Pokhara Part One

It's early evening and walking northwards along the lakeside road there's a buzz of activity, restauranteers standing outside hoping to attract diners, old Tibetan woman sitting-down and opening out shawls to lay pendants and necklaces on the pavement, and other visitors wandering about. Soon, passing the shops and cafes, buildings become sparse again. The road bends round the hills to where areas of the lake are being reclaimed gradually for paddy fields, irrigation steps up the delta inlets in neat rows. As I pass by, a family drives a plough knee deep in water and work the mud into dam ridges. The road peaks at a corner with views across the lake. I sit down and watch a fisherman drag nets close to the shore's edge, Nick Drake singing 'Pink Moon' as the sun sets in the far hills.

Peace and leeches

It's a long walk round Phewa Tal (lake) to climb the hill and reach the World Peace Pagoda. On my way I'm met by a young Nepalese lad, Souli, who says I'm going the long route and offers to show a shorter route. He leads a way, rising more steeply, cutting behind cottages and small farms, following narrow pathways and occasionally along a stone-wall line. He tells me about landholding and farming, how his family leases from an owner for the cost of 50% of their crop yield and that buying a decent-sized farm costs about $4,000 which is beyond the means of most. At the ridge summit the World Peace Pagoda stands, a kind of sorry sight up close with a mangled barrier preventing people from climbing the steps and masonry rubble littering the ground around it. Souli explains that not so long ago some visitors were badly injured, one killed, when the balcony gave way and they fell. Now all the marble is being replaced with more sturdy materials.

The views of Phewa lake are stunning though. We walk further on up the ridge passing water buffaloes wallowing in muddy puddles and children playing on the hillside. Back at the Pagoda there's a route down to the lake from which it's possible to get a boat back to the other side. However, the boatman wants to charge 250 rupees and I've not got that in my wallet so ignoring his warnings I set out to circumnavigate the heavy wooded shoreline. More than two hours later, having pushed past face high brambles and spiders webs, clung to rock faces and slid down muddy hills that gave way underfoot, I arrive back at the guesthouse. Kicking of shoes and removing socks I slump into a chair feeling exhausted. It's only spotting some small red specks on bottom of the bed's valance that causes me to look down and realise the boatman was right, I've taken 15 little freeloaders back with me. These bloodsuckers are tiny, able to crawl through your shoelace holes and you don't feel a thing. Some scrubbing later I'm leech-free but my feet look like they've been savaged by Dracula's baby.

Gonna climb that hill no matter how steep...

The Khahare hills to the north have interesting looking rock formations jutting out like giant fingers high above the lakeside below. Emboldened by the pagoda-leech experience and feeling like a challenge I set off walking to find a route up to the ridge. The south-facing hillside gets the early afternoon sun and as the initial canopy of trees disappears it soon becomes a very steep incline of shrubs and rocks without any pathways.

After fun climbing for 45 minutes all of a sudden the hillside plateaus and I'm standing on a well-trodden path. (There's an established route that I missed on the way up which proves far easier to follow on the descent.) From here the route leads through hilltop farms, occasionally going directly through the cornfields.

In places the pathway seems overgrown with brambles and disused, although the fresh buffalo pats suggest otherwise. Walking past a few village settlements and finding sidetracks to keep along the ridge line eventually I reach the rocky outcrops. The reward is panoramic views of the lake and surrounding hills.