Smokey Mountain Pokhara

March 31st - April 5, 2025

Our final 10 days in Nepal were spent in the lakeside town of Pokhara and a few final days back in Kathmandu.  To be honest, Nepal started out with a bang with the amazing Holi Festival and Everest View Trek (see previous posts), but lost steam with all the dirt and smog of Kathmandu and Pokhara (we caught the tail end of the "smog season") and while the food isn't too bad for a day or two, after 3-4 weeks we definitely had had enough. 

We traveled to Pokhara by overnight bus.  Not the most comfortable way to travel, but if you are on a budget, this is an economical way to go. The bus leaves from a seemingly random "terminal" along side of a highway. You sit and wait for your bus to show up (which in our case was about 40 minutes late) while either having your heartstrings pulled on (Francesca) or being annoyed by (me) the small children persistently begging for money.  Children as young as 10 hold babies in their arms as they ask for money.  On one level I am disappointed that they are so Machiavellian that they use their infant siblings as bait, but on the other hand I have to give them props for their shrewd understanding of human behaviorial pyschology to use what is available to them to best get the outcome they are looking for.  

Francesca did give the first child some money which I thought would send them off to another tourist, but it created a flock of other children to rush to us not unlike when someone tosses breadcrumbs to pigeons at their feet in Central Park. 

After some time the bus did arrive and we settled into our fairly comfortable seats. Since there are no bathrooms on these buses we were a bit worried that our youngest (and our oldest - me!) might need to use the bathroom more frequently than the bus would make toilet stops.  However, we needed not worry as the bus stopped every 2 hours for a bio break and one longer break for dinner.  I was the only one in the Jahns family to take advantage of the cheap, but delicious meal. 

On our first morning we strolled along the lake front.  If I'm being honest, I did find a certain ethereal quality to the smog covering the water and mountains. It was low season so it wasn't terribly crowded and there were several waterside restaurants that served good food.  We chose one that day that had a pool that the kids could swim in for an additional day fee of $10.  A great way to beat the heat.

Towards the end of the pier there is the so-called "Pokhara Disneyland" (copyright infringement not included) which is horrifyingly decrepit old amusement park where all the rides are painted in baby blue and look like they have never seen a safety inspection since they day the opened.  There was litteraly a ferris wheel that went, I am not joking, about 40 mph with no doors on it!  The kids were too frightened to go on it and Francesca would not have let them anyway.  They did manage to muster up the courage to ride the Pirate Ship ride, but begged to have it stopped (they were the only ones on) since it was making horrible groaning noises and there was no safety bar.  

On day 2 we let Mommy have some time off from the kids and I took them up the Annapurna Cable Car to the top of Sanrangkot mountain (elev. 5,250 ft).  We had a bite to eat at the restaurant at the top which offered some nice panoramic views and then explored a little along the trails and saw the Golden Ganesha which I thought was impressive, but it only brought forth a shrug from the kids who thought the cable car ride was the best part. 

On our last morning, we climbed the 100+ steps behind our Airbnb apartment to see the views and hike the trails, but there was a wild fire in progress as we crested the top so the girls turned back.  Ryan and I continued on through the blaze and walked down the other side.  A good it of exercise even if the smoggy views weren't super impressive. 

We took the day bus back to Kathamandu for one more day before flying out to Peru.  We splurged a bit and stayed in the Hotel Shanker, a former palace that was impressive enough, but looked like it was quite the lodging in years past.  Francesca and I snuck away to visit the "Garden of Dreams" that I had wanted to visit ever  since I walked by a few weeks before as it was near to our previous Kathmandu hotel.  

In the end, Nepal was a mixed bag of extreme pleasure and minor disappointments and we were looking forward to flying out to Peru for our final contienent of our year long travel sabatical.