Pokhara, Nepal – Dec 2017
After being “on the go” for our first 45 days in Nepal, we decided to settle down and spend our remaining month in the city of Pokhara.
Pokhara is located 120km west of Kathmandu and is the largest city in Nepal by area, and the second largest city by population. The most popular area in Pokhara is located on Phewa Lake and is referred to as “Lakeside” (where we stayed). Lakeside is the gateway to the Annapurna Mountains and is therefore busy with all types of tourists and is a much more “westernized” part of both Pokhara and Nepal. The locals are equally as friendly and welcoming as they’ve been at each of our previous Nepal destinations along the way. Lakeside has many accommodations to offer ranging from low-end budget to the very high-end luxury level. Additionally, Lakeside has tons of restaurant choices with good local cuisine and decent western food. There are many shops selling anything and everything imaginable including a large variety of outdoor adventures some of which include paragliding, bike riding, trekking, and river rafting. The Bottom line – in and around Pokhara, you can do as little or as much as you want.
Since we’d already spent considerable time trekking and site-seeing, we opted to simply hangout and chill around the Lakeside area to finish our time in Nepal.
See video and photos below highlighting our days in Pokhara, Nepal. To see all images of this location click the link at the bottom of this post or go to our gallery.
The grey building on the left was the guesthouse where we rented a one bedroom apartment for a month ($10 US per night). The apartment wasn’t fancy, but it was relatively new and had all the essentials (small kitchen, wifi, hot water, fantastic owners, etc). An added bonus was the nice rooftop sitting area for enjoying the afternoon sun while watching the dozens of paragliders in the distance flying above Sarangkot hill.
View of Sarangkot hill from the rooftop sitting area at our guesthouse. We could see dozens of paragliders every afternoon flying above as seen here. Paragliding is a very popular sport in Pokhara and many tourists book flights. We were not interested in Paragliding as we prefer to keep our feet on the ground 🙂 But, we did really enjoy watching them from our apartment building.
View of a portion of the main street in the Lakeside area. You could see a mountain at the end of nearly every street. Here Machhapuchhre (Fish Tail) is seen. It was incredible to see how close Pokhara is to all the surrounding mountains which explains why Pokhara is considered the gateway to the Annapurna Range.
This is one of the many “holy” cows we’d seen wandering through the streets. This one stopped along the main drag to have a drink of water before moving on. Over the last year, we’ve become so accustomed to seeing random animals walking around in the streets, it seems very normal to us now. It doesn’t even register as being unusual anymore and is simply another day in SouthEast Asia.
Mentioning random “holy” cows leads us right into telling about the local Organic Dairy Shop. In Lakeside, they have a few small grocery stores, but the stores do not sell fresh curd (yogurt) or other fresh dairy items. You have to purchase from a dairy shop instead. We came here for fresh yogurt. The yogurt is refrigerated and stored in a large bucket type container and is sold by the liter. Upon purchase, they spoon it into a plastic bag and then close the bag using a rubber band. The yogurt was tart by itself, but was very good with a little fresh fruit and muesli mixed with it.
There were locals selling things everywhere you looked. This guy has a fruit stand and fresh juice business on the back of his bike. There were many of these bicycle type fruit stands all over town. Many locals also walk the streets selling a large variety of goods by shouting out what they have for sale – this makes it easy for other locals to buy items without ever having to leave their residence.
Another local with a portable business, the shoe repair guy. Most signs throughout SouthEast Asia have spelling errors, Nepal is no different. But, it’s easy enough to understand he’s selling the best shoe repair for cheap 😉 There are shoe repair businesses similar to this one all over town – they obviously have a market to repair shoes with the amount of tourists coming to Nepal to trek.
In the middle of a busy, populated area is the entrance to Gupteshwor Mahadev Cave. The cave is located in Pokhara several kilometers from the Lakeside area. This stairway spirals down into the earth where you enter and descend further into the cave.
