Pokhara (Aug 4-6)

After 5 long flights and two sleepless nights, Mike arrives in time to meet Stephanie for the final connection from Bangkok to Kathmandu. Landing on time, we paid $40 US for each 30-d visa and quickly scurried from the “international” terminal to the “domestic” pushing our trolley filled with baggage up a small hill, past eager taxis and hundreds of onlookers.

Our 20 minute flight to Pokhara on Yeti Airlines (no yeti spotted on the flight), was visually sensational to say the least. Passing village after village tucked away in the Himalayan mountains, we knew we were destined to experience Nepalese culture away from the hustle and bustle of fast paced life of Kathmandu.

Arriving in Pokhara, met our driver (and his co-captain) who work for the 3 Sisters Guest House that we were staying at. He quickly darted through the small town to our destination. As you can see in the picture, our ten room guest house overlooked the Phewa Lake, the largest natural lake in Nepal. In the evening, we walked to a small Newari restaurant and tried our first “Everest Beer” and Nepalese food. Sitting upstairs in an unfinished balcony we watched 40 kids playing soccer and volleyball until the sun went down.

In the morning we awoke to the rooster’s crow after a peaceful night listening to the pounding of our first monsoon rain experience in Nepal. 3 Sisters offers female guides to its guests and we were happy to have Nema take us up to Sarangkot. Passing through small farming villages we saw children heading to school wearing blue and white uniforms, women bent-over tending to rice patties, “unknown” regional plants growing plentifully wild, and water buffalo roaming (or soaking in a muddy hole). The hillsides were s tunning, but we were quite tired walking uphill about 3 hours in some of the most humid and hottest weather we had experienced. Approaching Sarangot, we bought a ticket to the viewpoint and if it were another season (ie not monsoon) we would have had a perfect view of the Annapurna range. Instead, we caught just a glimpse….of our next trip?