Week 106 - Kathmandu, Pokhara, Kathmandu (Nepal)

We had yet another early start to get to the Lukla airport for our flight back to Kathmandu. The security check was a bit of a joke, not only did me and Rhys have to open everyone’s bags and answer everyone’s security questions, but the boys queue to the departure lounge flew through and the girls waited an age only to be rushed through when the flights started being called. We finally boarded our small propeller planes and were catapulted down the runway and into the air.

As we flew through the valley I couldn’t take my eyes off the window where the mountain panorama passing by was spectacular. We hit small pockets of turbulence, not great for the bad flyers on board but overall the flight was gentle and before we knew it we were back in Kathmandu. 

In the carpark we boarded our bus and returned to the Tibet Guesthouse, sweaty and dirty after two weeks without showers, where we were booked in as part of the tour for another two nights. We had a slightly better room than during our first visit and after check in, we showered, changed and got our paperwork together ready for a trip to the China embassy. 

A taxi across town and we were met by a locked gate. We were expecting the embassy to be closed over Dashain and had only really bothered turning up to check the date that it would reopen. As always seems to be the case with us, we had fallen into another visa/national holiday situation, just this time we had enough flexibility to change our Nepal plans and still get the visa in time for our flight to Hong Kong. 

Dashain is Nepal’s biggest annual festival and lasts for 15 days with businesses shutting for various lengths of times during the period. Thamel for instance, was eerily quiet and possibly more enjoyable since, although many shops were closed, you didn’t have to spend every third step diving across the road out of the path of a racing motorbike, rickshaw, car or tourist. The festival honours the goddess Durga who was victorious over the forces of evil where evil is personified as a buffalo demon. Thousands of animal sacrifices are made during the holiday and everywhere you looked in Kathmandu there were goats tethered to posts awaiting their fate. Once we left Kathmandu for Pokhara we would also see swings lining the roads, hung from towering bamboo structures to celebrate the festival.

After our failed visit to the China embassy we retired to our room to catch up on sleep and admin. We had arranged to meet people from our trip on the roof terrace for a few pre dinner drinks and despite Ró abandoning us to spend time with her Nepali eyebrow technician, who happened to be visiting her family for the festival, we had a good but relatively subdued night, including a meal at a bizarrely empty Rumdoodle which is supposed to be one of the funkiest restaurants in town but was just completely dead apart from pretty much everyone on our trek who had found their way there.

We had intended a blissful lie in the next day but our body clocks had been set to stupid o’clock in the morning and we were up early for breakfast in the hotel courtyard. We had another relaxing day, venturing out for a bit of shopping in Thamel and to the Garden of Dreams. We ended up splurging on a thangka, a superbly detailed Buddhist painting, a symmetric image painted on silk with lots of gold swirly bits. The Garden of Dreams was an oasis of calm, it’s a small green area with ponds and hidden gardens, part of a restored1920’s palace garden designed in the British Edwardian style where mostly expats and tourists relax with books in the shade. 

That evening we’d arranged to meet everyone on the roof terrace again for more pre-dinner drinks. As we had a group meal organised for that night to say goodbye to all the new friends we’d made while trekking, Ró (with some style help from Karlie) put on her best outfit, her yak wool blanket, she looked divine... We were collected from the hotel and driven to a traditional Nepalese restaurant where a lot of tour groups go. We all sat on the floor around our table and were served rice wine and delicious food while we were entertained with men dressed as peacocks and dancers. By the end of it we were all up dancing and playing the drums. 

Back at the hotel we decided more drinks on the roof were in order rather than heading out to find a bar. We wandered out to find an open shop then Ró decided she needed another pashmina and we got sidetracked and lost everyone else (I came away with a lovely present, thanks Ró!). Next thing we knew, we’d bumped in to Furba, one of our sherpas, and ended up on the back of a motorbike to ride a block until we found everyone. By the time we got to bed we were a bit worse for wear (without spelling it out I think Rhys and Karlie will get the pun here even if Ró can’t figure it out...). 

The next day we headed to breakfast at 8:30am, the planned time for a farewell to Noemi, who didn’t turn up. We found her later still in her room, without a watch she had no idea what time it was and was in a rush to catch her transfer to the airport. We chilled in our room until the noon check out, despite the maid trying to rush us out at 9am, when we packed our bags and wandered across the road to our new hotel, a third of the price of the one we’d been in. 

We spent the afternoon with Bryce while Ashleigh was at yoga, we had lunch near Durbar Square then Bryce wandered back to the hotel while me and Rhys paid our entry to see the buildings. Durbar Square is at the heart of Kathmandu’s old town and is the location of the old palace, many temples, shrines and courtyards, mostly built in red brick with beautifully detailed carvings and bells everywhere. It was incredibly busy since it was Dashain and there were queues to get in to most of the buildings. We walked a circuit before deciding to call it a day.

