Pokhara
The 30’ flight from Katmandu brought us to Pokhara within a blink. The first impression is the small yet beautiful airport blended in wonderful scene of mountains, the cool and clean weather, quiet and peaceful atmosphere. Pokhara totally reminds me of Da Lat.
Pokhara is such a lovely city, I loved it from the first time I walked down to the lake shore from my hotel, saw the breath-taking lake view and hear the music of Om mani padme hum everywhere. Besides, the Nepali here are very friendly (seems a little bit TOO MUCH friendly for 2 tiny beautiful vietnamese girls, ha ha). 
We stayed at Base Camp resort in Lakeside, a seemingly endless string of beautiful hotels, restaurants, bars, coffee shops and sourvenir shops …running around Phewa Tal – the second largest lake in Nepal. Everyday when you wake up you can hear the birds singing and enjoy the flower smell up to your room.
You can find more information of Pokhara here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pokhara
FOOD
After research carefully, we agreed that we couldn’t take tradditional Nepali food (normally include rice, cereals, veggy cooked with carry, then use your hand to mixed those and eat), so we mostly took Asian food during the time we were in Nepal.
Among the places we have been to in Nepal, the restaurants in Pokhara are the most beautiful ones and also have the best foodss. The prices are equal to Vietnam but the quantities are much more, which normally made us so full after meals.
Here are some of our favorite restaurants in Pokhara
1. The Korean restaurant: thumbs up, wonderful decoration and wonderful food
2. The Chinese restaurant: nice and warm restaurant with good food, favorite is Duck chilly snack
3. The Chinese hotpot restaurant: this is the place that my friend Loan likes most. After ordering a few dishes like we normally do in Vietnam, it took us 2 hours to almost finish those food and then had to carry our bellies back to our hotel :P
4. Japanese restaurant: nice decoration with nice food, well, I like Japanese food.
ACTIVITIES
29/3/2008 - Walking
Pokhara welcomed us by a quick heavy rain which kept us more than 1 hour in the hotel upon arrival. Then we didn’t have much time left for any activities but walking around the beautiful lake shore. Lucky enough, we coincidently had the chance to witness the sun set in Phewa Tal, but cannot take a boating tour as it turned to dark quickly.
30/3/2008 - Cycling
After breakfast, we took a short walk around the lake and take some pictures.
Then we rent 2 bicycles and rode around the city and enjoyed some expereiences of the real life and people here. Pokhara is fairly flat and the traffic is quite light so it was not that difficult except that we had to remember to stick to the left side of the road and sometimes had to avoid walking cows :D
The first place to visit is Devi’s Fall. We were looking for an imposing fall with big sound of the water along the way until we reached the end of the road and were told to turn back. After several times asking for directions and found the gate hiding in market’s kiosks, we figured out why we missed it.
Before getting to the fall, you should stop by a statue in a small pool. Here you can make a wish then toss a coin into the pool, if the coin lands on the center statue base then your wish will come true. If not? Well, redo it. If you don’t have any coins, you can easily change notes with locals. After donating a lot Nepali and Vietnamese coins, we still couldn’t make it and had to leave accepting the fact that Nepali god don’t understand Vietnamese wishes.
Locally known as Patale Chhango (Hell's Fall), Devi's fall (also known as Devin's or David's) marks the point where the Pardi Khola stream vanishes underground. It’s said that on the mon-soon, this waterfall is quite deafening but by the time we were there, this is how it looked
Besides, the concrete walkways don’t add much to the atmosphere. However, I am interested in the fact that this is where the stream from Phewa Tal running into a hole and completely disappear. This is the magic hole.
According to locals, another interesting legend is that the name David’s fall is referred to a Swiss visitor who tumbled into the sinkhole and drowned, taking his girlfriend with him, never to be seen again L
Opposite Devi’s fall is a Tibetan settlement. As we couldn’t make it to Tibet this time due to the lympic Torch relay, we came here to get a glimpse of Tibetan life and culture.
When we were back to the hotel, it was getting dark so we had dinner, then brought our laptop to the only wifi café in town to catch up with friends. As this is the only one, we came there almost every night. When it was full, I even had to send email on the street pavement, opposite the shop, using its wifi :D
Paragliding from the top of Sarangkot is said to be one of the most exciting experiences in the Hymalaya. However, the way up there is quite difficult with bad roads, sharp u-turns and dust all over. After nearly haft an hour on zeep, we finally reached the launch site. From here you have to leave all of your luggages, except for your camera.
As all of our group took tandem flights, each of us was accompanied by a professional pilot. Mine is a 19 year experienced England who coincidently has a Vietnamese-Britain wife. First they helped us to set up the equipment.
Well, for those who haven’t known, I am actually afraid of height L Just looking down from the launch site makes my legs shake. I told my pilot that for him to get an idea if anything happen to me up there :P Then I took all of my bravery to run and jump out of the mountain edge (with him) …
It feels great to fly like a bird, to soar hundreds of feet above the ground, freely glide through the air, leave all your worries and just take in the breath-taking view. You can even see eagles and hawks flying around. However, just after the first 15’, I started to feel headache and dizzy. I guess it is some kind of altitude or emotional sickness. Well, it should not be easy for such an activity huh? But as I managed to do it, I didn't want to lose the moment. So I tried to relax myself, took deep breath and close my eyes sometimes to keep balance. However, the weather was not nice enough either for a cross-country tour or to see Annapurna tops. So after 30’ minutes, we decided to land together with others. On the way down, I saw one flyer performing some amazing acrobatic flying moves right in front of me. Just think for a second, I told my pilot that I would want to try those moves :P After asking me several times to make sure that I was not too sick to be out of my mind, he did some swings for me. I had to hold my breath tight while I looped, spinned and spiraled through the air, which is much more interesting than the roller coaster. And just when he finished those moves, poof, my headache and dizzy went off. Hmm … mebbe I was over-thrilled that I lost all of my emotions, ha. But man, I can tell you that the feelings was unique. As we were at low altitude, even I got over the sickness feeling, we couldn’t fly up again but landed.
I was kinda proud of myself as now I can mark one more point of the list of 50 or 100 something things you should do before you die. Yeah, I tried paragliding.01/04/2008 - Motocycling
We planned to rent a motobike and ride to other places outside of Pokhara such as Peace Pagoda, Begnas Tal and Rupa Tal… Unfortunately, it was heavy raining early in the morning. So after breakfast, we got back to the hotel and slept until noon. When the rain stop, we hired a motobike and rode to the nearest place, Old Bazzar.
Pokhara's traditional bazaar is colorful and so are its ethnically diverse traders. In its temples and monuments can be seen ties to the Newar architecture of the Kathmandu Valley. Located about 4 km from Lakeside, the market's original charm is alive and well.
Leaving Old Bazzar, we made our way out of Pokhara to Begnas Tal. However, it started heavy rain again and the roads was difficult to ride so we decided to get back before it turned dark. Besides, after rains, the weather in Pokhara dropped significantly :P
We left Pokhara early on the next day, with regret that we haven’t make it to all the places. I guess that it’s good somehow because this make us to get back here one day to visit Peace Pagoda, Begnas Tal and Tupa Tal as well as trek along the Annapurna … Labels: Travel
