Blogs from Pokhara, Nepal, Asia

Driving trip from Siliguri to Mustang, Nepal:- 1st March, Day 1: Drive along Asian Highway 2 across Bagdogra to Panitanki and crossed over the Mechi River bridge into Nepal. Obtained Vehicle permit from the transport office after paying INR 2200. Mercifully the system at the transport office has been upgraded to online, as such it was smooth and easy. Another temp road permits fro. Makeshift virta more office for INR 300 including INR 200 for the requested tip that we gave generously! I was surprised that we were asked by a transport official and 3 police personnel as to why we wanted to go into Nepal for 7 days. I told them this was the Nepal tourism year and should they be asking such questions instead if welcoming us. The going was good while the road ... read more

Dag 10: Bandipur Vandaag stonden we weer vroeg op om te ontbijten, want om 8 uur rijden we door naar Bandipur. Nog een stevig ontbijt, behalve voor Karen, want ze voelde zich nog wat slechter dan gisteren. Ze klonk en zag er echt ziek uit. Het was een weg van ongeveer 3,5 uur rijden. Onze chauffeur rijdt overal zonder GPS, maar toen de hoofdweg was afgesloten door enkele bamboestokken, heeft hij toch een goeie 8 keer de weg moeten vragen. ongeveer 2 min na ons vertrek zag ik ook nog een 'kingfisher (ijsvogel) van heel dichtbij zitten. een mooi afscheid van Chitwan. Onderweg maakten we een tussenstop aan een hangbrug op aanraden van onze chauffeur. "good for pictures!" En hij had wel gelijk. We zagen enkele sherpa's en trekkers klaar om een berg op te gaan. ... read more

Woke up very early this morning at 05:00 by a group of guests who must have been leaving for the first flight out of omsom. Couldn’t get back to sleep so got up and did some work on photos. We all met for breakfast just before 08:00 and left for the airport 08:45. It was just a 5 minute walk to the airport and the porters also came with us and carried the big duffel bags. We then waited for a while before Sudarshan got our boarding tickets and we had to put all our luggage on a scale. We mentally added up our group weight and thought we were under the 15kgs each we were allotted but to our surprise they said we were 5 kgs over for the group. Considering that’s just 1 kg ... read more

After a 7 hour bus ride, including 2 stops for food and 2 stops for a toilet break, we arrived in Pokhara. From here, the hiking adventure will begin. Pokhara had a different feel to it than Kathmandu. It is right by a lake and has one main road near us that runs along side it. The shore line stores almost follow a pattern of tourist shops: hiking gear/clothing, art, jewelry, tours, trinkets, hiking gear/clothing, insert random restaurant and coffee cafe...repeat. There is a park with a soccer field constantly in action and traffic is not so crazy that a random cow or two can‘t meander down the street looking for a snack. Our night consisted of roaming the back roads which really led more to the center of town (apparently the tourist stretch is on ... read more

Did paragliding with 'sunrise-paragliding' today. After getting our bags to yet another hostel (pushkar), we went to the paraglide company, that got us up the sarangkot mountain. My phone sadly didn't charge overnight, so I had no photocamera. Anything you see here is simons work :). We took off from the point that we reached in an earlier hike and I immediadiately felt a bit nauseated. Motion sickness. I could hold out for a while, as the pilot of our tandem flight navigated us in mostly straight lines,after the initials twists and turns to get a couple of hundred meters above the mountain. We had a beautiful view of the mountain, the places we hiked to, before, and the town of pokhara and fewa lake. It was especially interesting to see all the little sparkles reflect ... read more