40) Pokhara - backpacker's dream on the Phewa Lake

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May 27th 2005

Published: June 10th 2005

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Stephan and Klaudia

Stupa of World Peace

Nice Budddhist temple on a green hill above Pokhara

Due to the bad experience with our first night in Nepal and to reports from fellow travellers that parts of the road to Pokhara were under construction causing massive traffic jams, we opted for some luxury and bought two flights. We had reserved the tickets with a local travel agent, but had neither paid them ($ 43 per person) nor had them physically in hands. We were told that we would get them at the airport, so we hired a taxi and the whole staff from Hotel Parkside accompanied us. First we had to find a bank, for up to now we had not had any Nepalese rupees in our hands, the extra drinks we always paid in Indian currency. In the first bank there was neither money exchange nor cash against credit card, so we had to make another attempt in Bharatpur, the city in the compounds of which the small airport is situated. In the Himalayan Bank we got cash against credit card, very well guarded by at least five policemen with loaded rifles. Everything worked out fine, we were able to pay the rest of the package to Prakash, they brought us to a restaurant opposite the airport,

Klaudia and the Buddha

One of several nice Buddha representations

where we bade them farewell. Our travel agent had turned up in the meantime and our tickets with him. We still had plenty of time before the plane’s departure and spent it in the restaurant, having some nice food and conversation with the owner. The travel agent accompanied us to the tiny airport and led us up to the control tower, obviously he was bored and glad about some company. We had never been inside a control tower before and it was quite fascinating watching all the instruments, although hardly anything was going on. The plane from Kathmandu was late anyhow and when its arrival was announced, we had to climb down to ‘check in’.

The plane was very small, with only 20 seats and we hoped to get a nice view on the Himalayan range. This was probably our shortest flight ever, only 20 min, but we enjoyed it very much. The small aircraft was flying at low altitude and we perfectly saw the green hills though the mountains of the Himalayas stayed invisible. The hills were densely wooded, but also rice terraces filled the hillsides up to the top, where the houses were mostly situated. For us

Teaching Buddha

Wonderful Buddha with nice blue hair

this was quite an unusual sight, since in Austria mostly the valleys are populated. Only few tarred roads were visible, but a lot of gravel or sand roads linking the hills and the different hamlets. The flight was fine, a bit bumpy sometimes, we arrived in Pokhara around 5 p.m. and were picked up by a car. This car belonged to a hotel which had been recommended to us by the travel agency from which we had bought the Chitwan package and we had also got a voucher for one free night. The hotel was all right, in a quiet side street and the room really cheap (ca. EUR 3), so we stayed.

Pokhara is Nepal’s second biggest city, picturesquely situated on the orders of the Phewa Lake and surrounded by green hills. It reminded Klaudia strongly of the place where she was born and funnily both of us got a bit homesick. There are some differences of course, the pagoda on top of one hill, the temple on an island and most strikingly, the Himalayan range in the background. The mountains around Klagenfurt are definitely far less high! Tourists normally see only a small fraction of the city,

Suspension bridge

One of Klaudia's horrors...

the street lining the lake, which is full of hotels, souvenir shops and restaurants. It almost reminded us of an Austrian ski resort, but very empty, since tourists currently are not flocking to Nepal. The density of shops is absolutely amazing, especially to us after more than three months in India. You can buy really everything you might wish for: complete trekking equipment (which you can also rent by the way), Pokhara is the starting point for all kinds of treks, including the famous Anapurna base camp (up to 21 days); varied items of clothing, t-shirts, shirts, blouses, trousers and skirts in local designs or embroidered with Nepalese symbols like the Buddha eye; warm and beautiful pashmina shawls and nicely embroidered silk or woollen jackets from Kashmir; plenty of silver and gem jewellery; books, maps, postcards, cheap CDs and DVDs; all sorts of souvenirs made from wood, camel bone or stone: boxes, vases, lacquered Christmas balls, Nepalese and Tibetan rugs. This enumeration is far from complete and is only meant to give our readers a brief insight. The tourist infrastructure is overwhelming, but the tourists are missing. Stephan lost one part of the latch of his big backpack and in

On her way to work

Nepalese lady on her way to the rice fields

a trekking shop found the seemingly right piece but he hesitated because he wasn’t sure whether it really fitted, then the shop owner implored him to buy it (worth ca. EUR 1.50) as he was the first customer in five days. This was a story we frequently heard, though not always that explicitly, mostly the shop owners’/assistants’ tone was very imploring and we could see despair in their eyes. But we could not buy from every shop and eat or drink in every restaurant! We felt deep sympathy for these poor guys but what could we do? Anyway, the food there was very good, though not Nepalese, we mostly ate fresh fish from the lake and Klaudia no longer restrained herself and had salad every single day.

