Pokhara, Nepal
Pokhara is the gateway city to trekking the Annapurna range. We came here on an 8-hour bus ride from Kathmandu for that very thing and spent a few days before the trek here. However, after our trek, we decided to stay an additional week as the city has a relaxed charm that we really enjoyed, along with beautiful views of the mountains and the lake. It was the perfect spot to base ourselves for a bit.
We rented the bottom flat in a building in a local neighborhood, which allowed us to glimpse a bit of what life in the city was like. The buildings don’t have heat so in the chilling mornings, we all gathered sitting on the half-wall in front of our apartment where the sun was shining drinking coffee or tea and warming up in the sunshine.
Pokhara is known as a paragliding paradise and the sky was full of tandem flyers every morning and late afternoon. The sky would have 40-60 gliders up at once. We did not take a ride as it has never been on our to-do list, but this certainly looked like the place to do it as they launched from the mountain above the city and came down to land by the lake.
One day, we hired a boat and boatman to row us across Fewa Lake where we hiked up around an hour to reach Nepal’s World Peace Pagoda and the amazing views of Fewa Lake, Pokhara, and the Himalayan range.
We lucked out that Nepal was hosting the South Asia Games that week and Pokhara was home to several events, including sand volleyball. Zach and I went to several matches throughout the week. I can tell you that watching this level of volleyball on a lake with the Himalayans in the background was something I never thought I would see.
When it was finally time to leave Pokhara, we walked to the bus station down the street, and Zach had his first coffee while we waited for the departure. Instead of booking the Greenline bus we had taken here, our apartment host had convinced me to try a “much more luxurious” bus for the ride back to Kathmandu. We were fine with the original bus line, but he clearly received a commission if we bought tickets to this other bus line through him. He was a great help that whole week, so why not. We ended up laughing as you can see the bus had bolted overstuffed recliner-type chairs into it. Without the support of a traditional vehicle seat, we were bounced around like pinballs in these huge seats. That said, Zach loved the 8-hour ride since it is much too jolting to get any homework done. This meant a lot of video game time for him.
