Pokhara

We woke up at 5:15 in the morning to meet with the group near ___ (Freak street) to depart to Pokhara. Techno music started to blare around 7, and rainfall soaked everyone before we left around 9. Our first stop was about 20 minutes out of Kathmandu and then we were onwards. We had lunch about halfway through down by a river, and the weather got extremely hot. Afterwards, I apprehensively got onto a motorbike and rode with a biker for nearly an hour. Once I gathered my bearings it was nice, but the fear factor never went away. We were zipping past bikes and around buses and turns at around 80 km/hr. The scenery was beautiful, aside from seeing a freshly decapitated goat getting eviscerated by the roadside. We would go past several little villages on the way, where people were going about their daily routine and paying us no attention. I felt every minor bump in the road between my legs and was numb for hours upon stepping off at one of the stops. Once nearing Pokhara I got my first glimpse at real mountains in my life and spent the remainder of the trip in awe of my surroundings. We got to the hotel around 7, and I was thrilled to discover that I had a TV and unlimited power in my room. I was unaware of the result of the Chelsea-ManU game, and watched Chelsea waste yet another Champions League campaign by playing Fernando Torres in the first half, who did nothing and was promptly subbed out (End rant). We ate dinner around 9 and then partied to live music late into the night to bring in the Nepali New Year.

The next day Shehrish and I got up and started making our way through Pokhara. Everything was so much cleaner than Kathmandu and I was taking deep, full breaths for the first time in a month. Shehrish thought that Devi’s Fall was worth seeing, so we paid Rs. 1500 to take a 5 minute cab ride to see a glimpse of a dried up waterfall that was hugely disappointing. Turns out it was nearly half of what we spent, but whatever. Later on we took a boat out on Phewa Lake with a guide and watched the sun set over the Himalayas and snapped pictures whenever the clouds broke. The night life was similar to Kathmandu, little bars and clubs with live music. One nice thing about Pokhara was that everywhere had happy hours where we could get beers and snacks for cheap.

Pokhara was amazing, everything was cleaner, people were friendlier to tourists and the weather was nicer (albeit hotter). The one complaint I had was that the food wasn’t as good as Kathmandu. On the last night we went to a restaurant with live music, and I ordered a hot dog from the continental menu, as I was tired of eating mediocre Nepali food. I have no idea where they got their concept of a hot dog, but they brought me something that looked like a southern style biscuit on a weird bun with a half-cooked runny egg on top. I ate it and was sick two hours later. I guess it serves me right for ordering a hot dog in Nepal. We got up early on Sunday and made the trip back to KTM. Hope everybody is doing well.