Pokhara and Kathmandu

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After the hike we were disappointed to find that Pokhara’s tourism bureau had deceived us. All the billboards and postcards depict views of the Annapurna range, with a bright blue lake in the foreground and blue skies. Unfortunately our reality wasn’t even close - the smog that covered Pokhara prevented us from seeing the surrounding hills, let alone the Annapurnas.

We were keen on some chill out time, however, so we hung around in the tourist area of Pokhara, called lakeside. There are a couple of things to do and see in Pokhara - going up the hill to Sarangot or going to the World Peace Pagoda on the southern side of the lake. However, the appeal of both these activities was having views of the mountains, and without a chance of seeing anything we became quite lazy and content to not venture too far out. Apart from straying off the main street to find a French patisserie (run by a french 'guru') for some AMAZING chocolate croissants, we did nothing much.

After a couple of days in Pokhara we decided that we were dreadfully bored of the place, so we caught a bus to Kathmandu. It took all day - 2 hours from Kathmandu we found ourselves stuck in an extremely long traffic jam. It might have been some maoist plot, or there may have been an accident- but it evidently doesn't take much to stop a winding, 1 1/2 lane road full of trucks, buses, jeeps and motorbikes. The journey took 3 exhausting hours longer than it should have.

Our time in Kathmandu was rather brief, as we were looking to get out of the country before Maoist strikes prevented us from leaving Nepal for India. We went to Durbar Square, where there are many old temples. However, again we were glad when we left for Chitwan National Park and India as Thamel, where we were staying in Kathmandu, is a noisy, smoggy pit of tourists and touts.

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Photos

Traffic jam
There's only two roads in and out of Kathmandu ..