and more attentive.

The gem stone fraude

Walking down the streets in Pokhara, my watch, which is quite big, attrackts the attention of people often. Nothing special when a local, working in a gem stone shop, asked if he could see it. He invited me in the shop, where we had a cup of tea. After a while, some other men came in, and somewhere in the conversation, they started talking about there stones that had to be delivered in different countries around the world and because of the high taxes they were charged with, they were looking for people to deliver those stones for them. The “head”-man was a very easy speaker and always talking, actually making sure you didn’t have the time to think. If you did come up with an answer, he/they always had an answer, even a reasonable one. The profit I could make with it, was told to be 23 000 euro. Obviously this was one big fraude, but still, my interest was touched. My interest in how these things actually work. After thinking about it for a few hours, I decided to say yes to the plan, also thinking; What if this is real? There are so many places around here I'd like to help out financially, and with that amount you can really help a lot of places here. They asked (wanted) me to move out of my hotel, and I could check in in their hotel, where they would carry all my expenses, and they would pay for my meals until the day I got back from London. They would also pay my airticket, two ways. After leaving my hotel, and being brought to their hotel, the chief invited me for dinner in one of Pokhara's nice restaurants. We had a talk about what had to be done before I left, and I had a good time, maybe this was extra activated by the beer they were ordering. I have to admit, they gave me a good and safe feeling, so maybe that was the point were they caught me. Changing from wondering why, how and what, to believing and trusting. The money I could make with it was already reduced to 20 000 USD, but still, that's a big amount for me, and many people. The only thing I had to pay for was the insurance of the package I was sending to London. The packadge which would contain the stones. Next morning, I was picked up by the hotel by one of the survants. He escorted me to one of the shops, which was right behind the corner, and there the boss was waiting. After the blabla, we started packing the stones, putting them on cotton and folding paper around it like an envelope. When he was packing the stones, I wrote down which stones and how many were going to be in the package. So, they really gave me that safe feeling, as if I had control over everything. After the envelope was closed and sealed with both our signatures, el jefe send me to a courier service to send the package to the GPO in London. In the mean time, we were also going to cash money from the ATM machine for the insurance. An insurance that was going to be more than 4000 USD, because the estimated value of the package was 20 000 USD, and 21% of that amount was the insurance price. What had happened at that time, I don't know, because I didn't hesitate to follow the plan. To my luck my card could only withdraw 40 000 NPR at one day, which is equal to about 650 USD, or 470 euro. When I would arrive in London, the envelope would already be there, so I just had to collect it at the GPO, get in contact with the contact person, hand him the merchandise and he would pay me my money, plus the insurance money minus 6%, because if they would cancel the insurance there would only be a 6% charge of the total amount. Because I could only give them 40 000 NPR at that time, we decided they would swap my creditcard for 2000 USD. They were always talking about their shops, and their people, as if they owned Pokhara and around. At least that was what they wanted me to believe. The afternoon, I was off duty, which means I had no meeting with them, and we met again at 5 o'clock in the evening. At that time I was told my flight to London would be two days later, at 8.30 am. We swapped the credit card in a travell agency, which was not completely strange, because that is done by more (even legit) shop owners, if they don't have their own possibility to accept credit cards. Than time was come for me to meet some friends, have dinner (with my friends) and go to bed early. That was the plan, so we said goodbey for that day and agreed on meeting eachother again the next day at 1.30 pm. I never saw the friends I planned to see that night, because I didn't feel like it. Instead I had dinner on my own, and on my way to the hotel, I ran into a Belgian friend, whom I talked to for more than an hour. When I finally went to the hotel, I ran into a woman I met on the trekking. Two days before I told her about the whole plan, and because she was so suspicious, she started looking in travell books, because she knew somewhere she had seen something about it. She took me to her hotel, and there she showed me what was really bringing me back to reality again. In the Lonely Planet of India there was this warning about gem stone treaders, who rip of tourists by sending them to other countries to deliver stones. They make friends with you, take you to their houses, insist on paying you dinner ... the whole story I just wrote down. Than when you would arrive in the other country the stones wouldn't even be there, even if you saw them delivered at the so called courrier service, and with even more bad luck, you would find out that your bank account gets ripped by your credit card. After thanking her heartly for her very interesting information, I went back to my hotel, which had become a place I had to leave as soon as possible. A big problem was that I had two big bags I had to take out with me, without anybody seeing me. And on top of that I had to find a place to hide, because I didn't know what kind of people I was dealing with. This told me I couldn't leave at night, when everyone was sleeping, also the good people. The area where the hotel was located was dark, so I had to make sure I wouldn't bump into one of them in a dark alley. My credit card had to be blocked, to preveal any further financial damage, and recover the 2000 USD. A lot to do in only a few hours. My mind was working fast, but at that time it couldn't seem to work fast enough. My heart was beating maybe harder as it did during the toughest effort I did trekking around the mountains.