In our hotel we made the acquaintance of three Mexicans (we had already seen them in the pizzeria in Varanasi), which gave us the opportunity to brush up our Spanish. We often sat together for breakfast and talked for several hours, they were absolutely fascinating to talk to. One afternoon we rented a boat and rowed to the unpopulated bank of the lake - the water was cleaner there - and went

Rice fields

They are everywhere, also on the slopes of the hills

swimming. We really had a lot of fun! One evening we made ourselves a special kind of dinner: Fermin bought a bottle of French reds wine, Jenny and Marcel took care of the cheese (though camembert was impossible to find) and our task was to find some bread (we could not get French baguette but at least found some brown bread in a ‘German bakery’). Well, we were in Nepal and had to do with what was available and our ‘French evening’ would have been impossible in India. We set up a big table on the hotel terrace and spent a very pleasant evening with candlelight. Our Mexican friends left before us for a trek of several days, we hope they enjoyed it and came back all right, maybe we will meet again somewhere.

We decided against a trek, considering ourselves not fit and sporty enough, we took it easy with walking in the neighbourhood. One of these walks took us up a wooded hill to the Stupa of World Peace. We started shortly after 7 a.m. in order to avoid the most scorching heat of the day. The first serious obstacle for Klaudia was a suspension bridge, which

Walking in the woods

Not completely like Austria, but similar

she abhors crossing. It was rather short but very shaky because a lot of people crossed it at the same time, children ran over it without any problems. Cows also seemed to love the bridge (we admit it was the only way to cross the river at the very spot), it was not easy to avoid the heaps of dung. At the beginning it was not very easy to find our way, but once again people were very sweet and helpful, a young man even accompanied us to a spot where the path became clearly visible. Now we were in the woods and could mostly walk in the shade. Still we did not advance very quickly, there were so many things to discover, trees, ferns, flowers and different kinds of mushrooms which Klaudia would have loved to pick and cook. On our way we also crossed macaque territory but this was no problem since they feared us and fled in huge numbers. There was only one situation where we feared they might attack. We came to a spot where a fallen tree was lying across the path in some height so that we could walk by easily. But there were

Mushrooms

Appealing specimens which Klaudia would have loved to pick and cook

two monkeys on that trunk and they felt threatened by our approach because any escape route for them was cut. They would not turn around with their backs to us and could only advance a little bit until the end of the trunk, and from there it was obviously too high for them to jump. So they stopped and stared menacingly down at us with bared teeth. We were really afraid they would jump on us! But we wanted to continue and walked on slowly and steadily, controlling our impulse to run. Fortunately this appeased the macaques and they left us in peace. It was already 10:30 when we spotted the stupa for the first time, above us on the right-hand side. Before the path turned right, there was a small hut with drinks on the left side. We gladly had a seat and enjoyed lemon tea and some chips, our first food of the day. After some rest we managed the few metres which separated us from the Stupa of World Peace, passing two more small restaurants. It was not spectacular but a nice to look at immaculately white Buddhist temple decorated with some fine representations of the Buddha.

Macaques on trunk above our heads

They did not really trust us

But it offered a spectacular view on the Phewa Lake, the city of Pokhara and - theoretically - the Himalayan peaks. We were quite unlucky with the mountain view, due to the pre-monsoon season the clouds were building up and when the peaks were not hidden by clouds, they were clad in haze. So we hardly saw them even when we got up at 5 a.m. to have a look (actually we only had to draw back the curtains and lift our heads, as we had a room with mountain view). We stayed about half an hour, then we headed back by a different way all made of steps. Thank God we had not chosen this way uphill! Once we crossed an old man who deliberately offered us marihuana (we had already see it grow in different places), had a drink in a restaurant and then took a boat to the other lake side.

We had a fine time in Pokhara, relaxed, ate good food, saw a lot of nature (including lychee trees) and also many soldiers, but after one week it was time for some culture again in Kathmandu, where we were to meet Stephan’s father who will