Leaving the mountains behind :-(

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Day 7 - Banthanti to Pokhara

There's not much to say about this day's trek except it was VERY long and was taking us away from our beloved mountains. The day was extremely hot and the steps down were relentless. Luckily I've got quite good at these so for the first part of the day was able to skip along down quite easily, but the heat of the day and the lack of stops soon started to take it's toll. We would turn each corner hoping that Krishna, Marc and Phil had stopped but no such luck. It was obviously going to be a long hard slog. It was only the thought of an ice cold coke that kept me going toward the end as step after step banged our aching knees.

After hours of this tortuous trekking in the hot hot hot scorchio sun we eventually collapsed into the dinner break stop. And then the heavens opened! And opened! And opened!!

We had come full circle and had to finish our trekking as we had started - in a down pour. But wayhey the rain was music to our ears - Michelle's virginal condom coat was to get a damned good deflowering to great cheers and photo taking from us all. We immediately spotted the flaw in the design - no hood! We were prepared, or not, to varying degrees and it was a strange sight that met the porters (led by Marc and his brolly looking like some strange tour guide) as we arrived at the bus, dry, damp, soaked or drenched (depending on what waterproof clothing we had packed that morning!).

And so a we arrived at the posh hotel in Pokhara, stinking, wet, muddy and received our welcoming flowers. We were seated around a kind of font affair into which we wondered if we would be required to throw our dirty stinking clothes for a ceremonial burning!

And here we had to say goodbye to dear Krishna and Govinda and it was hugs all round and tearful farewells to these two great, humble, always cheerful and helpful sherpas.

Then we finally got checked in and saw our rooms and we were in heaven! And outside in the hotel grounds was a POOL! Wow what a treat we were in for - 3 nights and 2 days in Pokhara paradise.

The order of priorities went something like this: Shower, sort dirty clothes, send dirty clothes to be cleaned quick sharp, Chill with gin and tonic at the bar by the pool! That evening we all went out for a meal at Moondance (might have got the name wrong but it had moon in the title!). The choice of food was overwhelming but when it arrived, surprisingly not up to the standards of the
Tea Houses! We had a hilarious, hysterical evening culminating in Phil (now nick named Dusty Bin due to him eating up everyone's left overs on the trek) ordering a Machapuchare Kiss from the male waiter, AND four spoons/straws (we had no idea what it was!). Bearing in mind that Machapuchare Mountain is a typical pointy topped mountain we were less than impressed with the flat pud that came to our table so refashioned it into the correct pointy shape and tucked in!

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