After three days of travel we have arrived at our destination of Pokhara. After an interrupted night of sleep due to me not being used to the sounds of Kathmandu, we awoke to try and see the sunrise- alas the low lying fog prevented this. It is something we will attempt to do here in Pokhara however.

After an early breakfast we walked through the streets of Kathmandu to our coach which took us to Pokhara. Along the way the sounds and smells of Kathmandu were amazing, however it was challenging when I was approached by a child begging in the street. I did what we had been instructed to do and ignored him, however this really tugged at the heartstrings and went against so many of my values. Fortunately someone else in the group ignored the advice and spent 15 minutes with the child going through Nepalese phrases and laughing and communicating without a lot of English.

Driving out of Kathmandu was challenging- traffic was gridlocked a lot of the time, however this gave us time to wave and smile to people on neighbouring busses.

Once out of Kathmandu we met the most scenic roads and travelled down into valleys and up over hills over and over again.

We stopped for a pitstop after a couple of hours where I tried my first street side food- potato curry. It is no secret I adore spuds in any form and this was amazing! Potato, tomato and spices, served in a bowl moulded out of a leaf.

After over 8 hours of driving we arrived in Pokhara.

Here the housing was lower density and appeared to be more completed than those in Kathmandu. In Nepal land taxes are only paid on completed houses so it is very common to see houses with room for additional floors, roofs etc as these are still habitable, but attract no tax.

Our hotel is lovely and we were made to feel very welcome…

Again a lovely dinner with our group and representatives of the local Lions Club who are taking us under their wing for our visit.

Oh and all the bouncing around on the coach had some benefits. Although I would have walked over 10,000 steps today and been up a couple of dozen flights of stairs, the bus travel was picked up by my fitbit- best day ever!