We have kept ourselves very busy in Pokhara over the last week or so, so it is only now when we are on our way back to Kathmandu valley that we’ve found time to write the blogs of our time there. Just for ease of reading, we will divide them into two blogs covering the five full days in Pokhara, and the one day we spent between Pokhara and Patan, an area within the city of Lalitpur within Kathmandu valley which is our next stop. In this blog, we will cover the first three of these days. 

Wednesday –

By Wednesday morning, we were still feeling a little unused to talking and interacting like normal after the silent retreat. We were up and out to a very nearby cafe that we had found on our first morning in Pokhara for a breakfast of french toast or porridge and coffee, and to make a plan for the next few days. Pokhara caters for the young, western tourists travelling there to start or recover from treks in the nearby Annapurna range, and so was full of restaurants, bars, and activities. As such, it took us most of the morning to wittle down the options and come up with a bit of a itinerary for the upcoming week. 

Once we’d finished we headed down to central Lakeside, the tourist centre of the city and a twenty minute walk from where we were in east Lakeside, to hire some kayaks to explore Phewa lake from the water. Kayak rental was quick, cheap, and easy and before we knew it we were out on a pair of old flat-bottomed kayaks paddling around. At the city end of the lake there is a small island built up into a Hindu temple, so we circled this for a look (though it looked more like a cafe than a temple) then set out across the bredth of the lake from south to north. 

We paddled right up to the village of Pame on the northern edge of the lake, and could see Sadhana Retreat sitting up on the hillside above. It was strange experience sitting on the water in a boat when we had spent so many hours watching boats in the same stretch of water from our vantage point in Sadhana’s rooftop balcony. From here, we made our slow way along the bank back round to central Lakeside to drop off the kayaks and get a quick lunch from a cafe on the lakeside. 

We had a couple of hours back at the hotel before we were back out in the early evening to find the Movie Garden back in central Lakeside. The Movie Garden was an outdoor movie theatre set up in the back garden of a local’s house and done up immaculately with seats built into the stone steps, a bar serving deliciously salty and buttery popcorn, as well as beers, ciders and a variety of other drinks. We arrived early to get a good seat, and the place filled up by the time the movie, Lost in Translation, started. This way, we spent an enjoyable couple of hours watching the film with a cold beer and a couple of bowls of popcorn. 

It was getting late by the time the film had finished, and we had spied a small Nepalese-Turkish (surely the only one in Pokhara, if not the world) restaurant on the walk home. We took a seat not before the closing time of 10pm, and ordered what were pretty authentic chicken and vegatable gyros whilst sitting next to the cafe owner’s young daughter who was transfixed on playing games on her parent’s phone. By the time we had finished eating the huge wraps, the family were sitting down to their own dinner so we took our leave and walked the short walk home and to bed. 

Thursday – 

Once we were up and ready on Thursday, we decided to try out a different breakfast spot a little further down the road from us. AM/PM cafe catered to the young, quite alternative tourist population of Pokhara with breakfast options like tofu stirfried with vegetables (otherwise known as “Hippie Dharma”) and the usual avocado on toast. The food was good and the young Nepalese men that worked there were very sweet. 

After breakfast, we went back to the hotel for an extended period of blog writing and otherwise hanging around catching up on all the admin and replying that accumulates after even a week without using your mobile phone. It was mid-afternoon by the time we had finished with this, and we were ready for something else to eat. We popped back out to another of almost literally countless relaxed little cafes and eateries between us and central Lakeside for a very late lunch which was a slightly disappointing combination of relatively plain pasta and an overcooked egg, then came back to the hotel to read in the outdoor space and get a bit of tutoring done. 

By the evening we were ready to get back out, and I had spied somewhere that did beer by the pint. Neither of us have had a pint since leaving the UK, and the Nepalese craft beer on tap was surprisingly good. We sat out in the restaurant patio on the side of the Lakeside promenade and watched the crowds of Western, Nepali, and Indian tourists go pass, before joining their ranks to walk further into central Lakeside. 

From the Movie Garden we had seen a ferris wheel on the side of the lake that seemed to go unecessarily fast, and so I had convinced Ellie that we should go seek it out. The ferris wheel was actually part of the larger “Disneyland Pokhara”, which was a collection of rusted, creaking, old funfair rides stalked by staff wearing nightmarish and slightly dirty full-body panda suits. Despite the dystopian first impressions, it was surprisingly busy still at 10pm with Nepali kids and the occasional tourist group. We bought our ticket and headed straight for the ferris wheel. 

We were placed into one of the metal cages by a Nepali man who couldn’t have yet seen twenty years, and metal bars secured us with about half a foot of room of space between them and our laps. The ride was operated by the same man inserting a metal rod into a hole in the ground, and then twisting it around until the ride was going as fast as he saw fit. This was, as it turned out, quite fast and we were slingshotted up and around the wheel for a good long 5-10 minutes before he put down his mobile phone, stuck the rod into the ground and gave it a twist in the opposite direction to slow us down. 

You might think this wouldn’t be an enjoyable experience, but the mild thrill combined with the amusement of how rickety the whole operation was made for quite a fun time. We queued back up for a ticket for another ride – this one was one of those ships that swing like a pendulum backwards and forwards until, at the apex, you’re perpendicular to the ground. We got on with a family of four, the youngest daughter of which was absolutely fascinated with Ellie in particular. The ride was operated by the same rod-in-hole crank mechanism by an even younger looking man, and the moving parts made an extraordinary creaking as the ship started swinging back and forth. 

The ride itself was no wilder than one you might find in a UK theme park, with the exception that there was no safety bar or anything holding you in your seat. As a consequence, as you reached near vertical and lifted up from the seat, the only thing holding you in place was how hard you clung to the railing on the chair infront. After several white-knuckled minutes the ride wound back down, and we extracated ourselves from the little girl who insisted that we accompany them on yet more rides by pleading that it was near 10pm and we needed to get some food. 

