Pure happiness in Pokhara

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Sorry for the tardiness of my postings but it has been trouble finding a place to upload photos. Even though it is now Sept. 9th and I am in India, here is my posting from Pokhara, Nepal:

Well, Ollie and I finally left Kathmandu after 20 days. We boarded a 7am bus in the pouring rain and joined 14 other people for a two day rafting trip down the Trusili river. We were lucky enough to hook up with our friend Keren again along with her Guest House mates Colin, Giggs, Portugal (that was where the guy was from but I never got his real name), Laura and a handful of Scottish volunteers working in the Nepal region.

We had a great time in the 2-3 class rapids which were evenly spaced so there was not much "floating" time. We camped out the one-night and of course ended up playing drinking games. It seemed that "pushing people off the raft" became more important than the rafting and of course, on my raft, it was "get the American". I ended up in the river more than 6 times and never because of the rapids.

After the second day of rafting, Ollie and I said goodbye to the gang and headed to Pokhara to take in the Phewa Lake and the surrounding Annapurna mountains. Unfortunately, due the monsoon season, we did not see the mountain range until our last day here. I spent one day paddling around Phewa Lake (and swimming in it) in a small canoe, another day mountain biking up to the World Peace Pagoda (where we ended up biking in a freakin' monsoon which wiped out my MP3 player), and one other day I rented a motorcycle and tooled around Pokhara taking in the sites (the Seti "white" river, the Buddhist monestary and a few bazaars).

Now we are off to Chitwan National Park for some fun with elephants and rhinos.

Hope everyone is doing well.

Larry

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Photos

The rafting adventure begins
With us doning stupid helmets

Lunch on the side of the river
The guides prepared a great meal of diced cucumbers, tuna fish and some bread.

The rafting group the following morning
notice the "oven" tents in the background. They produced temperatures of 100 degress +!

David's Falls
The local story is that a tourist named David fell into the large hole (bottom of photo) and so did his girlfriend.

World Peace Pagoda
This pagoda rests on top of a mountain which overlooks Pokhara and Phewa Lake.

Pokhara
Here is the view from the Pagoda. We stayed on the lakeside area.

Machapuchare Mountain of the Annapurna Range
On our last day, we finally got a glimpse of the Annapurna mountain range as the fog lifted. This is the view from our hotel rooftop.

Local direction givers
I rented a motorcycle for the day and rode around Pokhara and outlying areas. I stopped for directions from these lovely Nepalese ladies.

Seti river of Pokhara
The white, milky color comes from the limestone in the soil.