We left our jungle cabana yesterday for the five and a half hour drive to Pokhara. After 45 minutes or so we left the flatlands of jungle and rice fields for the mountains. Following a large river which I understand rises in Tibet and runs through Nepal until it joins the Ganges in India, the road was carved out of very steep mountains with many recent landslides still in evidence. So much green and so much water. It reminded me a little of the road to Hana if you made the mountains 5 times as tall and twice as steep. That kind of green.
We arrived in Pokhara to cloudy skies. This town is known as the Himalayas front porch. The mountain range we have been in gives way to the Himalayas just the other side of town. We were scheduled to go to a mountain top to watch the sunrise this morning and to get our first glimpse of the range, but the monsoons finally caught up to us. It rained all night and most of this afternoon. We were fortunate that it cleared long enough for Nicole to paraglide. You’ll have to see video of this. It came down heavily (translation: dumped) again this afternoon and is still raining hard. My uneducated guess, 4 inches today? We’ve been so fortunate so far with the rain that it’s hard to complain. At least it cools things off slightly.
Tomorrow we head for Kathmandu. Nicole and I have scheduled an flight to see Mount Everest. After all, when am I going to have another chance to see it?
