At 7.00PM in the rain a sea of touts and taxis waited for our bus to pull up. The conductor, jumped out pulling the tarp off the roof of the bus exposing our luggage to the warm Monsoon rain. Taxi, hotel; we were offered. Peace Plaza hotel we requested. We didn't actually have a reservation but we didn't want to let the tauts know that. This hotel was recommended by a couple we met one morning at breakfast in Kolkata. The staff were at the door, do you want a room? Yes please. The pleasant young man showed us a room, looked clean and had a shower, we booked it for the next 3 nights. We arrived tired and hungry and felt relieved to discard our luggage and walk across the road for a meal, and then back to our room for a good night's sleep. It's been a long day.

We awoke early the following morning. Drawing the curtains, we saw some 100 meters away kids in white outfits practicing karate and later in the morning soccer, this scene could have been anywhere in Australia. Beyond this was the Fewa Lake. Last night in the dark we had no idea of the view, but it was picturesque, a small temple stood on one of the hills surounding the scene. It was great, we were grateful for a fine recommendation.

Pokhora is surrounded by mountains but during our total of four nights stay (one at the end of our treck) we were unable to see the snow capped mountains because of the cloud cover. The locals said the monsoon is lasting longer than expected; that's climate change for you!! With all the rain, rivers, waterfalls Nepal experieces electricity outages, there are parts of the day where no one gets electricity. The hotel/shop businesses usually have their own generators that covers the out periods. The locals use candles.

We spent the following couple of days checking out the cute town of Pokhora and organising our treck. We walked around with our umbrella as you can never tell when that Monsoon rain will strike. Leigh uses his umbrella also for the sun, we looked to purchase a hat but the only ones the Napalese wear are caps so the umbrella is it as there is no way Leigh would wear a cap, lol.

We arranged in Kolkata sim cards for our phones, although we requested roaming with Airltel and several emails to them whilst in Pokhara, we are unable to use our phones or internet while in Nepal, so contact with family was limited. Nevertheless, some cafe's provided wi-fi connection. Internet is extreamly slow.

Thanks again for the postings, we enjoy reading them. In the next blog I will tell you about our 9 day treck.

PS Who won the finals?

Love from us both. Nella & Leigh xxxx