Bandipur is a small hilltop town that has beautifully preserved it's culture and, more recently, the town has begun to encourage tourism. There are no vehicles of any kind in the main town (essentially one street) and the architecture style makes you feel like you've dropped back in time.
Leaving Pokhara, we took a bus to the town Dumre, where we then hired a jeep to drive us up to Bandipur.
After dropping off our bags at a hotel, we decided to go for a hike to a nearby town called Ramkot. This actually turned out to be one of my highlights of the whole trip, so I'd recommend it to others! Ramkot is very small and there are no shops to buy anything, etc, so we packed a lunch and water and started the 1 1/2 hour walk to the town...seeing a few local women working or herding buffalo and plenty of mountains views along the route.
There was a Buffalo sacrifice happening in Ramkot when we first arrived and many people were out watching and chatting with each other. I just strolled around (honestly, I didn't want to look at the dead buffalo for very long) and observed the small town with traditional thatched round houses, many children playing, men sitting together chatting, flowers, etc, and the mountains were a backdrop to everything.
The walk to and from Ramkot, plus time strolling the village, took us about four hours. Next we walked around the main street of Bandipur and took a rest at a local cafe.
The buildings had the traditional wooden windows and the street felt so peaceful without any motorcycles or cars. We also had some nice dhal baat at a restaurant in the main street and enjoyed people watching.
Our hotel was maybe a 5 minute walk outside of main Bandipur and you have to walk through a few local huts to get there. It was actually fun staying away from other tourists and I had a great sunset view of mountains from my room window.
The next morning we woke up very early again to watch the sun rise. The morning was pretty cloudy and we couldn't see the mountains very clearly, but the landscape looked so beautiful and mysterious, with a sea of clouds below us.
Leaving Pokhara, we took a bus to the town Dumre, where we then hired a jeep to drive us up to Bandipur.
After dropping off our bags at a hotel, we decided to go for a hike to a nearby town called Ramkot. This actually turned out to be one of my highlights of the whole trip, so I'd recommend it to others! Ramkot is very small and there are no shops to buy anything, etc, so we packed a lunch and water and started the 1 1/2 hour walk to the town...seeing a few local women working or herding buffalo and plenty of mountains views along the route.
Our hotel was maybe a 5 minute walk outside of main Bandipur and you have to walk through a few local huts to get there. It was actually fun staying away from other tourists and I had a great sunset view of mountains from my room window.
The next morning we woke up very early again to watch the sun rise. The morning was pretty cloudy and we couldn't see the mountains very clearly, but the landscape looked so beautiful and mysterious, with a sea of clouds below us.
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