Pokhara 

After a peaceful night in our huge bungalow at the Castle Resort Hotel we were ready to conquer the world again. For Sylvia this meant to play golf this morning. Our hosts at this family-lead hotel were Sofia and Joe and both of them play. Since their golf bags were prominently displayed in the dining hall Sylvia couldn’t help herself but ask to whom these belonged to. It didn’t take much convincing from Sofia for Sylvia to say yes to a round of golf the next day. As usual she lived up to the challenge to play a new course with borrowed clubs by writing two pars and beating the hostess. What a show-off!

While Sylvia walked around the golf course I enjoyed a long and lazy breakfast, waiting for our guide who in the end never showed up. 

Eventually the hotel organized a neighbor who toured the city with me. Kul turned out to be also our guide for the next two days so it was nice to get to know him. We went first to the local Peace Stupa. As usual we had to get out of the car below and walk up. 

From there we drove to Devis Falls, a small waterfall within the city. 

Next stop was the mountaineering museum in Pokhara, my first museum on this trip. I would have loved to stay longer, there was so much to read about the 12 highest mountains and the first expeditions up there. Lots of Austrians were also involved which made me proud. Even the Yeti had a small section.

Here Kul showed me how far up the Annapurna we would get the next day.

After the museum Kul wanted to show me some religious caves, but these were all closed due to the earthquake. And then it started to rain so a tour on the lake was out of the question. I rather returned to the hotel and had a rest. But upon arrival he asked me if I wanted to drink a cup of coffee at his place. He grew the beans in his garden and his coffee was totally organic. I was all for trying it and since Sylvia had already made it back to the hotel we walked the 10 minutes up to his place together. We got a great cup of coffee, black for me and with yak milk for Sylvia and then helped Kul to peel some beans. That’s a really long and boring work.

We spent the rest of the afternoon updating the blog and lazy in our garden. Very relaxing not to do anything and just sit down.

We had dinner at the Castle resort, a vegetarian Dal Bhat and something sweet-sour. Sylvia even took desert that evening and had an orange muffin while I rather finished my Everest beer in preparation of the hike we had the next day. Yours, Pollybert 

PS: Sorry for the late update but the Internet in China doesn’t like WordPress. Also all formatting problems are due to my blogging with my phone. It’s probably best if you read it on your phone.