Nepal, Pokhara - A walk on the clouds

I left Chitwan from the Bus Park at 5 minutes with a Jeep of the hotel. I had arranged the bus trip through the hotel, of course it was going to be a couple of hundred rupees more (2-3 euros) and I did not have to worry. The bus who took us to Pokhara was a very nice bus with air-conditioning and believe ir or not with Wi-Fi!

It took me 7 hours to reach Pokhara and we arrive with a heavy afternoon rain and from the station (Tourist Bus Park) I arranged a taxi and a look at a couple of places. The first place recommended by the taxi guy was good enough to stay and settle. It was called Himalaya Inn. Arriving to the hotel, I was liking the city a lot. Green mountains surrounding a lake and a clean street that goes along the lake and it hosts many restaurants  and bars. It felt like a touristic city but with a sphere that has not been polluted and has lost its essence. Pokhara had still its Nepali character and it was showing it to me.

That night I went to get some lunch and I was feeling like getting a beer that I had not gotten since a long time. I walked from the hotel along the lake street to find a nice cozy restaurant on the second floor. My new addiction, the momo’s (Tibetan dumplings filled with spicy meat) had to be my starter followed by a chicken with mushrooms and steamed vegetables.  Later on I went to buy a SIM card for my telephone so I could get internet and the I ended up in a bar drinking a beer with an American girl I had met for ten seconds in Chitwan. The funny thing about Pokhara is that all bars close at 11 p.m. After that, the party on the street is over and you have to find another way to follow it. That will depend on your mood of on your taste. Walking back to my hotel, I was asking myself what other ways of fun are there out in Pokhara. I saw a massage room/spa still open but as I stayed doubting if it was a place with “happy endings” I will let you also doubting.

Next day, was the big adventure day. What to do? Well, as I normally let my sadistic side run wild with myself waiting that one day I will become masochistic; I decided to push myself once again to face my fears. This time it was paragliding. Being afraid of heights, I tend to put myself up there until they become the most normal thing in the world so I can enjoy them. Ask me if I have succeeded so far. Well, time will tell…

Paragliding was a unique experience. As you are in front of the pilot, you have to lead the first part that is walking directly to the cliff until one point that the parachute will pull you back. At this point you start running towards the cliff until the parachute pulls you up and the fun begins. 

I was up sitting/hanging from the parachute processing what I just cruelly did to my mind. I saw my feet hanging and I was holding very tight to the parachute as an internal reaction that I did not want to go anywhere outside. Bijay, the pilot was a Nepali guy who was very tactful. For him, of course, paragliding was like the driving a bicycle: The most normal thing in the world. He was asking me question so I would relax more. It worked. After a couple of minutes, I was more relaxed (or less tense) and looking at the beautiful scenario that I had in front of my eyes and below my hanging feet. The valley, the green mountains, the white mountains farther away and the lake was something absolutely magical and worth of doing. After 20 minutes, it was about time to land, and Bijay asked me if I wanted to do crazy things. I told him initially not to try it but after thinking it twice, I told him to go for it. He started descending while doing a pendulum motion and at the same time going in circles around and axis. With the heart in my hand and my body full of adrenaline we reached land and with a smile in my face and still emanating liters of adrenaline. I was finally again back to land.  

That afternoon in order to make it more relaxed and let all the intense feelings flow away, I decided to take a very quiet boat cruise in the lake. I  met there my rower who was a 17-year-old guy studying Commerce at the university in Pokhara who was doing the rowing part time job. He told that he came from a very poor family of farmers but he had the luck that there sister took him with her when she got married. That is how he could improve his life and go to school and later to university. The other 6 brothers did not have the same luck.After the experiences that Pokhara had offered me, I was about to live one more that I was not even expecting. Katmandu was going to be my next destination and catastrophe was just around the corner.