Week 16: Nepal

After finishing our trek through the Annapurna region, we were both excited about some down time in Pokhara. We had been told that this lakeside town was a great place to spend a few days relaxing in, and we were not disappointed! We definitely see why this place is so popular amongst those living in Kimberley, BC. There truly is something here for everyone.

10 Things We Did in Pokhara:

• Eat! As it was pointed out after our last blog post, we have been focused on enjoying many treats lately. We were hungry ALL the time on the trail, and this continued into the first few days in Pokhara. Luckily, this town is packed with a huge range of restaurants, many of which look out over Fewa Lake. We loved trying so many great dishes, and finally getting some fruit back in our diets!

• Drink! This town is also full of places offering Happy Hours, with some of them honouring the ‘hour’ of 1-10pm. We had a great time meeting up with friends from the trail and sitting by the lake.

• Get Massages! Just hours after returning from the trail, we found ourselves at Helping Hands, a spa that employs Nepalese individuals who are blind. We were far less stiff and sore after an hour long Trekker’s Therapy massage.

We're just going to leave this one photo-free.

• Yoga! I had the pleasure of meeting Merijn on our first night in Pokhara, and he offered up a spot in his rooftop yoga class for anyone interested. The view from this place was so incredible that we moved ourselves to this guesthouse! I was able to take part in two of his lovely Yin yoga classes, and my body was so happy about it!

• Eat ice cream! You might be thinking to yourself, ‘you already talked about eating’. Ice cream, my friends, deserves it’s own category. This place has not one, but TWO, Baskin Robbins locations! I also tried a few other joints, just to see what the competition was offering.

• Canoe! In amongst our lazy days, we managed to rent a canoe and paddle around the lake with the heaviest paddles known to man. Whitewater rafting is also a popular activity here, but since we had already been twice in the past few months, we decided to skip on that.

• Hike! On the day we rented a canoe, we paddled across the lake, parked our canoe, and hiked up a trail to see the World Peace Pagoda at the top. We enjoyed the view from there, as well as the request for silence all around the Pagoda.

• Read in a hammock! Our guesthouse had an amazing view of the lake, and a hammock to enjoy it from. I absolutely loved starting each day in the hammock with my book.

• Visit the Movie Gardens! We loved everything about the Movie Gardens concept- they took a vacant hillside and turned it into a beautiful outdoor movie theatre with varied seating options. While watching the movie, you had the option of enjoying pizza, popcorn, ice cream, and drinks (ok, ok, enough about food). After the movie, they showed a taped concert as well. They show a different movie each night of the week!

• Walk! We loved walking down the lakeside trail each day, as well as walking the main street lined with shops and restaurants. Paragliding is a very popular activity here as well, and it was amazing to stop along the lakeside trail and watch the many paragliders sharing the sky in front of the snow-capped mountains.

Random act of kindness: I was just SO happy to participate in Merijn’s yoga classes, and was especially thankful for the second class he led, which he said was a freebie for friends!

We had thought we might spend two or three days here, and ended up here for five. We could have easily stayed on longer, but the jungle was calling our names. We would strongly recommend visitors building in a few days to enjoy the relaxing atmosphere here!