Days 228-230: Diverging Paths

The bus ride from Chitwan to Pokhara was a scenic one along winding mountain roads. Since we had a private bus we could get the driver to pull over to the side of the road to enjoy a few especially scenic spots along the way. The best stop was at a long bridge suspended over a river valley between the mountains, and it made for an excellent way to stretch our legs.

Pokhara, especially the touristy lakeside bit we were in, is a really fun place. It's definitely touristy, but touristy in a kind of hippie/adventurer way, geared towards nature lovers and young people and with lots of cool bars, restaurants and shops. I'm not normally much of a shopper, but it turns out I love traditional Nepalese fashion and could have replaced my entire wardrobe for a quite reasonable price if it wasn't for the fact that the clothes are a bit bulky, tend to recommend hand washing and possibly will all fall apart in a month. I did manage to pick up a few things without too drastically altering the variety of my travel wardrobe. Another type of shop everywhere in town are trekking shops with trekking clothes, backpacks and other equipment. The stuff is all quite obviously counterfeit, but even counterfeit stuff for the right price has its uses. I replaced my old 36L backpack with a pseudo-"North Face" 50L one. The old one had served me well, but I just needed something with more support and cushioning and I figured it was a good time while they were cheap and just prior to me doing any trekking of my own. Otherwise, we just had time to hang out around town and relax some. I visited the lake a few times, and on our second day we got up early and drove up to one of the nearby hills to watch the sunrise.

After the sunrise most of the group wussed out and took the bus back down to get more sleep, but a few of us decided to hike down the trail back to town, passing through some of the small farmsteads along the way.

The rest of the group was continuing on to Kathmandu for the end of the tour, but I decided to stay behind in Pokhara to do my trekking first before continuing on. I lost out on one night of accomodations from the tour, but I just didn't see any point in taking the 6 hour bus ride to Kathmandu, then back to Pokhara, then back to Kathmandu. I spent one extra day on my own in Pokhara relaxing and setting things up for my trek. In hindsight, I could have managed to do it on my own for less money, or tried to contact a guide directly instead of going through one of the many agencies around, but I just wanted something safe and convenient and not do anything too ambitious for my first real multi-day trek.