Back here after a hiatus of 5 years, majorly to document the epic holiday in Nepal back in January to attend a friends’ wedding. The planning began in December with the husband’s cousins joining us for a trip along with some other friends and how time flew!
We landed in Kathmandu on a cold Sunday night, being in Bangalore for the past 8 years had us forget what cold winters are and it struck us bad as soon as we landed in Delhi, we did not come out of the quilt and had the sister switch the heater on for the day and a half before boarding the flight to Kathmandu. The airport seemed like straight out of a 70’s Bollywood movie, with old wooden furniture and extreme chaos at the baggage collection. We came out and waited for a cab our hotel had sent to pick us up at the airport. At the hotel, we met our gang for the next 8 days and it so lovely to see Abhi’s cousins whom we met after a long time. Our time in Nepal was split between Kathmandu and Pokhara. The next day was planned to visit the Chandragiri Hills via cable car to catch a glimpse of the majestic Mount Everest. The cable car ride was picturesque and the view from the mountain had us looking for the peak hidden in the fog. This was the first time ever in life that I had seen a snow-capped mountain and it felt surreal that it was the majestic Everest. The weather was extremely cold and had us our first encounter with the Nepali Momos and boy, I have never eaten a better version. The Bhaleshwar Mahadev temple on the hill is a treat to the eyes. We spent some time on the hill clicking pictures soaking in the view of the Everest. Back to the town, we went to Thamel for some shopping, it is a quaint neighborhood in Kathmandu with all sorts of shawls, masks, and other souvenirs. The next day we took a flight to Pokhara and had a stay in an Airbnb villa. The town has a spectacular view of the Annapurna range and we spent the evening walking towards Fewa lake in search of our much-delayed lunch. The weather was rainy and extremely cold, we planned a tour of the town the next day with visits to the umpteen number of caves, the Maheshwar cave, Gupteshwar Mahadev cave and not to forget the bat cave, which housed lacs of bats. We also visited Davis falls and ended the day with a walk around the beautiful Fewa lake, the periphery of the lake is a lovely area with a lot of shopping options, little cafes, pubs and has a very cosmopolitan feel. We ended the day with dinner at Pokhara Thakali Kitchen to enjoy the traditional Nepali meal. We had booked a cab for visiting Sarangkot the next day to see the sunrise and the effort that we had to take to get up at 5 AM to reach the sunrise spot by 5:45 was worth every pain that we took to get there. The sunrise point is a building with 2 floors with terraces that accommodate tourists, we went to the second floor and I was still questioning my decision to drag myself out of the bed until I turned around to see the most majestic view of the Annapurna range on one side and sunrise on the other side. The Annapurna range was sparkling with snow on its peaks and as the sun started coming up, the lovely play of colors on the peaks was a treat to the eyes. We spent the next 2 hours soaking in the beauty of the range and sipping some hot coffee to save us from the chilling cold. We checked out of the Airbnb and moved to the Raniban Resort for our last day of stay in Pokhara. the place is up in the mountains and has the most spectacular view of the Annapurna range, so much so that we chose the place just to spend time whiling away taking in the beauty around us. The manager was a super sweet host and arranged a campfire in the night for us. The next had us back to Kathmandu for 3 days of wedding celebrations and a short visit to Darbar Square and Pashupati Nath temple. The Darbar square area speaks of the history of this little country and houses multiple historical monuments like the Kumari House, the museum and the old palace. Sadly the 2015 earthquake hit this area massively and we could evidently see the harm to the museum and the other monuments.
The 3 days of the wedding were spent in fun, frolic, food and a lot of dancing which hit me quite bad with a viral fever towards the day of return and 2 weeks of recovery post the trip. Leaving you with some pictures of our Nepal travel.
Glimpses n Glances 