A whistlestop tour of Kathmandu and Pokhara

Having spent the last three months in SE Asia, we were excited to see whether other parts of Asia were the same and what differences existed, as well as looking forward to seeing the Himalayas up close.

We landed in Kathmandu at 9:30pm, 90 minutes later than scheduled. Luckily, most of the people on the flight were Nepali, so there were only about four of us needing visas. We filled in the paper forms, then realised there were electronic ones, so did those instead. The problem arose when we got to the counter to pay for the visa. For some unknown reason, you cannot pay for a visa in Nepali Rupees. They only accept major currencies like dollars or sterling. This was unfortunate as we only had Rupees! After much questioning from the visa guy about what currency we had and us constantly replying that we didn’t have the right money, he finally directed us to another guy who could take a card payment.

Visa secured, we made it through to the baggage carousel. The last bags arrived and ours weren’t on the carousel. Luckily, someone directed us to the other side of the belt, where our bags had been dumped on the floor! By this point it was 10:30pm and we were freezing cold as it was only about 18 degrees. Luckily our hotel had sent a driver, Kumar, to pick us up so we made our way through the streets of Kathmandu to the Thamel district.

Having come from the crazy streets of Hanoi and Bangkok, I was surprised to find that Nepali driving is in a class of its own! It’s just nuts and we saw a number of near misses. Luckily we made it to our hotel in one piece and went straight to bed, ready to get a flight straight back out the next morning to Pokhara.

Less than twelve hours after we’d landed in Kathmandu, Kumar was taking us back to the airport, but this time to the domestic terminal. The main thing I noticed in the short time we were in Kathmandu was the air quality. It wasn’t quite as bad as when we arrived in Mandalay, but it wasn’t great. We were grateful to be heading to the mountains and cleaner air.

We arrived at 10am for our 11:30 flight, only to be told check in didn’t open until 10:30. While we were waiting, we got talking to a girl called Cat mainly because she had the same rucksack as me. She was heading to Pokhara while her husband went mountain biking near Mount Everest.

The domestic airport is tiny so we went through security very quickly and boarded a tiny tin can of a plane. Luckily the flight was only 25 minutes so not really enough time to get scared. And the view was incredible! We were lucky enough to be sitting on the right hand side of the plane, with a fab view of the Himalayas. We weren’t sure whether we were just flying lower due to the short flight or whether the mountains were just that much higher than in Europe, but we were flying below them which was weird!

We arrived into Pokhara airport and shared a taxi with Cat to the Lakeside part of town. Pokhara is surprisingly built up, with lots of restaurants, cafes, outdoor kit shops, souvenir shops and guesthouses. We hadn’t actually booked anywhere to stay but had been told by friends about a guesthouse where you could just walk straight in, and luckily they were right!

With limited time in Nepal, we needed to book a trek, so after a spot of lunch, we booked a five day trek through our hotel. With this secured, we could then book our flights home.

Admin complete, we took a wander into town. Pokhara is really pretty, with a big lake in the middle and loads of bars and restaurants along the front. You get great views of the mountains from there too. We also saw some filming of a Nepali movie, which seemed to be struggling to get a clear shot across the main road through Pokhara!

We met up with Cat for a sunset drink on the roof of one of the bars overlooking the lake before heading off for dinner. Unfortunately, what we hadn’t realised was that food in Nepal appears to take an hour to cook, even if you’re the only ones in the restaurant. This was a bit of a shame as by the time the food arrived, we were kind of over eating! However, we did wander into town afterwards to get some chocolate brownie for dessert.

The next morning we were up early for breakfast and to meet our guide, Ram, who would be taking us on our five day trek into the Himalayas.