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Phewa Lake and the Annapurna mountain range
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As someone wiser than me once said, life is about the journey, not about the
destination. And that is especially true for the bus ride between Nepal's
largest two cities, Kathmandu and Pokhara. The road is incredibly narrow, busy, and
bumpy, and the 200km journey took nine and a half hours (a rather pathetic
13mph). Apparently we were lucky - on a bad day, it can take 12 hours.
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Our "deluxe" bus. I pity the poor sod that ends up on the bog standard one.
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The tourist bus eschewed such modern conveniences as "suspension", which
made for a very long and bouncy journey.
Amazingly, some people manage to sleep on it. As far as I'm concerned, that's a
superpower. Still, it wasn't all doom and gloom. It was so bouncy that
my watch registered over 10,000 steps.
And I got to meet another couple of
very friendly lassies, Natasha and her daughter Hannah from Ottawa, who I enjoyed chatting with immensely.
In fact, we got on so well that we went out for dinner the next couple of
nights. Our restaurant for the second night was on Lake Phewa. Calling itself
"Utopia", it had a lot to live up to, but the food was delicious and the
staff were charming.
My accommodation (Pokhara Backpackers) was also very comfortable, and I met quite a few more people (including the two Germans I
was to go trekking with). They also had a terrible quiz night with such dubious questions
as "Which country has the best tap water?" and "Which is the happiest
language?". Our makeshift team came second, which I thought was a good thing since the winning team "won" a shot of something awful at the bar. As it turned out, however, in an admirable attempt to instil a spirit of "no-one leaves empty handed", every team had to drink a shot of whatever the bar was trying to get rid of.
Pokhara is a lovely place to just wander about and not do a great
deal.
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This cow thought so too
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But since I was here, I thought I'd go and visit a few local attractions,
such as Lake Phewa ...
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Er, I'm already here |
... or the Gupteshwor Mahadev cave, which bizarrely sat beneath a busy
shopping street.
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| This one |
To get to it, you must first descend a funky staircase ...
... and then you end up in a cave complex. It didn't have the cooling effect
I desired, probably because despite the fact that it was leaking heavily, it
was absolutely rammed with visitors, mostly elderly Indian ladies visiting
the Hindu shrine beneath. Steep wet slippery stairs and older people tend
not to mix well, but there were no disasters while I was there. Photography
was forbidden in the temple part, but after banging my head several times to
reach another part of the cave, I was rewarded with a waterfall which my
crappy phone camera failed to capture probably.
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The Devi's Waterfall
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Happily, just over the road, and for another 100 rupees (60p), you can get
up close and personal to the waterfall, and what a hilariously crap experience it proved to be ...
Things didn't bode well as soon as I walked in ...
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2020. A great year for tourism.
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There was a wishing well with a sign urging you to throw a coin in for luck.
The only problem being that I've been in the country for nearly two weeks and
haven't once been given a coin. Not sure a soggy note would bring you the same
luck.
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"I wish this looked more impressive"
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The opportunity to "dress up" in traditional Nepalese costumes ...
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Sadly there was nobody about to take my photo ...
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And the jewel in the crown, the Patale Chhango Entertainment Park ...
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Prepare to be entertained ...
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Let your kids play on whatever this is ...
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... while the mums and dads can relax on one of the many broken benches
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The waterfall itself was okay, although apparently much more impressive
during the monsoon season.
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Niagara Falls this isn't
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I'm doing Pokhara quite the disservice with my snarkiness, because it really
is a lovely place to hang about (I spent far longer here than I intended).
Next up, my Himalayan mountain trek (SPOILER: I survived).
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