Queues at Kathmandu's Durbar Square.

Beautiful architecture in Durbar Square, Kathmandu.

That evening, after saying our goodbyes to Bryce and Ashleigh, we met up with Karlie and Ró who had had a pretty horrific day on a rafting trip that ended with them hitchhiking back to Kathmandu. We sat outside at a romantic candle lit restaurant with Ró wrapped up in a table cloth since her clothes were still damp from rafting. We were all pretty tired, Rhys headed home while we were finishing up in the restaurant and we weren’t far behind.

Me and Rhys had a 7am bus the following day, headed for Pokhara, a riverside town hemmed in by the Annapurna Massif, a 2,133m chain of Himalayan, snow capped peaks, one of which is Nepal’s only virgin mountain as it’s scared and forbidden to climb. We took a tourist bus and after a flat tyre and breakfast and lunch stops we finally made it to the town. We were expecting a pretty, atmospheric place set on the waterfront with spectacular mountain views. Instead we were presented with a town packed with tourists with a character lacking main street lined with western restaurants, souvenir shops and hotels. The mountain was behind the town and blocked out most of the time by the buildings and the lake front was a street away, the lake itself bursting at the seams with life jacketed tourists paddling in circles. 

View of the Annapurna Massif from our hostel, Pokhara.

Luckily, we’d been recommended a hostel, Peace Eye, and despite being one of the cheapest options in town, it was brilliant, we had a bright airy room, hot water, roof top views of the mountains and great staff - it was only on check out that we found out they’d confused our booking and we ended up having a free upgrade, a real result considering they were fully booked and turning away a constant stream of people turning up without reservations.

After exploring the town, we stopped for a warm sweet glass of wine to use the internet before finding a cheap Nepali restaurant near our hotel for dinner.

We’d though to spend the next day hiking around Phewa Tal, a full day walk that would take us to the World Peace Pagoda on a ridge above the lake, with views across to the town and Annapurna mountains and on through local villages to complete a circuit of the lake and back to town. When we woke it was a little hazy outside and we couldn’t see the mountains so we decided instead to have a lazy morning. After a relaxed breakfast, we took a taxi into the main town, away from the touristy lakeside area, to the Gurkha Museum.

The Gurkha Museum was incredibly interesting and made you realise just how brave and hardcore the Gurkha battalions are. The museum followed their history from the Indian Mutiny to present day and it was interesting to find out that even now, the British have a recruitment post just outside Pokhara where hundreds of Nepali men go every year for the rigourous selection process that promises a very high wage and British army pension.

After the museum we started to walk back towards the hostel through Pokhara old town. As it was still Dashain, most of the town was closed and other than a small temple, there wasn’t a whole lot to see and none of the Nepali vitality the Lonely Planet had promised. We ended up catching a taxi back to lakeside for a walk along the water front, a pedestrianised flower filled track, and back to the hostel.

The next day we had the same intention to walk around the lake but woke to more haze. As we only wanted to do the walk to see the mountain views we decided on another lazy breakfast instead. Just before midday we attempted to walk to the World Peace Pagoda. We followed the road out of town to a dam where we crossed the river on a hanging bridge and skirted the edged of small rice paddies. We were walking through small villages, with trails lined with rubbish and people washing in the streams. We found the start of the walk through the sal forest to the pagoda with the help of some local boys but after scrambling through the trees up slippery mud banks with no real path to follow, we realised it was more hassle than it was worth, the sun was out and the heat was oppressive. Instead, we wandered back to the hostel and spent the rest of the day sorting out bits for our Russia visas.

Phewa Tal, the lake in Pokhara.

We didn’t love Pokhara, it’s the jumping off point for a number of awesome treks and if we’d walked there i’m sure we’d have a different opinion of the place, we definitely intend to come back one day to hike but we were short on time as we had to return to Kathmandu to apply for our Chinese visas. It’s also has rafting, bungee jumping, parascending and all kinds of adventure sports that make it a big tourist draw but they were expensive and not really on our radar.

We ended the week with another travel day, leaving Pokhara to return to Kathmandu. The journey took just under 7 hours with breakfast and lunch stops again on the way. Once in Kathmandu we checked in to our hostel, packed the laptops and walked over to Himalayan Java, a chain coffee shop that everyone had been raving about that had good coffee, naughty cakes and fast internet. Wandering out later that night for dinner we ended up in the Irish Bar, excited by the thought of pub grub, but it was so noisy we didn’t stay long and went to a quiet pub next door watching the cricket while we ate.