The flight was gorgeous; we could see the peaks above the clouds flying west along the Himalayas. Pokhara is in a little valley nestled south of Annapurna, and is lovely and green, with a patchwork of rice fields. A driver/guide picked us up and took us to our hotel, again the priciest place in town. I guess they thought we were rich or something. The Fish Tail is a group of round buildings, each housing several rooms, plus a dining hall and a small two-story hotel part, the compound reached by canoe or rope-towed barge across a narrow part of lake Pewa. Initially they put us in the hotel bit, with no view, so Jim went back to reception to complain and we ended up in room 15, in the lakeside round, with a view of the lake and mountains, and a pretty sitting area on the lake. Lonely Planet recommends rooms 16, 17, and 18 as the best views, and we were just barely around the corner. Lovely! 16/17/18 all have plaques naming the notable guests, including Prince Charles, some UK politicians, and royalty from Nepal, India and Sweden. The hotel must be fairly old, as Prince C stayed in 1980, and the rooms were definitely not five star, or even four star, but the setting was really nice.
We got canoed back across with our guide, who took us around to a few of the town sights. We saw one of the Tibetan refugee camps, in place for over 50 years. It was tidy and not terribly depressing, with a community hall, a monastery, and attached housing with small backyards with gardens. 50 years old, it's been there for generations. There were kids (and monks) playing soccer in the big central field, and a dance event going on in the hall. I didn't take too many photos; maybe I'm overly sensitive, but I don't like taking photos of people living their lives, it seems like an invasion. I tried to take photos only when a person offered of when I felt I wasn't disturbing the person. I saw some tourists crouching right down and taking pictures of children close-up, and that just seemed invasive to me. Many Nepali are very poor, and will ask for money if you take their photos. This made me sort of uncomfortable too, so mostly I just tried to be sensitive and not invade anyone's privacy.
We stopped across from the Tibetan camp at a loud, powerful waterfall, where a local had apparently tumbled to his death earlier that week, reaching over the fence for his fallen sunglasses. An enormous amount of water thundered down a slim gorge, slamming down into an underground river. We kept our sunglasses and ourselves out of harm's way while admiring the power of the water, the sounds, and the rainbows formed in the mists. We skipped the caves where you can see the underground river, still a little worried about Jim's ankle.
We'd read about the barbers in Pokhara, famous for the close shaves with face massages. Jim had a face and head shave, the closest of his life, and I skipped the intended shopping wander for a bangs trim & face massage, that sneakily morphed into a back massage as well. We had fun chatting with the barber and licensed masseuse in the rustic little shop, and left shiny and numbed.
Next we checked out the Mountain Museum, a giant, modern building housing photos and artifacts of the Himalayas. The museum wasn't terribly well organized in spite of the impressive building, but interesting. There was a huge section showing the different ethnic groups of Nepal, with costumes and tools. Obscurely, there was a photo exhibit comparing images from 1950's Swiss Alps to today's Nepal, I guess to show that technology in Nepal's pretty old-fashioned. Mostly the museum is dedicated to the Himalayas, with models and photos of the mountains, the rocks, flora and fauna, and everything climbing. Lots of photos and text about early expeditions, the 8,000meter + peaks, etc. I found it a bit much, especially as nothing was interactive, only photos and text. But Jim was interested in all the climbing glory and horror stories.
Then to a late lunch in town. We let our driver (Vishnu? Bishnu?) suggest a place, and he took us to a hut kind of place on the lake, that looked a bit dodgy to start but turned out to have brilliant american food (nice nachos on homemade chips, delicious club sandwich on crunchy homemade bread), and filtered water and ice cubes. We decamped to the hotel after that, anticipating an early morning trip to Sagarkhot for a sunrise view of the mountains. Fingers crossed, as we had yet to actually see the mountains through the clouds.
Jim got hit with a bit of dysentery, which he recognized from our trip to Turkey in the fall, and was able to have someone from the hotel go into town and fetch him some antibiotics. He was laid out for the evening, poor guy. I headed off to town on my own to check out the main drag. I found shops doing custom embroidery, and one of them had t-shirts that looked large enough for Jim (none of the pre-printed t-shirts we'd found so far were roomy enough). I ordered a navy t-shirt with mountains and "Pokhara, Nepal" stitched on, and hung around to watch the guy work his old black embroidery machine freehand, very interesting to me after working with automatic, computerized embroidery machines at work. I took some photos and video to show the folks back in Dubai. I also ordered a tailored skirt, but the tailor was taking his time arriving, and when it started getting dark, I cancelled. I had to make my way back to the boat for the hotel in the dark, and was a little nervous, mainly because I didn't know the town. There are lots of tourists about, and street hawkers, and pullers for the restaurants, and it felt like the kind of place where a woman alone could be targeted for something, but I arrived home without incident. Jim was still feeling like crap, so I had a quiet dinner alone with my book and got to bed early for the 4am wake up call.
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