Adventure & Service the adventures of a dentist and an engineer
making a difference in the world

Lonely Planet sums it up:
"Imagine a perfect triangular mountain, capped by snow and buffeted by the icy winds of the Himalaya. Imagine a millpond calm lake, perfectly reflecting the snowy peaks. Now imagine a village on the lakeshore, thronged by travellers and reverberating to the sound of ‘om mani padme hum’ from a hundred shops selling prayer flags, carpets, masks, singing bowls and CDs of Buddhist mantras. That’s Pokhara."


After enduring a bus ride from hell, Lakeside in Pokhara is truly paradise. We left Chitwan on a "tourist" bus. Unlike most tourist buses here in Nepal there was no air conditioning. So we endured a hot humid six hour trip in a bus packed with people with chairs that squeaked as we drove over washed out, bumpy roads. We survived and after a few hours of shopping around found a hotel we liked. Little did we know that we had perhaps the best room in Pokhara. The "penthouse" room, #612, all by itself on the top floor of the Landmark Hotel, for $40 a night. The views were amazing. From our balcony we saw the lake surrounded by green hills placed perfectly to highlight the Annapurna snow-capped mountains rising in the background.


Our first night we were treated to an fantastic lightning storm that lasted for a couple hours. Being the unofficial photographer on the trip I had a lot of fun. I've always wanted to learn how to take night photographs so I dragged the hotel cabinet do the balcony door and started experimenting with the exposure times. I was using fixed exposure times of 20-30 seconds so a lot of them didn't turn out. The most impressive lightning was WAY overexposed and many shots didn't have any lightning. The worst part was waiting the remainder of the exposure time to see if the shot turned out alright. In the end a couple did.




We relaxed the next day and then hiked from Devi's Falls up to the World Peace Pagoda. We took the wrong path but we had a great time anyway. Note to self, always take the bigger path. We came within about 6 feet of a family of monkeys before they scampered away. We also had the path all to ourselves until the very end. The pagoda itself wasn't worth the hike but the views of the lake and the clouds mingling with the mountains made it worth it.







After hiking down to the lake we enjoyed a relaxing boat ride back to Lakeside and our hotel. We spent a lot of time exploring all the shops along the lake. If felt like we had gone into every one before we left. We also highly recommend the Moondance Restaurant next to the Landmark Hotel and also the Tea Time Bamboostan restaurant toward the north end of Lakeside, both of which have free wireless internet for customers. We also had a great time renting a boat or kayak and heading out on the lake on our own. We had a beautiful sunset boat ride watching a big group of monkeys swing down one by one to drink from the lake about 20 feet from our boat. They were hard to spot in the fading light but you could tell where they were by the wild swaying branches.




Pokhara is a travelers paradise because you have everything you need and most of the luxuries you would want all within walking distance along a lake front framed by a breathtaking mountain range. The setting is impossible to put into words. Pokhara is filled with restaurants, German bakeries, massage boutiques, laundry services, hand-made Tibetan jewelery stands, miniature REI shops selling "genuine" trekking gear, clothing stores, travel agents, and more. The shop keepers clamorer for attention and say things like "Come inside and just look, no need to buy." Once you get over the feeling of being accosted and loose the "I'm lost" look the salesman aren't a bother but add to the atmosphere of Pokhara. While Jessica was invited into every jewelry and clothing shop, I got offered marijuana at least twice and the barber shops all wanted to shave my "trekking beard" whenever they saw me. Thankfully I don't think I offended any of them when I laughed at them.