Bus to Pokhara

Bus to Pokhara

We woke at 0500 and lazed a bit, had a cup of coffee in our room before heading to the bus “station”.  We could have walked there but with our luggage, we took up an offer by a taxi driver.

There wasn’t a station per se for the tourist buses to Pokhara.  About 17 buses were lined up along the road (a different road from six years ago) and ours was the second to last.  We departed on time at 0700 and it was a mixed crowd of Nepalis and foreigners.  So, the calling the bus a tourist bus is somewhat of a misnomer, as with calling it a luxury bus.

We made three stops along the way, starting with a brief toilet break an hour after departure.  Boo and I quickly gobbled down an excellent vegetarian buffet around 0935 on the 20 min stop.  We were too full to eat lunch on the third stop around 1230.

Scenery at our lunch stop.

Along the way, we saw mountains on the right and lots of road works some of which were being done by Chinese companies.

The ride took a total of 7h50 including stops, getting us to Pokhara just before 1500.  We taxied to Harry’s Guesthouse in town a few blocks away from the lakeside.

The cheap USD8 per room guesthouse turned out to be lovely with the Korean-speaking Nepali host who had worked in Korea.  Many of the guests were Korean.  Breakfast was included and if we were to back out the breakfast items at the menu price for two people, the room would only be USD4 or USD2 per person per night!

Exploring and our hike briefing

The weather in Pokhara was lovely now; few days ago there had been hot weather warnings for temperatures up to 31 degC despite being late autumn.  We had a brief wander of Pokhara’s lakeside area.  I couldn’t recognise much of the lakeside nor the town from my visit six years ago.  There’s now a little waterfront walkway and buildings are taller than I remember.  It’s very city-like now.

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The guide for our upcoming hike had asked us to meet for a briefing or Q&A.  We met at 1700 in a café and we went through various things:

• He didn’t think that Diamox was necessary for this hike as we would be making daily increases in our elevation with no big jumps.
• Packing list included a puffer jacket, sleeping bag, a towel, two 1 litre bottles so that we can purify water in one bottle while the other is ready to drink.
• He suggested we wear the same dirty clothes every day and have a clean change for the night after showers.

We were introduced to Suzan (man), who would be photographing and filming the trip for a promotional video for the company.

Our guide seemed lovely from the way he explained things and reassured us.  He really made us comfortable as I was a little apprehensive.

We had dinner in-house at Harry’s, opting for the Kimchi stew.  We had nice chats with various Korean guests.  I mentioned that I had visited Busan and liked Oryukdo.  It turned out that he lived at Oryukdo and I was able to pull out on my phone a photo of his apartment block!  What a small world!