Pokhara

Pokhara.  On the shores of Lake Fewa, the sleepy town of Pokhara was the perfect place to relax after our Everest Base Camp trek.  We stayed five nights and filled our time by discovering the local eateries, watching movies and wandering by the lake.  

Paragliders launch off Sarangkot, which is a large hill between the lake and the Annapurna Range.  Speaking of the Annapurna's, we spied the tips of the mountains a couple of times, but mostly they just enshrouded themselves in a very persistent mist.  Curious to think that these mighty mountains can sit so closely and silently beside us, while miniature water droplets can so powerfully obscure the view.  There's that concept of perspectives again.

We hired bikes and rode around the lake a bit, finding ourselves at the landing pad for the paragliders.  When asked if we wanted to try getting the parachute off the ground, Blandy's emphatic yes encouraged a ten-ish year old kid to give her a pretty good lesson.  The pull on those chutes is powerful, even in a slight breeze. Super fun!

Sipping lemonades in the sun (we've enjoyed that beautiful pleasure lots recently!), we watched as tandem after tandem of paragliders landed right in front of us.  We were close enough to see the large eyes on a few faces as they approached the ground.  A few had their hands gripped tight on their harness.  Most people were quite blasé actually, and didn't let on that they'd just had a thrilling ride, had seen a simmering lake from a better-than-normal perspective, and most likely experienced an adrenaline rush while spiralling unhindered through space.  Maybe as they landed the blasé were reminded of how much they'd paid for their twenty minutes of buzz.

Now for some confessions.  Both of us have lived pretty lush lives.  We want to try things while we've got the chance, and would rather experience everything while we're here so we don't need to come back (the world is so big you see!).  But ... We've both skydived in NZ, and as we thought about doing a paraglide here we felt it wouldn't be as spectacular as jumping out of a plane over snow-covered Taupō, and we both commented on how blessed our lives are.  Hope it doesn't make us spoilt. We flagged paragliding, and had a crèpe instead!  

With thanks to a few mates who'd recently been in Pokhara, we found some fine eats.  If you're about this way checkout Godfathers Pizza, Freedom Cafe and curries at Busy Bee Cafe, and the decadent crèpe above was from Metro (who fashion a fine coffee too).

Speaking about food ... and everything else ... Nepal is an eclectic mix.  Physically sitting between India (to the south) and Tibet (with China further to the north), Nepal is a mele of those two super-groups.  Most Nepali menus have a combo of Indian and Chinese dishes, as well as their own.  Looking at local faces on the street, you could easily believe you were in India, as well as seeing people who could feel right at home in mainland Asia.  Hinduism and Buddhism co-exist.  Cows roam the streets, while sadhus collect rice beneath prayer flags flickering in the afternoon breeze.

Lots of blue longboats bob on the lakeside.  Those who are more devout than us gave a stocky little hairy local bloke a fistful of rupees to paddle their family out to the mini floating shrine on the lake.  We admired the locals devotion and wandered along the edge of the lake instead.  

The other nifty thing about Pokhara is its Movie Garden.  Thanks Ants for the tip off, your mates there said they had many happy days with you!  A couple of nights we sat watching movies with the lake reflecting the apricot coloured skies in the background, and a silver screen in the fore, surrounded by chatty hippy travellers clad in yak-cloaks, nibbling popcorn and sipping on mango juice.

Wandering back from getting our Nepali visas extended, we heard children excitedly reciting the days of the week in English.  The teacher invited us in to see her class.  Bare walls and a semi circle of plastic chairs that held beaming 3-5 year olds greeted us.  After a few sentences back and forth between us and the teacher, we figured out that no one could understand each other.  So we opted to exchange a few songs.  The kids sang a Nepali song, mostly shouting though as they were so excited to have guests.  They also sang/shouted a song with lyrics that included 'point to the ceiling, point to the window...'  Their little chuffed faces were so cute when they saw the video playback.  We sang Old MacDonald had a farm, and the cheeky back row 5 year old boys are probably still impersonating Bry's animated horse antics.  We left them chanting the days of the week again, and were on our way.

On the way back we spotted this and felt sad.  In fact, the image below is not abnormal here in Nepal (or Vietnam).  Even in tourist places there's grot and rubbish all over.  It did prompt a list of 'Things we CHERISH about New Zealand' though ... our list is lengthy.

Our travels are halfway through, time wise.  And as a mate emailed the other day, it's so delicious to be filling our joy cups on this massive adventure!  Thanks for joining us on it x