Pokhara

Friday 13th!

How wonderful this place is after Kathmandu.
Imagine the peace of a large lake in a fair sized town that actually doesn't have too much traffic so you don't feel like you are taking your life in your hands every time you step out into the road. This was the view from the hotel:

We flew Yeti Airlines again from Kathmandu into Pokhara. It is a few hundred feet lower than Kathmandu so the air is not so thin and the pollution is so much less which means it becomes easy to walk longer distances again.
We arrived at about 9 am, the flight was a mere 30 mins. Having made use of the Lonely Planet guide we stayed in a nice hotel called Travel Inn. The manager apparently learnt his trade in Morrisons and Travel Inn in the UK! It was bliss staying there for two nights: hot shower, air conditioning and beds imported from Germany :)
Nepali beds are something to be experienced. They basically consist of a thin mattress pad of about two inches lying over hardboard sheets and a pillow that feels like it has been stuffed with sawdust.
So this was a little piece of heaven. Nice room, lovely town and peace and quiet.
We sat with a cup of tea and waited for our rooms to be prepared just taking our time and we realised it must get very windy in Pokhara as they have a novel way of keeping roofs in place:

Yes, every roof you look at here is covered in boulders.


After settling in our room we had some lunch and had a chat about what we would do that afternoon.


We decided to have a little wander around the town and get our bearings and that's when we saw the buffalo family.

Only in this part of the world would you get buffalo wandering happily down a street!


Next we decided to go and look at the lake, and what views there were. The lake stretched out in front of us with an amazing backdrop of the Annapurna range mountains behind.

And suddenly the mountain appeared as the cloud cleared: it was breathtaking.

Next thing the buffalo appeared again...it was time for their wallow :)