Pokhara - boy

I would guess the main attraction of this sleepy little town is the fantastic views of the Himalayas from the lakeside. At this time of year the mountains attract a late morning cloud that stays until the early morning and all of the surrounding area is covered in a fine haze occluding the mountains 99% of the day so for us it served as temporary lakeside retreat with tourist comforts, like good food (our best Nepali Thalis yet) and relaxing walks by the lakeside and around.

 

The bus ride was more memorable however and - as (almost) always in developing countries - was both an interesting and uncomfortable experience. Uncomfortable, because there was a rainstorm, the bus leaked, the seats were broken and some idiot though that everybody wanted to hear his tunes on his tinny mobile phone. Interesting, because I've never been on a journey where there has been so much blatant queue jumping. India's not even this bad. There's so much overtaking and attempted overtaking on the narrow mountain roads by the buses and trucks that it causes gridlock where there need be none at all. These antics added another four hours onto our journey; how do delivery companies cope with this madness?

 

Pokhara to Chitwan was a little more comfortable because it didn't rain but I think they used a school bus because the seats were only big enough for five year olds. Chitwan had an interesting drop off point, in the middle of a field 6km from town, thereby jettisoning the unsuspecting passengers into the mouths of the tourist hungry hotel vultures. Chitwan to Kathmandu raised the comfort standard yet again and this time the downside was stopping every five metres for about an hour so that people could board, sit down, get up, leave the bus, board again, chat aimlessly and board again - several times. No doubt catering for some OCD passengers incapable of just sitting down and letting the bus move on.