Day 2: Bus Journey via Kathmandu to Pokhara
Day 3: In and Around Pokhara, Nepal
The early morning breezed in some nice aromas of Nepalese Breakfast once I opened the journey windows of the hotel room. But with no time on hand, we dressed and rushed to the hotel entrance to catch a bus to Pokhara City and arrived there within 10 minutes. A huge crowd of locals, students and tourists evaded the sidewalks and rows of buses to different cities lined the busy mid-street. We handed our bags to the hotel attendant who had willfully agreed to drop us to the bus stand. Once our bags were loaded onto the bus and bus tickets checked, we hurried to the near restaurant and treated ourselves to some warm boiled eggs, butter, black curried peas, toast and Nepalese tea. A few minutes later, it was time to board the bus and start our onwards to Pokhara.
Our next stop to the Buddhist monastery held us rather surprised as we freely conversed with a shy young, orange clad boy who was learning the dedicated art of Buddhism. We learnt some interesting facts too, about the refugee status of the eminent Dalai Lama and saw framed pictures of the previous Dalai Lamas. We lit candles at an altar and an old, friendly monk generously showed us around the beautiful and calm monastery. We were explained the meaning of the spiritual Tibetan objects around like the Thangka Paintings which filled the monasteries many humble rooms, the throne at which the senior monk sat and meditated, the begging bowl and the silver hand bells which were meant to dispel evil when rung. The most amazing sacred object was the beautiful and extra-large wheel of life or spinning wheel housed alone in one of the rooms of the sanctified monastery. We copied the monk’s moves as he spun it around applying his full body force. After wandering around the place and taking in all the blissful artifacts, umpteen Buddhist statuettes and religious Zen writings, we bid the monk farewell and headed back to our transport.
PHOTO CAPTION: At the Buddhist Monastery
On the way to our next destination, we picked up the famous local San Mieugal beer and quenched our thirst while observing the wild and gushing water of the Seti Gandaki River trespassing into the Pokhara city. We lunched at our Guest house and slept for an hour, only to be awakened by our tour operator. He had promised to end our adventure with a boating experience around a famous lake near-by.
So we walked some distance from the guest house to the most favored tourist spot of Phewa Lake which housed the Barahi Temple in its center and allowed visitors to hire a canoe for boating in its waters. We sat in a boat and canoed around the entire lake, taking turns and rounding the Barahi temple. Busy worshippers and priest hurried about their errands at the temple as we took some memorable pictures and waved at tourists. After observing the sunset behind the mountains surrounding the lake and an hour later, we decided to call it a day.
On our way back to the hotel, we stopped at a near-by cyber-café and my husband checked on his work e-mails while I chatted with one of the local kids. Inside the guest house, we sat in the garden restaurant and ordered our dinner. Nepalese have a knack for cooking and serving only fresh food and that was one of the reasons, we savored their meals and finished every last bit. Exhausted and thrilled we slumped onto our beds and talked excitedly about the events that had taken place, we realized that it had been a very tiring day and we needed all the energy, we could muster for our next stop to Safari Land, Chitwan tomorrow. So with much to anticipation, we drowned in slumber and dreamt of all good things to come.
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