20th Oct - 4th Nov. Pokhara

Temperature: Hot and humid, maybe 30 degrees
Swim in lake: 1
Himalaya mountain views: 0
Lovely meals: Every night
Delhi belly: 1
Highest walk: 1596 metres
Money spent shopping: Too much!

It was a hassle getting here (Nepal), but we have made it! Travelling to the border at Sunauli was fairly straightfoward, but getting money for our visas on then on to Pokhara was far too complicated.

The bus stopped about 1km short of the border so we had to get one of the many, many cycle-rickshaws to take us the rest of the way... or so we thought, but as usual there is commission to be had, so our precocious kid of a driver took us to a shirt shop (with money changer) so we could get the necessary 60 US dollars for our Nepal visa.

Unfortunately we didn't have enough Indian Rupees to get the required amount and they didn't have any card facilities, so they sent Carl off in the rickshaw to find somewhere that took a card. Not as easy as it sounds. In fact especially difficult as it was also the start of a Nepal festival and most places were closed. Eventually a man was summoned from his home and opened his travel agent, but when he realised that we only needed a small amount because the Indian money lenders had already done the deal things got very heated indead.

What started as a fairly normal argument quickly got out of hand and ended up being a full-blown fight between the Nepali travel agents and the Indian money lender guy (who we think came off worse). Carl made his exit pretty rapidly and headed off down the street walking quickly.

Still no UD dollars though, so we had to go back to the money lenders. They must have been equally pee'd off with the whole scenario (which they created) as eventually they gave us our money back and we went back to the Nepali travel agents to get our US dollars.

Getting the actual Visa was, in contrast, very straightforward and within 10 minutes or so we had our Visa and were officially in Nepal.

Unfortunately though, due to the festival, there were no buses running that afternoon so we had to stay an unscheduled night in Sunauli. Early the next morning though we were out of there on the first bus to Pokhara!

The bus was full, so this meant that the goat that someone brought had to go on top of the roof along with all the baggage.
The journey took us through Lumbini, which is where Buddha was born (not much to see though), and up into the mountains. The journey was picturesque with lovely clay and thatched cottages (which were all very clean) huddled in the mountain side.

Unfortunately the other passengers were too occupied with being sick to notice! Gosh, the Nepalis don't do travel. The lady in front of us was really ill, she was constantly sick, then she seemed to get better, but the bus crash didn't help too much. Yep, our first crash (let's hope it's our last). For some reason the bus came to a sudden holt, it was probably some cow in the road. Anyway, the bus behind didn't stop and went crashing into the back of us. The windows all shattered and showerered the passengers at the back.The seat in front of us broke causing the seat to fall back on our legs. The leg room was tight as it was, and Vik's knee was already pressed against the bar of the seat in front (Carl's didin't even fit in), so on impact it gave a nasty bruise on the knee and shin, and a graize.

It wasn't much good for the woman in front because as we set off again, the seat swung back and forth, only exaggerating her travel sickness even more! The poor little goat didn't feel too well after either, the bus dropped the shaken goat off at the next village. After that it was quite uneventful, apart from us having to hold the seat in front so it didn't squash us.

On our first day we walked along the lakeside and realised that we were in tourist ville of Pokhara. There isn't much to see as it seems to be a base for trekking the Annapurna mountain range. The city seems quite new (unlike Kathmandu). It made a nice change as there are many clean restaurants and trekking shops that span across the side of the lake, so you can sit and enjoy a (real) coffee by the lakeside.

Our sight seeing also doubled as training for trekking, as all the sightseeing involved walking up many steep high hills. The first of these, was the walk up to the World Peace Pagoda that sits on a hill over looking Pokhara and the mountains (which we couldn't see due to mist).

We arrived early into Nepal, we were scheduled to arrive on the 4th November (during peak season), but when we arrived, the monsoon had only just finished, which was later than normal (global warming?!). Therefore we couldn't see the mountains for the warm mist and clouds that hadn't dispersed yet.

More sightseeing (trekking) involved a day up to Sarangkot, which is a village perched high above Pokhara (1596 metres), and is suppose to be a superb location for watching the sunrise and set over the Annapurna Mountain Range. We arrived well in time to see the sunset. Unfortunately the mountains were still hiding from us behind thick clouds, only to appear for a split second through a little window.

We decided to try our luck and see if we could see some mountains at sunrise (6:30am). We stayed in a lovely little lodge that had a great little terrace where we could watch over Pokhara (from a very great hight), drinking beer and having (very salty) pasta, and watched the sun go down.

One of our other sightseeing (training) trips was to the bat caves at the other end of Pokhara, the walk took us 5 1/2 hours and was around 15 miles round trip. We saw some bats in a cave (which took around 15 mins), then walked back. Good training though.

Most of the two weeks was spent eating, drinking, shopping (many knock off goods) and waiting for the clouds to clear. We were about to leave for our trek to Annapurna Base Camp (4130 metres) when Vik ate something bad and spent a day and a half vomiting down the toilet, which postponed our trek for 2 days.

Eventually, feeling a little tender, we got a taxi to Naya Pul to start our 9 day trek, which is another story, but now, after finishing the trek we're off to Kathmandu where we will update with photos and the ABC trek blog.