2 April 2015 | Arriving at Pokhara
We woke up early for our 7AM bus to Pokhara. I wasn’t feeling
very well. Actually, I wasn’t feeling well at all. My nose was running
profusely and my throat was coarse. We left our hiking gears in the hotel's storage room then left for the Tourist Bus Station, which wasn’t really a bus
station. It was just a street in Kathmandu, near Thamel, where buses parked in
a queue. We found our bus with no problem. Our seats were already assigned for
us, so it didn’t matter that we were the first ones to get on the bus. Victor slept
soundly all the way to Pokhara. I, on the other hand, was blowing my nose nonstop.
The bus ride was long. I usually like long road trip and I normally don’t
have any trouble sleeping on the bus but I wasn’t feeling well and I was too
busy blowing my nose that I eventually ran out of tissue paper. We arrived at
Pokhara around 3PM. We got caught in a traffic jam at some point which was
probably the reason why we took 8 hours to arrive in Pokhara.
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| Traffic Jam |
I didn’t find Pokhara impressive, but then again, I didn’t expect it to
be. When we arrived at the bus station in Pokhara, there was already someone
from our hotel, Hotel Yeti, waiting for us and arranged our cab. We shared the
ride with a couple who was seated right beside us on the bus. I was feeling so awful
that I practically slept right away when we arrived at our hotel, hoping that I
would feel better when I woke up.
Although I didn’t feel any better when I woke up, I didn’t want to
waste the rest of the day—or rather night in Pokhara. So, with Victor, I strolled
along the street, bought medicines in a local pharmacy and we decided to have
dinner in an Italian restaurant. I felt so dizzy and sick that I felt like the
room was turning, while we were having dinner. Walking straight was kind of
hard, too. It was a good thing I had Victor to hold on to. I had a light fever
that night.
3 April 2015 | Pokhara
We woke up late today—maybe around 9AM. I was feeling better but I
still had sore throat and I was sneezing blood. I hate being sick and it’s such
a headache when you travel.
We had lunch at a Chinese restaurant near our hotel—the food was
terribly bad. It wasn’t even cheap. But okay, perhaps we ordered the wrong
dishes. After the disappointing lunch, we rented a row boat to the World Peace
Pagoda, a stupa on top of a hill across Lake Phewa. The hike up was fairly
easy but I was dizzy and I had an ache on my chest so I was pretty slow. It was
cloudy so the view of the Annapurna range wasn’t visible. It started to drizzle
on our way back.
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| These steps seemed so steep when sick |
Victor and I were both bored and couldn’t find anything else to do the
rest of the afternoon so we ended up just having coffee at Himalayan Java.
We considered bungee jumping in Pokhara but we decided that we preferred the
one in the Tibet border (higher). That night, we had a good dinner at Moondance.
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Lake Phewa
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4 April 2015 | Leaving Pokhara
Today, I am feeling a lot better. I still had a flu and sore throat,
but I wasn’t dizzy anymore. It was a clear day when we left the hotel finally; we
saw the Annapurna mountain range. It was beautiful--Now I understand what the fuss was about Pokhara. The bus ride didn’t feel so bad since
I was able to sleep without blowing my nose every minute.
When we arrived in Kathmandu, we checked in at Hotel Northfield then we booked a day trip for tomorrow at the Last Resort—to go Bungee Jumping.
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| Annapurna Mountain Range |
*Naba, from Himalayan Planet, helped us book our bus tickets to
Pokhara and our hotel in Pokhara, from Kathmandu.
