Back in Pokhara

We spent the afternoon at our hotel, recovering from the trek, booking activities for the following day, sorting things out for our trip to Oman and playing a few games of Monopoly Deal on the balcony.

That evening we went to a great restaurant called Fresh Elements. The food was really tasty, in particular the mushroom starter which was absolutely delightful (this was rapidly becoming my catchphrase for the trip!) after having had the same menu for the last five days.

The next morning, James went paragliding while I stayed down in Pokhara, resting my aching legs. That said, they were nowhere near as bad as after Mount Kinabalu, which was good as our room was on the third floor of the hotel and there was no lift!

In the afternoon, we went white water rafting down the White River. The minibus ride there was quite bumpy but luckily wasn’t too long and we got to know our fellow rafters, a couple from the US and a Dutch guy. Unfortunately the river was a bit shallow at this time of the year so we took two rafts down instead of one to ensure they weren’t too heavy.

After our safety briefing, we walked down to the river and got into the raft, avoiding the broken glass and other rubbish scattered around. We were probably in the water for about an hour and it was great fun riding the rapids, especially for a geologist as we got up close and personal with some good examples of conglomerate rocks.

There was one rapid we had to walk around because of the low water level and we did manage to beach ourselves on a rock at one point, but it all added to the adventure. The lack of water didn’t stop me getting drenched though! We also saw a lot of interested locals on the side of the river waving at us.

The minibus ride back to Pokhara was probably more dangerous than the actual rafting! However, it was also highly entertaining, with a particularly amusing driver who was happy to point out how crazy driving in Nepal is.

We spent the rest of the afternoon in the hotel before heading out for dinner at a nice restaurant on the main road through Pokhara.

The next morning, we were driven to the airport by our trusty driver, but not before Ram had come to say goodbye to us, which was really nice. We took our short flight back to Kathmandu, hoping to be able to spend some time in the city before checking into our next flight, however with nowhere to drop our bags, we ended up just staying in the airport for six hours.

We didn’t really get a chance to check out Kathmandu, but Pokhara is a lovely town and a great base to get out and enjoy all the outdoorsy things that Nepal has to offer. I’m sure we’ll be back one day!