Bye, bye 2073 and welcome to 2074!

After our four days of trekking, we returned to Pokhara for a couple of relaxed days. We did not have too many specific plans on what to do and focused on taking it easy.
Already the first evening out we found an excellent restaurant fairly close to our hotel. Admittedly, the Happy Hour offer of a 600ml San Miguel beer with popcorn for 2,800 rupees (~2,5€) had lured us in and it turned out to be a very good place. The food was great and cheap, the location superb and we were sure to return a couple of times in the coming days.

From our table next to the busy road, we had a great outlook on local life. There were the old men sitting along the road, the fruit and juice sellers in the street and the groups of (often similarly dressed) women heading along.

The next day, we had a highlight coming up. Sam and I had a relaxing Ayurveda massage, while Max spent the time with Prakash. What a luxury to have a babysitter for Max!
In the afternoon, we explored the lakeside of Phewa Lake. With the upcoming Nepali New Year celebrations, many locals were in Pokhara. And seemingly many of them came from regions where less blond foreigners are around. We were asked several times to pose together for pictures – an opportunity that Sam took delightedly as well. We were probably at least as fascinated about our partners in the picture than they were about us.

After a sunset beer in a lakeside bar, we headed out just in time to still take a couple of nice pictures.

The next day, we headed out onto the lake. We rented a boat and paddled across the lake. From there it was a hot, but pleasant hike up the hill to the World Peace Stupa. We had a nice view down towards the lake and Pokhara, but had to imagine the impressive mountain backdrop that we knew from the postcards that were sold all over the place in Pokhara.

We did not mind too much – after all we had seen a good bit of the mountains on our trek and had focused on getting some exercise vs. just a view.
On the way back, we could not resist to take a quick break at the small temple island in the lake. The place seemed to be the main attraction for all the Nepali locals who were in Pokhara and we were seemingly the only tourists there.

After so much activity, we had deserved lunch in our favorite restaurant. And while I enjoyed some quiet time back in our hotel room, Sam and Max headed out to explore where the constant backdrop of music was coming from. They soon discovered, that it was a New Year’s festival that was going on the whole week. And even though they did not have enough money with them such that Max could have gone on any of the various rides, at least he found a group of kids to play cricket with.

Nepal is celebrating their New Year in mid April – along with many other countries in Asia. Well, it seems that Nepali people love celebrations more than anyone else in the world. They claim to be the country with most public holidays (31) per year. Anyhow, they are very special indeed. After all, they are the only country in the world with a non-rectangular flag.
We had liked the bustling activity along the lakeside and headed there once more to take in the atmosphere at sunset.

The next day was already New Year’s Eve and we headed out to celebrate. The festival was clearly geared towards the locals and only few other tourists were around. Max got to take some of the rides, which seemed to be at the standard of Europe some 50 years ago. Most amazing of all was the Ferris Wheel. It was driven by a series of belts that were connected to a tractor’s motor. The guy seemed to have lots of fun and accelerated to the point when the gondolas of the wheel were flying outwards by the centrifugal forces.

There was also a stage with dances, music and official sounding speeches. It was fun to watch the people in the audience. But not being able to understand Nepali did put a damper on the excitement we felt when listening to the speeches.

We rather explored the food section and were tempted by some of the many specialties on offer.

Eventually we headed out of the festival area again and walked back along the lake. Max was kind enough to the first Nepali who asked and staged for a common picture. But then he felt he had done enough and declined all further requests.

That evening the streets of Pokhara were full of people and life and everyone was in a very festive mood. And even though it was tempting to go out and be part of the fun, we still preferred to have a quieter evening. We packed our backpacks, did some reading. At midnight, we watched the fireworks that marked the start of the New Year 2074 and then retreated to bed.

New Year’s Day marked our departure from Pokhara. We headed in a taxi towards the airport and took a small flight (a 30-seater propeller plane of Yeti Air) from Pokhara to Kathmandu. Due to the haze and the relatively low flight altitude of 11,000 ft, we got to see just a glimpse of the mountains.

And having been in the Kathmandu valley before, we did not have any hopes to see any peaks in the coming five days. But we were looking forward to another couple of days with a nice mix of relaxing and exploring.