Lakeside Lazing In Pokhara

After completing our mission getting from India in to Nepal the day before, we were thrilled to wake up in Pokhara and all set for a new adventure in Nepal. We chose Pokhara as our first stop as it's a popular base for trekking the Annapurna mountain range, has the fourth best paragliding in the world and it's a laid-back, cool kind of place by the beautiful Fewa Lake. Exactly the kind of place we needed after a couple of weeks in the crazy bustle of North India's biggest cities. It was refreshing to walk down wide, rubbish free streets and see women working in the shops and restaurants - when we arrived the weather was mild and sunny, perfect!

Our home for a few days was the Gauri Shankar Guest House, we really enjoyed staying here - they have clean, large rooms with hot showers, free wifi and its very budget friendly. The staff are helpful and the food was good especially the homemade soups and cakes.

On our first day the four of us hired bicycles to go on a mini self-led tour of Pokhara and Fewa lake. Just 50m in and Vic's bike broke so Steve went back for a replacement. The replacement wasn't much better so he gallantly gave his to Vicky, Steve spent the day cursing the loose chain and Vicky enjoyed the best bike of bunch! We enjoyed a lakeside lunch of momos and beer in the Happy Village before heading back after realising we wouldn't make it around the lake that day (Rob and Will later learned that its an impossible task). That evening we dined on pizza and fillet steak by an open fire in Cafe Concerto - Steve's first beef in almost six weeks! 

You can't visit Nepal without doing a trek (them's the rules!) so on our second day we decided to test our fitness and wear in our hiking shoes that were weighing down Steve's backpack with a steep uphill trek to the beautiful World Peace Pagoda on the opposite side of the lake. We hired a rowing boat to take us the short journey across and enjoyed our first view of the Annapurna range. Then came the hard bit 45 minutes steep uphill climbing that left us puffing and sweaty! 

The views were worth it though and the bright white Buddhist pagoda is fantastic, it's one of just 71 in the world to symbolise world peace. Pokhara's Shanti Stupa was finally completed in 1999 after over twenty years of struggle to get permission. 

"Obligatory #selfie!"

After a few photos of the Annapurnas and Fewa Lake we took the two hour scenic route back lakeside, there weren't many signs but eventually we made it through the sal forest and crossed a very rickety wooden footbridge to a steaming plateful of delicious momos. Yep, we ate momos everyday!

"We stumbled across the traditional laundrette near the dam."

The next day Vic could feel the burn a little but nothing serious so we were ready to book a trek. We settled on four days and three nights to Poon Hill, its height of 3,200m promised to be pretty challenging as yesterdays Pagoda was just 1,100m.  

We survived (and enjoyed!) our trek and returned to Pokhara and the Gauri Shankar Guest House. By now it was very cold and cloudy in Pokhara and we stayed for a few more days resting our weary legs, trying to keep warm and willing the clouds to disperse so that we could go paragliding. Sadly they didn't but we're sure we'll get to do it somewhere else on our travels. We also visited the main Tibetan Refugee Village just outside Pokhara, there wasn't much happening but we got to check out the Stupa, spin the big prayer wheel and buy some handmade jewellery directly from the Tibetans. Once we were fully recuperated we hopped on a bus and headed to Chitwan National Park as we had a date with some rhinos!

Two key observations of Pokhara; power cuts occur daily usually between 11am and 5pm, and you're always within earshot of a cockerel so be prepared to be woke up at sunrise! Other than this we loved Pokhara and if you're ever in Nepal make sure you pay a visit.