This past week has been a big holiday in Nepal, called Dashain, and many Nepalis travel back to their family homes and villages. Kathmandu becomes extremely quiet, so two friends and I decided to travel to Pokhara and Bandipur to take a break. We returned to Kathmandu yesterday to discover a ghost town - empty streets with few vehicles and all the shops closed!
We started our five day trip this past Friday, October 19th. Since the minibuses can get so crowded over Dashain, we took a 'tourist bus' which cost 600 NRs (7 USD) and made two stops along the way for food breaks.
Saturday morning we visited Devi Falls, which is where a stream begins to go underground through a canyon. The sound of the water was pretty loud and the air around the falls was misty and humid.
From here, we walked up to the World Peace Pagoda by taking the two hour 'scenic route' described in Lonely Planet. I would recommend it as an interesting route and, as we later discovered while leaving the Peace Pagoda, this seems easier to walk this way than to climb the steep stairs from the Lake entrance that Lonely Planet describes as a short route. That route is very steep and took us at least 30 minutes to climb down. The World Peace Pagoda is located high on a hill with a beautiful view above the lake, Phewa Tal.
After catching a relaxing lunch at the top to soak in the view, we took the direct route down through a forested path to the lake, where we took a boat across the lake to the main town. I was so happy to be on the water!
The rest of the afternoon we relaxed at a restaurant right on the water and watched other boaters. This day was somewhat cloudy, but we decided that the next morning we would take a chance on the weather and go to Sarankot to watch the sunrise and try to see mountains.
So we woke up early Sunday and left our hotel by 4:45am by taxi to Sarankot. When the taxi dropped us off, we walked about 40 minutes up a steep path to a viewing point to look for the mountains as the sun rose. We were in luck and I was so excited to see the Annapurna Himalaya range in clear sight.
The clouds covered the valley below us and it looked as if we were in a plane looking down.
The view made me so happy and I took a ridiculous number of photos. The longer we stood at our lookout place, it seemed to get colder and windier, so that my fingers were completely freezing. But we stayed until the sun was completely up.
When we finally left the mountain view to walk back down to meet our taxi, we realized how many little stores and houses there were along the path, which we just couldn't see on our dark walk at dawn. There were some pretty blankets that a women had hand woven in a shop and I couldn't resist buying one to take home. The store in the photo below is where I bought my Nepali blanket - you can see the mountain range in the background.
It was such an exhilarating morning and I felt like we'd accomplished so much by 8:30am, since we had already been active for four hours!
This post is getting a bit to long, so I am going to force myself to stop adding more here and save the rest of my Pokhara experience for my next post. Paragliding photos coming up next...
We started our five day trip this past Friday, October 19th. Since the minibuses can get so crowded over Dashain, we took a 'tourist bus' which cost 600 NRs (7 USD) and made two stops along the way for food breaks.
Saturday morning we visited Devi Falls, which is where a stream begins to go underground through a canyon. The sound of the water was pretty loud and the air around the falls was misty and humid.
So we woke up early Sunday and left our hotel by 4:45am by taxi to Sarankot. When the taxi dropped us off, we walked about 40 minutes up a steep path to a viewing point to look for the mountains as the sun rose. We were in luck and I was so excited to see the Annapurna Himalaya range in clear sight.
When we finally left the mountain view to walk back down to meet our taxi, we realized how many little stores and houses there were along the path, which we just couldn't see on our dark walk at dawn. There were some pretty blankets that a women had hand woven in a shop and I couldn't resist buying one to take home. The store in the photo below is where I bought my Nepali blanket - you can see the mountain range in the background.
It was such an exhilarating morning and I felt like we'd accomplished so much by 8:30am, since we had already been active for four hours!
This post is getting a bit to long, so I am going to force myself to stop adding more here and save the rest of my Pokhara experience for my next post. Paragliding photos coming up next...
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