Last day in Pokhara

We spent the day realxing in Pokhara and it was thoroughly enjoyable day!

Breakfast on the rooftop, browsing the high street and spending time at the lake.

We ate ... We drank tea ... We walked ... We ate some more!

Our last day of R&R in Pokhara, mountains and blue skies. Tomorrow a long walk to the bus station at early o'clock for the 7 hour bus journey to Kathmandu.

Goodbye Pokhara, you've been amazing!

The Peace Pagoda

Peanut butter and banana sandwiches - Breakfast of the gods! We sat on the rooftop enjoying the views of the lake first thing this morning. The temperature is a little brisk at first light ... so a nice hot cup of tulsi tea really helps the body's climate control.

We took the trail along the lake through various parks and what seemed like people's back gardens. We bought some snacks for our days adventure before crossing a wobbly suspension bridge that took us into the forest. Uphill we went for about an hour with glimpses of views through the dense woodland. Finally reaching the top the trees cleared and we could see for miles. Pokhara is actually a pretty big place! The city sprawls on for miles but 'living' by the lake, you would never know.

Perched on the top was the beautiful World Peace Pagoda. A lovely white stupa with gold buddha statues nestled amongst the arches. Unfortunately the clouds were sitting in front of the mountains blocking the view of white peaks.

After exploring the site we headed back down. It was a nice gentle slope so was an easy walk down to the lake. We chatted to a small girl, age 8, in English. She told us about her family, pointed out her house and explained about her pet buffalo! We continued our walk to the centre, stopping for milk tea and to also check on our trekking buddies, who were not feeling too well.

Tonight whilst enjoying 2 huge plates of dahl baht, we were treated to a dance extravaganza. The restaurant owner's children danced enthusiastically non stop all through our dining experience. What a show. We clapped and cheered to show our appreciation. They were truly AWESOME!

Begnas Lake

Breakfast on the rooftop terrace gave us a very pleasant start to the day. Afterwards we took a walk along Fewa lake in Pokhara looking for a bus.

There are lots of bus stations, most being a few Km from the lake but the one we needed went from the lake. We eventually found the correct bus to Begnas lake and took our seats. The journey took about an hour but we missed most of it as we both fell asleep.

On arrival we headed uphill to a view point over 2 lakes, Begnas and Rupa lakes. The first part was along a quiet lane before we turned off onto a small path. The only people around were locals going about their business. The views were magnificent from a small Buddhist temple on top of the hill. The area was scattered with beautiful flowers and we saw so many butterflies!

After we made our way down and back to where we had left the bus, we took a small road to Begnas lake. Here there were many people selling things and boats for hire. There was also a big festival taking place which one man told us was to pay respect to the people who had died in the lake. There was singing and dancing and it seemed like a real celebration, maybe to appease the lake.

By late afternoon the clouds obscuring the snow capped mountains had sunk into the valleys. The whole Annapurna range was on display in all its glory! It was a beautiful sight. In fact for the whole journey back to Pokhara we enjoyed the magnificent views from the window of the bus.

As we missed lunch we snuck in an early evening pizza as we passed the pizza place. All we need to do now is rest a while before dinner!

A long walk

The shop next door to our homestay sells dahi (yoghurt). It is so nice! After devouring 500ml of the stuff, we started on our 2 hour walk to the outskirts of Pokhara.

We walked through some interesting residential areas and took a rest at the International Mountaineering Museum. Lunch was chowmein freshly fried up by a lady in a cute little café. When we stopped for tea, the waitress had a very English accent. We enquired a little further and she actually lives in Basingstoke. She was on holiday in Nepal visiting her family, who owned the restaurant.

Further down the road we visited a little site full of animals. There were water buffalo eating the grass, goats eating the flowers, a man eating his lunch and plenty of egrets coordinating the feast.

Not long after we came to a spot with many small temples, a great view of the valley and a pretty, natural rock bridge.

On the way home we bought a bus ticket to our next destination, had dinner at our local haunt and were treated to some absolutely incredible dancing by a 2 year old! She is amazing. The music starts and her knees are going, arms waving, head wiggling and all in perfect time to the music. She is the next Micheal Jackson - no question!

A Well Deserved Rest

Pokhara is a great place to relax and do nothing, so that is exactly what we did today. We rested our legs after our trek and watched the paragliders landing by the lake.

To bring the day to an end we enjoyed 12 inch wood fired pizza for dinner!

Trekking

An early morning taxi took us to the start of our trek at NayaPul. It was an hour journey along an horrendous road. The taxi driver drove with great care and we arrived safely at our destination. We were trekking with 2 people we had met in Kathmandu, as it is safer in a group. Plus, we were going without a guide as we were following a well marked route.

Our accomodation for the four nights was provided in basic tea houses, so we didn't need to carry camping equipment or food. Luckily they had nice warm quilts for the nights when the temperature dropped as low as minus 5 degrees and some even had wood burning fires we could huddle around until bed time. Luckily we didn't stay higher at Annapurna base camp where it was -18 degrees!

Our trek began in NayaPul and ended in Phedi. We stayed overnight in Ulleri, Ghorepani, Tadapani and Tolka. It is a low altitude route avoiding the risks of altitude sickness but offering beautiful views of the mountains and included many interesting villages.

The scenery was stunning and the mountain views spectacular. We made an ascent of Poon Hill for sunrise and got perfectly clear views of many 8000m mountains; Daliguiri and Annapurna at one end of the panoroma to Machapuchare at the other (fish tail).

The flowers in the villages were beautiful. Every time we ate, food was prepared fresh from the garden. Daal bhat (rice, vegetables and daal) was our regular meal as you were guaranteed a second helping.

The whole trip was amazing and we loved every minute, even though some of the walking was hard over the 80km we covered, with many steep ups and downs.

We caught the bus back to Pokhara along the same terrible road. It was virtually impossible to stay seated as it was so bumpy. We had to transfer to another bus as we had a puncture. There were no seats left so we stood for the last 15 minutes in to Pokhara.

A Lazy Day in Pokhara

Today was a trekking preparation day. Shopping for high energy snacks, water purification tablets etc.

We also spent some time researching the route and working out the best way to get to the start of the trek. Convenient, more expensive taxi v's cheaper local bus ... a little awkward and much longer journey.

The weather was a little cloudier today. We have our fingers crossed that the cloud disappears and we have beautiful views for our trip into the Himalayas.

Pokhara is a nice place to relax. We often sit on the rooftop drinking tea enjoy the views of the lake. We have great views of the paragliding launch site and there were so many today. When the sun was shining in the morning, we counted over 40 canopies flying.

We are trying to resist eating all of our peanut butter before actually leaving on our trek tomorrow. It is not going too well!

We ate dinner at a great little restaurant, where we chatted to some travellers we had met in Kathmandu.