Back from the trek

Well, I'm back from the trekking. Where it was estimated to take 20 days, we finished the trip in 16. I'm not going to give a detailled treking summary here, but I can tell you it has been special. Propably it was the last time I do a trekking with a compagnion. I'm not judging over others, I'm just saying that when I'm up there, I really love the freedom to go my own speed, my own planning, and only thinking about my own physical abilities, because I must start believing that they are quite a lot when I'm surounded by my favourite mountains. Like last year, even when tireness strikes, every day I feel stronger and stronger. Where others seem to loose power every day, it was like I was absorbing it. Doing this trip together with someone I just met also made me realise a lot of things about myself. Re-realise sometimes, like the part where it's still difficult to think about others limitations, and specially respecting them. I really have this problem with physical weakness, I just can't stand it. To me it always looks like people saying they went all the way, just were making an effort, nothing more. It feels to me like many people don't really know what pain actually is. Ofcourse it's my opinion, but I think of myself more as a fighting character after this trip. I'm happy with that, but its not new to me that I can handle a lot of physical pain, on the contrary to emotional pain, which I'm much more affraid of. One person I met on the trip, left a deep impression on me. Dave, a 40 year old professor in fylossophy from the US of A. When we were together, it was like we were two 10 year ols kids, but man...did we have fun. His whole being left quite an impression on me, also the mature one. It feels like one of those people you meet and at once there is a connection. I think loosing him on the track, because we had to take an extra resting day, due to Orly's physical condition, was what made me a little more grumpy. As I realise that, it sounds stupid to myself, but that's the truth about what happened inside of me. You can't imagine my happiness when I bumped in to him on the streets of Pokhara after the trek. Ofcourse there wasn't only Dave we met on the trek. First of all there was Orly, my companion, ofcourse. What she taught me, propably without realising it, is that I really have to do this kind of trekking on my own, or maybe with an even mind. I think she being 21 and me 33 also made a difference. If I sound like bigheaded and being a smart ass right now, than I think you're reading this in the wrong atmosphere, because I'm not judging, I'm just discovering things about myself. Other people we met on the trail varied from old people, to newly weds, and ofcourse a lot of Israelies. A lot of Israelies take one year of after serving in the army, and before going to study. In my opinion, a lot of them are to young to experience the true values of such a trip, the true values of this side of the world. That's how I experienced a lot of them. Ofcourse there are not only the people, but even more some parts of the trek, or feelings on the trek I'll propably never forget. Getting stuck between the water and find my way out on the back of a donkey after I lost some weight during the trek was a nice but at some parts painful experience, Orly getting hit and run over by a running donkey was scary, crossing the pass at a hight over 5000 meter was cold, climbing at 4.30 am in the dark while it was snowing, looking down at all the headlights coming up the road. You'd almost forget there were people wearing the headlights. It was a nice game of the light playing with the snow. But ofcourse there were the magnificent views over the mountains as you could really see them getting closer and bigger every day. Actually we were getting closer, but that doesn't matter now. The trek was another unique experience, which I experienced at most considering my abilities. I've no regrets about any moment or desicion, so that makes me a happy man. Happy that it was part of my life, and happy to be back in Pokhara, which still feels like home to me. Now I'll propably spend another 11 days here, wondering around, relaxing and seeing people I love around here. Life is great and I'm part of it!!!