Nepal: Part 2

The second part of our trip, we took a small internal flight to Pokhara, northwest of Kathmandu and at the base of the Annapurna region of the Himalayas. We were excited to see the mountains, but our excited was greatly diminished when we landed only to discover that the same haze in Kathmandu was prevalent in Pokhara, preventing any view of the mountains. It was nice to get out of the big, noisy city though. Pokhara was definitely more cozy. Our first afternoon there, we hiked up to a peace pagoda and then up to Serankat, the highest point near

Pokhara at 5500 feet, hoping to see the sunset over the mountains, but again, the haze was too thick. We met an interesting kid though and spent some time talking with him. He was 12 years old, dressed in rags, and smaller than Xander. On the way down the mountain, we ran into a group of boys playing soccer with empty water bottles as balls. They were begging for our water bottle, so we quickly drank the rest and then tossed it into the fray to be kicked around with the others.

Playing the Tibetan game of goats and tigers with a shop owner. I wanted to make sure I understood the game before I bought it.

The peace pagoda. Not all that interesting.

Devil's Falls. This is right before monsoon season so the water level is pretty low.

Hiking up the hills to Serangkot.

There are so many interesting dwellings built on the steeped hillside.

The rest of our trip gets a little bit messy. We had quite a run of bad luck. Upon arriving in Pokhara, we learned that the country was going on strike Thursday, the next day. No taxis or shops would be open. Nepal is in the middle of writing a new constitution and some castes do not like how they are splitting the country into territories. So, we waited around Thursday without much to do and then had to walk to the airport. With our luggage. Once we arrived there, we waited around for hours, flights were delayed, then canceled. We were bumped onto later flights, etc. Then it started to rain. And our luggage went out on the bumped flight we were supposed to be on, but apparently it was overbooked. We had to walk back, without luggage, in the pouring rain. It was a little disconcerting, and then Joseph said, "Anna, look." And we turned around and

this is what we saw. The Himalayas. To say they are spectacular is an understatement. The rain had cleared the haze.

We woke up at the crack of dawn (luckily our rooftop room was still available for an unexpected extra night.) This was the view from the rooftop inn.

We walked again to the airport, as Nepal was still on strike, arriving for what was supposed to be an early flight. The plane was delayed in coming, several hours. When we all boarded and sat on it for an hour or so, they announced it had mechanical problems and we had to get off and wait for another plane from Kathmandu. The only good part about all this airport drama over two days, was that we met some cool people in the airport. And after spending 8+ hours together, we got a lot of chatting in. I am sitting with our Canadian friend and Indian family.

The valley steeps from the airplane flying out of Pokhara.

When we got to Kathmandu, we had several hours to make our connection to Singapore. After spending 5 hours in the airport, we heard an announcement that our flight was canceled. We would have to wait until the next day to get out of Nepal. By this time, I had the flu and was feeling really rotten with a fever and sneezing over and over again. We were bused to a hotel for

the night.

View of Mount Everest from the plane out of Kathmandu. Just stunning. I wish I could make it bigger, but I'm having blogging problems with Chrome at the moment.