You Do the Hokey-Pokhara and Turn Yourself Around: That’s What It’s All About

Beautiful Lake Fewa from Lakeside, Pokhara

We woke up at 545, just like the good ol’ days of Kopan, and hurried ourselves to a long line of tourist buses ready to leave for Pokhara. Accompanying us were two Dharma Friends: Joel, a Singaporean our age, and Benedikt, a German Med student and all around tubular dude. We soon found out that Sarah, our Finnish friend was on the bus behind us. It took about 7 hours of winding mountain paths through jungle canopy and nearly tipping into bottomless gorges, but our steady ride finally came to a close in the beautiful city of Pokhara.

We’ve been staying in “Lakeside” beside Lake Fewa, and what a lake it is! Although the monsoon clouds are slowly drifting away, we did manage to catch a couple glimpses of some of the tallest peaks in the world, and there are sure to be many more peeks of peaks soon. Pokhara feels like some small beach town in Central America: the water makes everything cool, the streets are wide and quiet, and the people are incredibly friendly. The only big difference is that we’re surrounded by foothills and the Himalayas are within reach to the north. Such a relief from the congested crazy of Kathmandu.

The first full day in Pokhara, we chose to hop in two canoes (now joined by Sarah’s Swede friend Elenore), and were dropped off at the bottom of a tall jungle hill. Our first real taste of climbing up an elevation, a couple of hours later we were standing at one of the World Peace Pagodas and looking out over the whole lake and valley. After numerous clock-wise laps around the stupa, we head down the other side of the hill to the famous Devi’s (Davi’s? Davis? It was unclear) Falls. After hanging around for a moment, we hitchhiked on a passing tractor back towards Lakeside. Our next day we spent lounging about on the lake with our friends (minus Joel but plus Elenore’s brother Isaac, pronounced E-Sak ), and fortunately got into the dock just before a monsoon erupted. Our friends were all leaving the next day so we hit up the Busy Bee and enjoyed a couple adult beverages and some live music. It was a sad goodbye but as we learned in the monastery all things are impermanent, plus, we happened to run into another Dharma friend the next day.

Tomorrow we are planning to head out on our first trek; we’re being courageous and designing our own route through dozens of small villages, many of which rarely see two white faces. We’ll be staying in our tent and cooking over our stove unless some Nepali family decides to take us in. With a compass and a map as our only guides, there is guaranteed adventure ahead. It may be 4-8 days until we have email again so wish us well and we’ll tell you all about it soon.  

Hitching a ride on a tractor after a long hike

Max heroically captaining a vessel on the lake

Eli and Max's new friends (Left to Right: Isaac, Elenore, Sarah, and Benedikt)

Finding peace at the Peace Pagoda