Advertisement
Published: December 16th 2005
Edit Blog Post
As the hotel car drops me at the airport, I still feel rather sleepy but excited at the though of what I was about to do. I saw a brochure detailing possible excursions around the Annapurna. I go through the customs procedure with an amused feeling: the check-in desk is just that - a simple desk, all is done by hand, no computers to be seen anywhere. My check-in is done in record time (about 30 seconds), the security check consists of a single question from a guard asleep in a corner: do you have something you shouldn’t have? I reply, with my best smile, that of course not, he gently pats my pockets so that his conscience may rest easy, ignores my bags as it is clearly too much effort and waves me through to the departure lounge. From the moment I stepped into the lounge and saw the plane, I thought Christmas had come early. The plane was tiny, two propeller engine; I was flying with Shangri-la airline to Pokhara, a tiny domestic airline. The plane took a maximum of 12 passengers but there were only 3 of us, myself and two Indian ladies with a lot of bags.
I was sat directly behind the pilot and next to the hostess. She was rather charming and I positively fell in love with her before take-off. The take-off was tremendous fun: noisy, bouncy and uncertain. This is why people love flying, the vibrations of the aircraft, the roar of the engine and the uncertainty of the return. During the flight, the pilot and I started chatting about life. He was born in Kathmandu but trained in India. We flew relatively low, following the valleys, sometimes climbing higher above the clouds so that we could see the mountain range; he had incredible freedom in his flight plan.
At one point, we flew over a large monastic complex. I asked the pilot what it was and, instead of answering, he drops down and circles it a couple of time and gives me some name or the other for it. We fly so low that I am able to see what the monks are having for lunch: rice and green vegetables by the look of things. This is what flying should be like. I can now understand a bit better my father’s love of flight simulators. The landing at
Pokhara is even more impressive looking at it through the cockpit.
Pokhara airport is little more than a small house by the runway. There is a large aircraft that crashed at the end of the runway (or was simply forgotten there) and is currently calmly rusting away. The military protecting the runway take advantage of the sunny weather to dry their clothes on the pillboxes. It looks relaxed. A car from the hotel picks me up as I get off the aircraft and drives me to the Shangri-La Resort Village.
It is unfortunately rather far from the lake but pleasantly set in the middle of large rice fields. The hotel consists of little bungalows with four nicely decorated rooms in each; it is set in lush gardens dotted with hammocks and a large swimming pool overlooking the rice fields and the Annapurna. The reason why I am here, the Annapurna is one of the highest mountains of the region at 8,091 meters of altitude. I want to fly around it. There are a number of ways to do so: I can hire a helicopter (too expensive), a plane (too expensive), do paragliding or ultra light flying
(both reasonable). I decide to do both as I get a good discount for doing the two (same company operates the two excursions). The rest of the afternoon is spent in and around the swimming pool, admiring the mountain range.
In the evening, I grab a taxi and go to the lake to admire the sunset. The lake is exceedingly beautiful, surrounded by the green hills of the valley and the huge mountain range. There is such serenity here, such a calm and feeling of well being. The lake-side is filled with small restaurants, internet cafes, bookshops and souvenir shops. It reminds me of Luang-Prabang in Laos, same sort of feel but the houses have no particularly interesting architecture.
There are hardly any tourists around. The food is good, mainly a mix between Indian and Tibetan, surprisingly no yak. The king has 2 palaces here and the village is heavily guarded with check-points at every bend of the road. The cars have to turn off their headlights as they approach the check points so as not to blind the soldiers. The only problem with this practice is that there are no other lights around for the
driver to see his way. What had to happen did: at the check-point near the hotel, the driver turned his headlights off too soon and drove straight into the barbed wire protecting the check-point. An argument ensued, I paid and left them to it: the hotel was only 2 minutes on foot away
Advertisement
Tot: 0.072s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 10; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0509s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1mb
cmthomas
non-member comment
So nice to see the continuation of your journey, Chris. Your narration continues to be interesting and exciting, if sporadic. I will stay tuned for the further adventures! Clarence