After my epic trek around The Annapurna Circuit, I thought that it would be a good idea to have some chill out days in and around Pokhaha.
Basically I woke up late and visited various cafes and restaurants and sat reading and crocheting…the hardest decision that I have had to make each day was which beer to try. The options are Everest or Nepal Ice. There is another, Gurkha, but nowhere seems to stock that.
I bought the first book in the ‘Wheel of Time’ series by Robert Jordan, the man who wrote the Conan books. Or in my stupidity, “Robert Jordan, you know, the man who wrote the Conan the Bavarian…”
SO…all I have done is eat!
Some of the highlights have been:
– Mikes Restaurant for breakfast on the lake: a hearty stack of pancakes and refill coffee
– Salt and Pepper Cafe: gorgeous fish in a lovely gravy
– Monsoon Restaurant: Nachos and buttery mash with olives and pineapple
– Moondance Restaurant: Cocktails on BOGOF and beer with free pizza slices!
– Byanjan: Marble Cake!!!
I have found a lovely shop that sells products from the local womens co-operative: basically it gives women a chance to learn skills that will help them such as sewing or knitting and other similar skills. They mainly work with women shunned from their villages due to having husbands or children dying.
In Nepal there is still a huge burden to bear in these circumstances and the women can be treated badly as it’s seen as their bad luck or them being bad luck so no one will have anything to do with them.
I bought a few presents and decided to send them home along with the large amount of trekking gear that I have acquired.
Along with sampling food, I have also been sampling hotels and internet cafes! I can’t seem to find a computer that has all of its USB ports functioning, with a working webcam and headphones that has Skype and is in a shop that won’t keep cutting the electricity.
I guess I shouldn’t complain really, I’m in the most gorgeous place!
The two hotels that I have stayed in have both been lovely.
The Hotel Travel Inn was $20 a night and comes with breakfast. The rooms have hot running water and massive duvets which are lovely and cosy and they also have a TV…which is a massive luxury for now that I have been trekking!
The Butterfly Lodge was friendly and welcoming and the rooms are huge! There was a nice bathroom and they had a proper loo…Which is always a bonus!
I managed to get around to buying bus tickets to Kathmandu, opting for the 600 rupees ticket on the pov-spec tourist bus. I could have gone for the Greenline bus which would have given me water and had lunch included but it was 1800 rupees…I didn’t think a bottle of water and lunch were worth that much!
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