The plan was to do a 6 day hike but due to some unfortunate circumstances we decided that we would only be able to do some small hikes instead.
We take our scheduled flight on Yeti Airline to Pokhara, high up in the Himalayas, the air is a lot thinner up here, something to get used to as we climb the 6 flights of stairs to our hotel room. But I will back up a minute here because I need to say couple of things about our flight, it wasn’t a long one, 25 minutes but they still managed to serve us candies for take off, and a beverage. The other noteworthy thing about the flight was how freaking scary the landing was. We started our decent, all fine, then we get lower, and lower and lower, the buildings are getting close, seriously close and I’m convinced we’re about the crash into them but just in time there is the runway. I didn’t know I could hold my breath that long. Apparently Kathmandu used to have one of the scariest runways but it has since been updated, not sure about this one, but certainly my most scariest.
We stepped off the airplane to a breathe of fresh air, what a nice change. Our hotel is across from a beautiful lake, the Himalayas mountain range in the background and a great big deck to ourselves.
Our first day hike out is across the lake by row boat. We dock and start the climb up the mountain to the World Peace Pagoda.
It’s a long way up on a rock pathway, the air is thin and the sun is hot.
Eventually we make it to the top and after a walk around the temple we head up a little further to the restaurant. What a view!
After a refreshing break and a little lunch we head down a pathway that leads to another mountain top covered in Tibetan prayer flags. It’s a gorgeous view but tainted by the amount of garbage thrown around. It does seem to be a problem in this country and throughout a lot of Asia.
Going down was a lot quicker but a lot harder on my knees and I was glad to sit in the rowboat and relax, but that’s just cause I didn’t have to row.
On our next day out we hired a taxi to drive us up to Sarangkot Village, a tiny town high up on a mountain. The only way to get here was to follow a small, single lane, sometimes dirt road that was directly beside a cliff. We passed houses perched on the sides of cliffs, squeezed by donkeys, and several other vehicles, just a little bit scary….sometimes quite scary.
Once at the top we climbed up and up, I should have buns of steel after all this. Such impressive sights! We looked down on some paragliders…..hummmm that looks interesting.
Flying high in Pakhora!
For those who aren’t afraid of heights paragliding looks like a lot of fun. I don’t do so well with heights where my feet are dangling, I didn’t even like the drive up the the mountain so I was pretty sure this wasn’t going to work for me….but Nick had a great time!