Pokhara, like Kathmandu, has a tourist ghetto. It's called Lakeside, it's full of restaurants, trekking shops and guest-houses. Unlike Thamel, in Kathmandu, I found this far less congested and in your face. It's location on lake Phewa Tal makes it a lovely place to relax.
Moving on, we're into our final couple of days of climbing in the mountains before we reach the flat plains of Nepal's Western Terai and Northern India. Since we left Vientiane, it seems like we've alternated between climbing and descending steep ribbons of tarmac, and sometimes just dirt. The number of flat days has been few and far between.
Our first port of call was the town of Waling, on the 'main' highway 10 south of Pokhara. The road climbed out of Pokhara for 10 miles, and looking back down the valley gave us astounding views over to the peaks of the Annapurna range.
By the time we were 15 miles into the ride we realised we'd been completely wrong about our comment in the last blog posting questioning the reputation of friendliness of the Nepalese compared to other nations. Once we left the tourist highway, we were on the receiving end of more “Namaste's" (hello & goodbye in one) than you could shake a stick at. One small lad quite forgot himself and jumped on the trailer for a ride up the hill. He got the Denyze nanny stare. That soon lightened our load.
Found a guest house on the south side of Waling, which had a simply massive room, and a curious definition of en-suite. The bathroom also served as an outside toilet for the family who owned the place. So to use, you would have to unbolt the toilet door inside the bedroom, lock it again from the other side, then cross the room to lock the outside door that the family might use. That curiosity aside though, it was a very pleasant place to spend a night with more lovely views down the valley in the late afternoon sunshine.
Went for a fantastic meal of Daal bhaat at a local restaurant in the evening back in town. Food was awesome and the owner's young son spent the whole meal staring at Denyze while pretending to watch wrestling on the TV.
Yesterday, we had our last major climb until we get to the Andes. A thousand vertical metres over 20 kms at the end of a short day to the town of Tansen. Otherwise known as Palpa, this former mountain kingdom was the last area of Nepal to fall under the control of Kathmandu's monarchy. It is currently having it's Durbar (palace) rebuilt following a Maoist attack during the civil war, but we had a lovely walk around the town, and a another first class meal in a restaurant on the town square.
Today we reaped the rewards of all of our climbing yesterday with a 20+ mile decent into Butwal. Not so fortunate was the weather, it rained with an intensity that suggested the current 8 day festival to celebrate the end of the monsoon season maybe a little premature. Currently stopped for brekkie at a road side resort on the way to Lumbini. We're on our way to see the birthplace of Buddha, and then out west for a couple of days on safari at a wildlife reserve. Let's hope my cycling cape has had it's last outing for a while.
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