We walked back towards home feeling just a little nauseous but otherwise having very much enjoyed ourselves, and stopped on the way at a little Nepalese restaurant and shared two plates of momos and some chow mein. One of the momo styles was bread-crumbed and deep fried wich was novel for both of us, but not bad at all. From the restaurant it was just a short walk back to Nanohana Lodge and to bed. 

Friday – 

On Friday morning we decided to head back to AM/PM cafe for a reliably good breakfast and coffee, which was just as good as the day before. It seemed to be constantly busy which is always nice, and in fact we found ourselves on the table next to a group of women in their early-20s in matching grey scrubs who from conversion were either nursing or medical students on an elective. We both thought what a nice place to do an elective this would have been had it not been for covid! Then again, would we have ended up with this trip plan had we been to possibly this part of the world in 6th year – maybe not. All works out in the end.

From here we headed to a nearby bicycle rental place as we had plans to head further afield. The pictures of the shop online looked very basic, but they had plenty of bikes including the absolute luxury of a short women’s bike for me (Ellie) and the man spent a good 10 minutes ensuring they were perfectly oiled, tyres full and brakes sharp for us before we took them out for the day. We cycled mostly uphill to ‘old Pokhara’, the section of the city north-east of the Lakeside area which has remained largely untouched by the Western tourists which have absolutely taken over the Lakeside zone. 

The cycle was a bit sweaty but largely very pleasant, and we got off our bikes at the top of the hill to wander around the old city streets. There were plenty of beautiful old buildings, fading shrines and local shops and cafes with plenty of untouristed life to watch go by. 

We got back on our bikes to head the half hour further to the Seti river gorge, an area described in the Lonely Planet guide as where the river became very narrow so that its milky white colour became especially opaque. From the description and in fact from the total lack of fanfare at the outside of the site, we were both expecting it to be a bit underwhelming, but we were pleasantly surprised. At the bottom of the winding steps down to the bridge over the gorge, they had funnelled part of the river across the middle of the bridge, which was impressively fast moving and in fact completely opaque milky-white. More impressive than this, looking down over the side of the bridge was a terrifying drop, and the tiny river flowed fast though the slit between the sheer rock sides. On either side trees with hanging climbers formed a canopy and the whole scene was much more spectacular than we’d thought, despite making your extremities tingle to look out over. 

We sat down outside a tiny little nearby local shop to drink a cold glass bottle of coke before heading part of the way back down the hill to the Pokhara Regional Museum. Again from the guidebook we knew this would be a very local affair, but it was really sweet and provided a few laughs too. The play area outside was crammed with Nepali school trips, where by chance we’d arrived on their lunch break leaving us to explore the museum alone. There was a lovely small photography section with images of traditional local life, some artifacts with amusing signs, and deeply disturbing wax models of people practicing traditional ways of life. 

After a pleasant half hour or so taking this in, we headed home for a chill/tutoring few hours. Nanohana Lodge had some great outdoor areas with tables, some shade and many plants, which we made full use of during our week or so there. We then headed out to an outdoor bouldering wall we’d seen online. It was much smaller than the walls we were used to in London, but to be honest we were so out of practice with any kind of pulling upper body work that the climbs they had provided were more than enough of a workout! It was also a tiny fraction of the cost of a London boulder, and much less crowded despite the size. The two of us and about 3 kids there got plenty of input from two instructors, and once we were tired of falling off the wall we also got to use the outdoor gym equipment which made us realise how much we’ve missed the gym! 

We left here just in time to walk up to the small monastery very close to the wall. There were a significant number of steps at this stage of a pretty active day, but it was amazing how the giant Buddha statue on top of the monastery seemed to suddenly appear out of nowhere when you reached the top. The whole monastery was just on the edge of the forest and almost seemed to be coming out of it. We had a quick wander round before heading back to the bikes to get to the massage appointment we’d arranged.

There is a highly recommended small chain of massage clinics with a branch in Pokhara that is staffed entirely by blind masseur, called Seeing Hands, that we’d been keen to check out. The photos online had looked pretty basic, so we were encouraged to be led to a nice and clean couple’s massage room. It was quite a different massage experience to what you might expect in the, although not quite the full-frontal nudity torture-room type we’d both experienced in Varkala! Both the male masseurs were a bit surly and definitely straight to the point, and the whole operation was definitely no bells-and-whistles, no background music or incense here! The two men occasionally chatted to each other in Nepali which was a little off-putting, but the massages themselves were very good – if a little intense, especially from Rob’s masseur. He seemed to immediately identify a couple of sore spots and spend the entire hour putting his whole body weight through them via his thumb, and I could definitely hear a few audible exhales from my neighbouring bench. Overall though we were impressed by them, and it was very cheap.

We hobbled out home to shower the long day off with record speed as we were both starving and headed for a well-reviewed Chinese claiming to be the first in Pokhara. The outside looked absolutely unhinged and we were struck by the fact the prices were pretty high for Nepal (we’re talking around £5 for a meat main), but when the food arrived we realised that was because one dish could serve 2-3 people.Luckily we were hungry enough to make a valiant effort, and enjoyed taking out time over it next to a table of robed Buddhist monks clearly on their permitted night out of the monastery, hardly concealing our fascination with what they would order (lots of steamed veg and some orange squashes if anyone shares this interest).They packaged up the leftovers for us which our friends back at Nanohana Lodge stored in the reception fridge, and we headed home happily exhausted. 

And so ended our first few days in Pokhara! The next two and a half days were even more action packed, so we will cover those in the next blog, as well as our journey back to the Kathmandu valley,

Until then,

Ellie & Rob xxx