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Published: October 13th 2012
Mt. Everest
29,000 feet and then some. Enough said.It doesn’t always turn out the way you plan it. Sometimes you learn to just roll with it despite the obstacles you face. Our time in Pokhara turned out to be a bit different than expected. Okay, maybe more so.
We left the mountains of Tanzen and headed towards the more mountainous enclave of Pokhara. At this point, it would be great to regale you with some fabulous tale, but the short of it is that about an hour short of our destination, we stopped for a biologic break. The facilities were located several steps down, and Dave slipped on some water and his feet flew out from under him. He slammed his left shoulder into a cement wall, which resulted in a nasty abrasion and his full weight came slamming down on a cement step on his lower back. Thankful he was not bleeding, dead or paralyzed we continued on.
Within a short period of time Dave was pretty miserable and sore. We will spare you additional details but this event altered our plans in Pokhara where we were supposed to hike two of the days we were in town. The universe had a new plan.
Dave
was moving at an extremely slow pace but he is healing. Now that is saying something, seeing as how he moves pretty slow on an average basis. So picture him just kind of moseying along and you get the picture.
We like Pokhara and enjoyed our days here. It has a good energy about it. We ended up having more down time than expected but things happen for a reason. Pokhara is a town of 250,000 people. Pokhara is the Queenstown of Nepal in that you can go rafting whitewater, hang- glading, fly in ultra-light vehicles and it is the gateway for trekking the Annapurna Mountain range.
We enjoyed talking with locals and travelers coming back from treks. We ran into a couple of German girls who were making the circuit around Poon Hill. They said it was described as a moderate hike but it just about killed them. Instead of doing the complete circle they cut the hike short, went to the top and came back down. They said their legs still hurt and they have to go back to work next week. These girls were in their twenties, and were complaining, so imagine what it would
be like for the older crowd.
When considering hiking in Nepal remember that Nepal has 8 of the 10 highest mountain peaks in the WORLD so….a moderate hike…….is a relative term perhaps to the locals, but this could be substantially more to flatlanders. Trekking is a big business here, as it should be. When you’ve got this kind of scenery, it makes perfect sense to want to have a good look at it.
Given Dave’s condition, we modified our itinerary. One of the things we ended up doing twice was a drive and short walk up to the view at Sarangkot. This vantage point allowed a glimpse of an amazing mountain range that surrounds this part of the world. We were fortunate that our weather was good. It’s one of those places where they get you up there for sunrise, but we found the view at about 9 o’clock was quite nice. As the day lengthens, the clouds obscure the view, but we got to see some serious beauty in our time there. It is one of those places that you could just pull up a chair and stare at for hours, drinking in the changing views.
In Pokhara, we were able to go to Davis Falls but passed on the caves in town as too many stairs were required, and it was also dark and wet. No repeats of days past for Dave. This was not a path we were willing to travel given recent events. The falls are somewhat unique in that they actually feed an underground stream when they are done flowing through the rocks.
We looked at a couple of temples in town, visited the World Peace Pagoda (another great view of the mountains here) and enjoyed a boat ride on the Fewa River. This little boat ride was very serene and peaceful. There are only row boats on the lake, so none of the noise associated with most lakes was present (read jet skis and power boats). We also spent a good bit of time on a mountaintop watching the hang-gliders take off. We caught some great video. It was fun watching everyone have so much fun. Hopefully, our photos will tell the real story.
Our first day in Nepal, we read where a plane crashed and killed 11 people. This provides a very somber moment. These people were here
Enchanting
And mystical....all rolled up into one beautiful view. to trek the mountains, but a bird flew into one of their engines shortly after take-off, dooming the flight. An ex-pat acquaintance who lives in Kathmandu part of the year told us 200 people a year die in plane crashes. That gives one moment to pause seeing as how we have a flight planned over Mt. Everest.
Several thoughts pass through your mind as one ponders this new information and a coping mechanism is to rationalize that statistically our odds of survival have just increased. At least that what we were telling ourselves.
Since you are reading this blog and looking at our photos of Mt. Everest you may have surmised that we indeed survived our flight. We took an hour flight that got us quite close to the highest peak on earth. We were cruising at an altitude of about 21,000 feet, yet it was somewhat odd that the mountains were right next to us. That’s one of the great beauties of the moment. This isn’t something you get to experience everyday. The peaks were magnificent to say the least. You just feel like you’re on top of the world and just drink it in.
The
cool thing about this flight was they gave everyone a window seat and each person was allowed in the cockpit to take photos. It was grand!
You have not seen many food photos recently because the food of Nepal has been a disappointment. Very mediocre. If you don’t want local Nepali food there is plenty of Italian, Indian and Chinese food available but none of it is great. It’s not like the great food we had in Vietnam and Bali. Not everyone can create wonderful national dishes and that’s okay. It is the mountains that draw many to the wonders that are Nepal.
MJ got a hair cut for $4.
Place we stayed: Mt. Kailash Resort
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littlewing
Cindy
WOW!
Sorry to hear of Daves fall, glad he is ok but OMG YOU SAW EVEREST!!!! Thanks for taking the pics, inspiring :)