Two weeks in Nepal

If only Nepal offered a 2.5 week visa. We would have loved to spend just a few days longer in this cool little country. Chill vibes, amazing views and friendly people, Nepal is a huge contrast to it’s humid and noisy neighbours. But unfortunately we’d only budgeted for the two week visa, so fourteen days was all we had.

We flew into Nepal at the start of April. This is the second highest season for visitors to the country. It’s the Nepalese spring and (in theory) there is low rainfall and lots of flowers, making it a great time to go trekking in the mountains. We completed the five day Ghorepani Poon Hill Trek – a slightly extended version that took us to some nearby hot springs, and spent the rest of our time divided between the city of Kathmandu and the town of Pokhara.

Kathmandu – 2 days:

Everyone flies into Kathmandu. This cramped city of seven million felt like one of those love-it-or-hate-it locations. Dusty in the dry and muddy in the wet, tall brown buildings lean into incredibly thin streets. There are no footpaths to speak of, and humans, cars, traditional rickshaws, tractors, busses and buffalos all squeeze through the alleys together. Most tourists stay in the distinctly touristy area of Thamel – we did too. Golden Buddha Hostel (NZ18/US12) for a twin room, shared bathroom, hot water 7am-10am, semi-warm water 24/7) was just a five minute walk from the main tourist hub.

There’s not heaps to do in Kathmandu. We arrived in the morning, and another traveller at the hostel advised us to complete the Lonely Planet South Thamel – Durbar Square walking tour. It’s a free self-guided route around many of the small temples, stupas and idols in the central city, and you can find it online here. Well, we tried to do it, and ended up getting diverted by one of the many young, unofficial street guides. In the evening, we climbed the stairs up to Swayambhunath Stupa (also known as ‘Monkey Temple’ thanks to the thousands of pig-tailed macaques that hang out here) to catch the sunset.

The next day, we managed to complete the walk successfully. At the ‘dance stage’ (as it’s labeled in the guide) we joined a huge crowd of people, and ended up watching a traditional Hindu live animal sacrifice. Three goats and one young buffalo were all offered to the gods in front of an excitable crowd. We did not have a clear view, and this certainly wouldn’t be something that everyone would be comfortable watching. Photography was not allowed (and this rule was well-policed by the crowd whenever a phone or camera appeared). When we asked our guesthouse owned what the sacrifice was for, he shrugged and suggested ‘maybe motorbike accidents.’

Catching the bus from Kathmandu to Pokhara:

Our next stop – like most travellers – was the lakeside town of Pokhara. Our budget certainly didn’t stretch to flying there (though there are numerous flights each day), so we bought tickets for the 8h bus ride from our hostel (850rs pp – NZ11.6/US7.6). All the tourist buses are identical, and they all leave from exactly the same spot at 7am sharp each day. The ‘bus name’ on your ticket is the only way to discern between the 27 seater land-whales – each bus has its name in the front window, with cute titles like ‘Himalayan Rainbow Explorer’ and ‘Extreme Swiss Travel.’

Unfortunately, and through no fault of our driver, we ended up in a traffic accident. It was raining hard the day we travelled, and about four hours into the ride, our bus hit a motorcyclist who was trying to overtake a van in the oncoming lane. Nobody was hurt, but it ended up extending the trip a further four hours as our driver had to go and give various statements to the police.

All of the busses end up at the same tourist bus station in Pokhara. If we had arrived at the expected 3-4pm, there would have been plenty of taxis waiting. Because we arrived just after 7, there was only one taxi – we jumped in, and ended up paying twice the price to get to our hostel. A taxi ride from the bus station to anywhere in Lakeside Pokhara should cost 300 for the ride. We paid a giant 600.

Pokhara – 4 days pre-trek, 3 days post-trek.

Pokhara is one of those towns that you could stay in indefinitely. With cheap food, lots of accommodation options and a totally relaxed, laid back vibe, it’s the kind of place where the days all blur together. We stayed at Forest Lake Hotel & Backpackers Hostel (23NZD for a private double room with lake view, attached bathroom, 24h high-pressure hot water). This was one the best value rooms we’ve ever stayed in – basically a hotel room, it had an uninterrupted view of the lake as well as it’s own little balcony. The hostel also has very new dorms and a great rooftop terrace to hang out on.

If you’re looking to travel to Pokhara, definitely stay in the Lakeside area. While there are various concentrations of accommodation around the town, the more expensive hotels and hostels were actually in a worse area (in my opinion). The cheaper lakeside hostels have better access to the lake, as well as great budget food and bar options. The area attracts plenty of friendly locals and backpackers. The Juicery, in particular, is a cafe that everyone congregates in, with great coffee and an amazing offering of healthy western-style breakfasts, most people spend a few hours in here before they start the day.