The entrance to the sacred Gupteshwor Mahadev Cave is at the bottom of the spiral stairway. Once inside, you descend further, passing by a Shiva Shrine where locals pay their respect, until the cave ends at the underground portion of the Davis falls.
Rick descending further into the Gupteshwor Mahadev Cave.
Roughly 100 feet below ground level, this large room is at the end of the Gupteshwor Mahadev Cave. In order to see the underground portion of Davis Falls, you must climb down a set of steep stairs to a small fenced viewing area.
This is the underground portion of Davis Falls. This section of the cave is only open during dry season. During monsoon season, this area is closed because it fills with water making it completely inaccessible.
Another view of the underground portion of Davis Falls. It was difficult to capture in video or photo due to the small amount of ambient light combined with spray coming from the falls.
The above ground portion of Davis Falls (basically a short walk and across the street from the entrance to the cave). The falls is named after the wife of a Swiss couple who drowned in the falls in 1961. The falls looks relatively tame here, but becomes a torrent during monsoon season.
Once again…locals want photos with a westerner.
This time a group of local ladies stopped Rick as we were leaving Davis Falls asking to take photos with him. It was quite funny to watch from a distance. It took a while to even see where he was as the ladies all crowded around to take photos with him.
All the ladies having their photo taken with Rick.
Or…taking a selfie with him.
Another group photo…
They’re even checking out some of the photos already taken.
Near the entrance/exit at Davis Falls, there was a wishing well which was surrounded by locals tossing “special purchased” coins into the well to make a wish. The funny thing is the park empties the well of the coins at the end of each day and resells them for purchase again the next day (they had a large number of the coins laying out to dry). Talk about “pure” profit!
We took an early morning boat shuttle across Phewa Lake and got dropped off here at the trailhead to the World Peace Stupa. Across the lake you can see the Lakeside area of Pokhara.
The trail to the World Peace Stupa is all uphill with a few small cafes like this one along the way. At this point, we were only about half way up and the views of Lakeside, Phewa Lake and the Annapurna Range were already beautiful.
Our first glimpse of the World Peace Stupa from the trail below.
The Pokhara World Peace Stupa was built in 2001 by Buddhist Monks. It’s 1 of over 80 built around the world to inspire peace. The stupa sits on a hill 986 ft above Phewa Lake with gorgeous views of the surrounding mountains. Once at the stupa, it’s size is much larger then it appears from below. Note the size of the people on the stairs as comparison.
Rick capturing some video of the large Buddha at the front of the World Peace Stupa.
Rick and Alisa walking around one of the platforms surrounding the stupa with Phewa Lake and the beautiful mountains in the distance.
You can reach the Pokhara World Peace Stupa two different ways. You can take a boat across the lake and then hike from the Lakeside area (what we did) or you can take a taxi or bus and then hike the trail from the Damside area on the other side of the hill.
A few of our favorite Pokhara restaurants and meals…
The options for food in Lakeside were many. You can spend as much or as little as you want. We had our favorite spots which we frequented during our time in Pokhara. Our dinners ranged from $8 to $17 US including tip and usually included 1 or 2 ice-cold beers.
Sun Welcome restaurant, one of our favorites in Lakeside. It’s run by a couple in their late 70’s. The food was delicious and inexpensive.
They made fresh apple pies each day using buckwheat flour – slices were only 80 cents and were fantastic.
Chicken Shahi Korma with Roti and Pumpkin Curry with Naan at Sun Welcome restaurant (total $9 US including tip and 1 large beer) .
A delicious enchilada at Sun Welcome restaurant. The dish had more of an indian flare to it (less then $3 US)
Be Happy Restaurant, another favorite of ours… Rick sitting at our table waiting for our dinner. Our usual order consisted of Kadai Chicken, Butter Chicken, Rice, Cheese Naan, and a couple of ice cold “Everest” beers (total for all this was $15 US including tip).
Kadai Chicken with Rice and Cheese Naan at Be Happy Restaurant.
Butter Chicken with Rice and Cheese Naan at Be Happy Restaurant.
