At Pokhara we were were up really early to see the sunrise over the local mountains, which are part of the Annapurna and Himalayan range. The minibus took us so far up the mountain and then we had to get out and walk the last bit, but it was pitch black and no one had taken torches with them, so we were stumbling around in the dark, climbing steps etc. Don't they know how accident prone I am!
Luckily a couple of people had phones on them so we got light from them, but it was not very effective.
When we reached the viewpoint we were greeted by a local man who was offering us complimentary tea and coffee, if we paid 100 rupees to go to his viewing platform. Me and David opted not to and stayed at the viewing point next to his which was totally free. Both areas got very busy, people with cameras just standing waiting. Eventually the sun come up slowly lighting the mountains which gradually appeared as the time went on.
Fishtail mountain
After sunrise people started to leave and the crowds got less and less, me and David headed down to meet our group, who by now were in the shop on the viewing platform with complimentary tea. David headed up and joined them, I decided to go too, to be stopped by the man demanding 100 rupees. I asked what for, as I was going into his shop and he said I needed to pay, so I told him I wasn't going to pay to go into a shop as that was daft, and I would go into the shop next to his which was free. At that he told me I could go in but I wasn't having any of it and refused. David then turned up, he didn't pay to go into the shop by the way, and asked what was going on. He couldn't believe I was being asked to pay to go into the shop, thought it was funny. Blooming cheek!
Anyway here is a sign from another shop, I love some of their translations over here.
We didn't stay at this hotel but liked the name.
Sadly when you see the foreground of the hotel it doesn't really live up to its name.
The Nepalese seem to do what we do and stick grit on the road and wait for the traffic to squash it in. They do it on a grander scale with full blown stones, wasn't really working.
Straight after the sunrise thing a group of us chose to walk down the mountain back to the village. This was a lovely walk through the woods and past random houses. We came out onto a lovely lake, on which a temple has been made in the middle and can only be reached by boat.
In the afternoon we went paragliding, yup that's right me paragliding, and I don't like heights, I tell
you the scrapes David gets me into. We got into our jeep to go up the mountain to the take off area, we went up and up and up, I kept thinking just stop now we are high enough!
We got out of the minibus and were teamed up with our instructors, I got a lovely Nepalese man whose parents live in Wales as his dad is a Gurkha in the British Army. He was kind, made sure I was alright and a very skilful pilot. David got a butch skinhead Russian, need I say more. After we were strapped up we needed to run down the slope and basically off the edge and then the pilot made sure you were sat properly and comfortably in your seat harness thing. David's instruction from his pilot was "When I say run, run." But when it came to it he said to David, "walk" which confused
him a bit, when he queried it he was told that he should walk fast! Anyway we both got up in the air
and it was amazing. The height didn't bother me at all, it was lovely, calm and serene up there but I didn't factor in the motion. Now, I am a person who gets motion sickness on a swing seat and playing games like Mario Kart, so very quickly into the flight I was fighting the urge to be sick. I kept telling myself to look at the horizon, to think of something else etc but the feeling of nausea wouldn't go away.
Then my pilot spotted an eagle which was flying below us he pointed to it and then went down a bit and flew behind it, following it for a while. My pilot as I say was very good and managed to get a lot of therms taking us higher than the mountain. David didn't manage to go that high but he was given acrobatic moves, which involved more turning and twisting.
Anyway, back to the nausea, I was staying calm, I was in control and then my pilot said "Can you see
that circle down there, that is where we are going to land and that was me, heuch, thankfully I hadn't eaten that day. Well okay I had a snickers chocolate bar, but that doesn't count. You can get British chocolate over here but more expensive, David's first bar had blue mould on it! He was not happy.
Landing was fine, graceful as ever I landed on my bottom, David managed to land on his feet. Show off. We were both really glad that we had done it. Out of our tour group 7 people did it, the three women were all sick, all the men were fine.
Pokhara was a lovely place to stay and I could have spent longer there.
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