Pokhara

Location: Pokhara, Nepal
Local Time: Sunday, Oct 23, 2005

Well, I'm here in Pokhara. About a 6 or 7 hour bus ride from Kathmandu. This is a much bigger tourist place than Kathmandu, more trekkers here. Streets are wider, buildings are not as tall.

We left Kathmandu at about 7am this morning. The bus ride was actually quite comfortable. I had a seat all to myself, I didn't have to share with anyone. I read for a while, and watched the scenery for a while. Lovely mountains around here. Very steep. The vegatation is quite jungle like. This is not a very cold climate from what I can tell.

In order to do farming on the hillsides (most of the available land is hillside) the hillsides are terraced. Each terrace looks about 5 - 10 feet wide and the next one up the hillside is about 5 - 10 feet taller. Some houses were quite a ways up very steep hills. A quick trip down to the store would be mildly difficult.

We stopped about half way and I got a plate of noodles from a woman on the side of the road. Wow, that was good. I rushed a little because I was worried the bus would leave without me. The noodles were there on a big plate, and when I said I wanted a plate, she fired up the gas stove, poored a little oil in the wok, fried up a few vegetables and added a pile of noodles. Very nice.

I had a shave. I went to a barber shop and paid (50 Rs ~ $1 CND) for the guy to shave me. After you get over the initial fear of having some stranger put a razer sharp blade (quite literally) to your neck, this is very nice. I wanted to get the hot towel treatment before the shave, but apparently that isn't done here.