We spent four days here before embarking on our trek. We took this time to find a guide and buy a few essentials, but if you’ve got a bit of cash to spare, there’s plenty of adventure activities to fill your day as well. From Pokhara you can easily go paragliding, white water rafting, bungee jumping or mountain biking. We did splash out on one day and go on a six hour horse ride up to the World Peace Stupa, which was heaps of fun and well worth the 7500rs (NZD102/USD67) – two people, two ponies as well as a mounted guide, booked through Pony Farm directly on Messenger.) You can do a day hike up to the Peace Stupa on foot, but riding the fluffy little ponies up the side of the mountain seemed like a much better way to do it.

Ghorepani Poon Hill Trek: 5 days

After four days in Pokhara, it was time to start our trek.

We picked the Ghorepani Poon Hill trek because it’s short and sweet, and reaches an epic 3200m viewpoint. The Ghorepani trek can be completed in 3 days if you pay for a Jeep to drive you to the last drop off point, and pick you up at the first pick up point, or extended out to 7 days if you explore a few of the surrounding, less popular trails. We did it in 5, extending the trek by one day to reach the nearby Jhinu hot springs. We did not pay for a jeep at any point, which meant that our shortest day was 5 hours walking, and our longest day was 11 hours walking.

(We also considered doing the Mardi Himal Trek (5-6 days) but this trek maxes out at 4500m, and as far as we could tell, the extra 1300m climb didn’t get us any better views.)

We opted to carry all our gear ourselves – I was carrying about 4kg and Geoff was carrying 6kg. You can pay for a porter, but because we packed light, we thought it was excessive. We did pay $30 USD per day for our guide. We also carried our own muesli for breakfast to keep our costs down.

The trek itself was not as easy as I expected. The first day we walked mostly on the road for about four or five hours, but after a lunch of veg dahl baht and veg fried noodles (we basically just ate variations of these two things for the next five days), we faced an unbroken 60 minute stair climb to the small town of Ulleri, where we spent the night.

All the rooms we stayed in on this trek were near identical, with two small single beds in a small, shabby room. They all had clean, warm linen. The standard rate for a night is 600rs but our guide consistently negotiated the rate down to 400rs for us. There was always a lightbulb in the room, which was free to use, but any other power use (like charging) cost 200rs. We took a power bank to avoid this. Wifi connection cost 200rs, which we never bothered with. A hot shower was 100-200rs per person – worth it, but we didn’t shower every day.

The second day was our easiest day, with only five hours total walking. Powered by our muesli and veg dahl baht, we reached the town of Ghorepani just after lunch – and this was after getting stuck behind a train of mules and ponies for half an hour. We had an early night, in preparation for the next day’s 4am wake-up and trek to the Poon Hill viewpoint.

On a clear day, you can see 270 degree views of the Annapurna ranges from Poon Hill, and when they catch the sunrise in the morning, the mountains glow. On a cloudy day, you get a 360 degree view of a grey curtain. We got the latter.

Dressed in all our clothes (those are pants on my head), we clutched expensive cups of hot milk tea (160rs per cup, daylight robbery) and hoped the clouds would clear. But after about an hour of waiting, we had to accept defeat, and along with everyone else who had made the climb that morning, we headed back down to Ghorepani to have some breakfast and to warm our feet by the fire.

After breakfast, we continued walking for what turned out to be our longest day. Our guide pushed us to reach Ghandruk by 4pm (which would have totalled 12 hours walking). Most groups doing the standard route stop much earlier than this, but we wanted to visit the hot springs the following day, which were still three hours away, and then have more time to continue walking after we took a dip. At 3pm though, the heavens opened in a massive thunderstorm. Luckily for us, we had stopped to take breather on a stone wall directly outside a guesthouse, so we were able to duck inside. The rain didn’t let up, so we spent the night there.

Because of the rain, we had to leave at 7am the next day to make up time. We made it to the hot springs by 12.30, after stopping for lunch at 11.30. The ‘springs’ themselves are three concrete pools, fed by bamboo pipes that bore into the underground hot spring. Locals and tourists all crowded into the pools, which were a muscle-relaxing forty degrees. We spent about 45 minutes here, before we had to get back on the trail. We had to cross a 285 meter suspension bridge to reach our final destination for the night. We splurged here on a ‘tuna cheese mountain pizza.’ After five days of only eating veg dahl baht, veg noodles and muesli, that pizza tasted like the best thing we had ever eaten.

Our final day was six hours of mostly flat walking, divided between trails and the road. We could have opted for a jeep to drive us this final length but didn’t want to pay for it, and as Ajit said – ‘Jeep or not, you still get back to Pokhara this same day.’

And we did, with a taxi dropping us back off at Forest Lake Hostel at around 4pm. ‘We completed the Poon Hill trek with no problems!’ Ajit said. ‘I am happy!’ We were happy too.

We spent a few more days in Pokhara, hanging out at The Juicery, washing our dirty clothes and eating all the food that we had missed while in the mountains. Our hostel was able to book us a bus back to Kathmandu (900rs pp) and we arrived without incident this time. We spent a quick night back at Golden Buddha hostel, before flying out to Malaysia the following day.