Pokhara, the gateway to the Annapurna range, is sort of a Nepali Gatlinburg, amply furnished with locally-flavored tourist shops with trinkets and postcards. However, since they see a lot of trekkers, there's also a lot of mountaineering gear for sale. It's mostly overpriced, but I pick up some postcards. The area also features some restaurants with overambitious menus.

Our guide, Naba Raj Paudel (managing director of Adventure Pokhara Tours and Travels; nice guy, good guide) suggested that we go up into the hills for sunrise. While getting up that early is usually completely antithetical to my character, I'm not adjusted to this time zone yet, so it's not so bad. It turns out to be exactly the right thing to do. From our vantage point in the foothills, we could see from the valley floor to the peaks of the nearby mountains. In the pre-dawn light, the entire valley was a misty green, cut by a few streams, dotted with patches of fog, and contoured by rice fields and terraces. The steeper hills beyond were deeper green with tops lost in a layer of clouds. As the sun began to come up, the clouds began to part, and there, tinted pink, were the tops of the mountains. Many pictures were taken, none of which do the scene justice.  


Naba Raj took us off to see a few more of the local sights. First, it was Devi Falls. At the falls, a small stream falls into a deep pit, which connects to God-knows-where. There are some dubious local legends about how it got its name (among other things, a westerns woman named Devi or Devon was swept away into it a century ago), but the really interesting part is the course the stream has carved out for itself. It's packed with peculiar, organically rounded pits and arches.



After that, we take off to the local Tibetan refugee colony. They try to sell us vastly overpriced rugs. We do, however, get a close-up look at the rugs being made. Threads are knotted on a warp, then trimmed with scissors to a uniform height. In the picture below, the top row of threads are untrimmed.



We also go to their temple, which is a gorgeous place. They have a pair of solar reflectors set up out front in order to light fires or boil water or some such for ceremonial purposes.


Dinner is at some weird places. The first night, it's is at the Fishtail Lounge, a restaurant attached to another hotel, which is in turn named after one of the mountains It's set in the middle of a lake, and the only access (at least, the only access we know about) is by a tethered raft, pulled across about fifty yards of water by the steersman. It's a long climb up a great many steps (this country is not accessible by any stretch of the imagination). It's too dark to take advantage of the view, which is presumably lovely, but the Indian food is quite good. On the second night, it's at the overly ambitious La Bella Napoli. The menu lists a broad range of cuisines: Italian (of course), Mexican, and American as well as more common Chinese, Indian, and Nepali. We get a variety of dishes, including some…well, let's say unique renditions of some traditional Italian pasta dishes.