Pretty Pokhara

I really liked Pokhara mainly because it was a little bit more sophisticated than Kathmandu, had better infrastructure ie pavements, and it was quite pretty. It was also far more touristy but then that came with better shops and restaurants.

After having the worst bus ride off my life (at the time) which consisted of Tina and I having 6 hours of extreme bumpy conversation, no wi-fi, rubbish air conditioning and a toilet that didn't flush but had a large window where everyone could see you pee! We had arrived in Pokhara.

We went to my hotel first which had a balcony and views of the Himalayas.

We then went to Tinas hostel which well, wasn't the best but we did end up having dal Bhat there and made 3 new friends. Simon from Italy, Jespar from Sweden and Mat from Canada. We spent the rest of the night with Jesper and Matt and ended up chatting by the lake til 2.30am in the morning!!

The next day, Tina decided very last minute she was going to clime the Annapurna range of the Himalayas (no joke). Now this this a large mountain range where most people spend months training for and have organised this well in advance, but Tina being typical Tina decided why not give it a go. So I decided to spend the day helping her.

Firstly we decided to have breakfast in a french cafe where they cooked really spicy Chile and I spent the whole time choking to death while the locals laughed on. Tina then persuaded me to rent a bike to go get her permit for the Himalayas and to renew her passport. So we rented these old bikes and cycled for 2 hours in 35 degree heat, stopping along the way so she could rent some hiking gear. Apparently you can rent everything including shoes and sleeping bags. As we ended up having to wait for Simon to finish his lunch when he knew were in a hurry, we didn't arrive at the passport office until 3.30pm but it had closed at 3pm. Nightmare! We were fed up at this point, we then couldn't find the permit office. Eventually we found it and she managed to get her permit. Apparently, it was cheaper going to the office instead of getting it elsewhere. It later turned out there was a reason for that....

After a coffee break I left her to it and went to find Mat and Jesper for dinner. Mat introduced me to an English couple Sam and Lizzie (from Sheffield and Framlingham- yep she knew Ed Sheeran), he met on his Himalayan hike and we hit it off really well. We all had dinner together in a Jamaican restaurant and went to the busy bee for a drink til closing-everything closes at 11pm apart from the busy bee which is 12am.

On Tuesday I decided to spend some time by the lake.

 I then had some coffee by the lake where I chatted to a girl called Flame (yep she had pink hair and everything and had amazing stories to tell) for a few hours until it was time to meet Tina for dinner and to look at the wee shops.


The shops in Pokhara are really nice and I bought a handmade bag from the woman's skills charity shop.

She took me to a local place for dinner, where everyone was sitting round a small table and you had to take your shoes off. There we chatted to people for hours (waiting for our food cause it took so long). We then made friends with a really lovely group of people- Deisi, Josh, Pablo and Giorgio. We made plans to meet the next day to go to a waterfall, as Tina was going on her solo mountain adventure! I then walked Tina back to her hostel where we discovered that the office to get her permit was right next to her hostel!!!!!! I couldn't believe it. She then claimed she knew it was there but it was more expensive. Then we parted ways, it was very sad 😢

The next day I was really tired but decided I was going to go meet them anyway. It was a 20min walk and on the way I heard Tina call me. She was eating breakfast at 10.30am when she was due to have left at 7am. Turns out the reason her next door permit office and all the other packages were so expensive is because it included the actual ticket to go to the Annapurna range park, so she had to wait while they made her ticket up. I couldn't believe it and had to laugh for ages.

I then met up with my new friends and we hanged out with yet another group of travellers and had breakfast and lunch together in the same place as the night before (it was really cheap though).

They then decided they were going to a Tibetan refugee camp really late in the afternoon because it was raining, but I wasn't that interested so i went shopping and packed for my trip to Chitwan the next day (yes I know how very superficial of me)  after agreeing to meet up for dinner later.


Thursday came and I had to get up at 5am for my bus to Chitwan. I saw the sunrise over the Himalayas from my balcony and as it had been snowing I also saw the Himalayas as usually its too cloudy to see them.

I really liked Pokhara compared to the rest of Nepal. Yes it was touristy, which I think is why I liked it. It was just very pretty compared to Kathmandu and a little more calm and I met some amazing people there too.