It’s only when you leave the capital that you appreciate how extraordinary the small mountain-sheltered Kathmandu Valley really is. Green lush jungle-like hills and paddy fields surrounded us, as the bus wound its way down to Pokhara, a small town at the Phewa Lake embraced by the Annapurna mountain range.
Unfortunately, the breathtaking scenery of the nine icy peaks reaching 7,000-8,091m we did not see, as they were behind white cloudy curtains. July is the wettest month of the monsoon season and you always had to be prepared for the rain. We knew about the weather conditions coming to Nepal, but wanted to apply for a Chinese visa to continue our Asian trip and once nearby, were curious about how it was here and how the warm monsoon rain felt like.
However, with popularity has come commercialization and a loss of much of that made these treks special. The necessity of purchasing a single-entry (!) ticket to the conservation area and a trekking permit, both to the value of 30 overnight stays, made us angry. Trekking in India and China hardly ever costs anything and is nearly as scenic, if you’re satisfied with the 2,000-4,000m hikes. This made us think how our way to travel has changed compared to the one 5 months before.
My only attempt to make a satisfying short hike up the hill on the other side of the lake to a pagoda ended just before reaching the footbridge. Rain, mud, leeches, no real trails and a general lack of mountain view made quite clear, that going up there was not a good idea.
And then I met Jay, a neo-hippie from LA who got stuck there indefinitely, making his living by teaching reiki. During all his years spent in Nepal he has never been to the pagoda, but quite regularly accompanied tourists, who got robbed and beaten up in the forests, to the police. So I chose to go for a chai with him instead and learned that I have an aura of 20 cm around my body. Hell, that’s not much…
So this time, no snow leopard, no yak and no yeti, but hey, we’re just warming up…
