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Other entries in Pokhara

Nepal part 2

 For the first 2 weeks of our arrival in Kathmandu we were waiting for "bad things" to pass through our bodies and not wanting to use our very limited and much needed supply of Cipro to cure the nasty intestinal bug we figured we picked up while trekking in Tibet, we let nature take it's course.  After 2 weeks, we finally started having normal bathroom breaks all the while making sure to keep ourselves hydrated and VERY close to the toilet.  The last week in Kathmandu we were able to visit a couple of sites in town but even just to visit Durbar Square was going to cost us 200Nepali rupies ($3).  But since we only wanted to walk through the square and not visit the delapitated ruins, Andre convinced them to wave the fee.  Maybe this sounds petty, but just simply walking through the town should never cost $6 !!

After exploring parts of Kathmandu we knew it was time to make a move, so we pulled our very relaxed butts down the street and bought a bus ticket from Kathmandu to Pokhara.  When we got there, we were told that the price was $12/ticket instead of the web price of $10.....and since our name was already written in their reservation book, we knew that a guy at our hotel had called these guys before we got there and he now had a $4 commission in his pocket for giving them our names.  Andre informed me that this practice of selling your name to a company is VERY common and then we thought aliases would be a good idea......We have since chosen Tim Horton for Andre cause we assume that name isn't known in this part of the world - many thanks go out to Skip Henderson for this idea!

At 8am we left Kathmandu and arrived at a very quiet Pokhara 6 hours later.  We stayed at The Pokhara View Garden Guesthouse for $14/night where we were supposed to have a mountain view and would have if it wasn't for the weather.  Unfortunately this RTW doesn't always match up with the desired weather everyone wants during their vacation and this time we were in mid-monsoon.  We had heard that humidity will be the downfall of a trip, but until I experienced it, I thought it would merely be the temperature that I couldn't stand.  We are constantly dripping with sweat, our clothes are constantly soaked and not from the rain!  We feel pretty gross about 100% of the time and always have to have a hanky close by. 

Pokhara is a really great little place, with the quiet streets being such a huge change from the hussle and bussle of Kathmandu.  Here, no one really hounds you for anything.  They say "please look inside" and every once in a while these sweet little Tibetan ladies ask if you'd like to look at their jewelery.  Yes, Tibetan ladies - in the 50's there was a movement of Tibetans out of China and they have lived here ever since. 

There are water buffalo everywhere in the streets and sidewalks - it's a crazy little place!  We entertained ourselves here for 11 days just walking up and down the streets and spending time on the lake.  We met a great guy from the Laxman restaurant who took us fishing and we learned how to do it the Nepali way.... with boiled potatoes the best bait of all!  His restaurant also had icy cold beer!  And I mean ICY!!  There was ice on the outside of the bottle and he even poured that into a frosty mug - let me tell you we were in heaven!!!!!!  We told them that THIS was the way Canadians drink their beer and if there was a never ending supply like this, we would come back forever......all I can say is thank goodness we had a couple weeks at the gym before coming here!  Of course we 'struggled' with whether we should just hold the icy bottle on our necks to cool off or drink it straight away.....truly, we struggled with that!!

The power outages were constant as the rain was torrential at times.  Unfortunately, we only saw the beautiful mountain range of the Anna Purna on the one morning we went fishing, any other time we just wouldn't know that they existed.  We never did any trekking as the trail wasn't great due to the weather and mountain biking was not such a popular place in the humidity of the day.  This is just another place we KNOW we have to come back to......the people are great and the area is beautiful.  There's just so much more to see.......

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