Headed down to Pokhara for New Year’s weekend.
It’s a tough choice of transport options. You can spend around 6-7 hours by road, depending on all the usual hazards (snow, ice, huge trucks, vertical drops, switchback turns, near death experiences) or you can fly down in 35 minutes…hmmm..even allowing for traffic at the Kathmandu end that’s still 5 hours to the good and only have to hop in a ‘plane.
Decision made (mind like a steel cornflake), plane booked, all things for plan packed (this time) and off to the airport. Kathmandu domestic is a little on the retro side..no problem at all..arrive nice an early..get to read my book while waiting and, here’s an interesting twist..I was the only westerner in the whole terminal…wow…I’m unique!
The ‘plane was a monster operated by Yeti Airlines http://www.yetiairlines.com/index.php (Fly the furry skies)
And with all 27 seats we took off, all pedalling like mad.
Pokhara sits on a narrow strip of land beside a lake and just hemmed in a little by the Annapurnas. This inconsequential little row of hillocks runs for about 55 klms and has 30 peaks of over 6,000metres. I’ll run up and down all of them before brekky tomorrow. Quite a stunning backdrop for the village by the lake.
Over the New Year there is a five day street festival, cars are excluded, restaurants spill onto the street, stalls for food, clothes, trinkets and other very essential stuff (like a power adaptor coz mine is still in Kathmandu. Apparently it is also the “Playground of the Bold and the Beautiful” but luckily they were out of town doing god knows what and they let me and about a zillion other people on holiday. Pokhara is the Nepali holiday destination of choice, New Year is the busiest weekend of the year. Apparently the population doubles (to 400,000) during this weekend.
