Gaunshahar to Pokhara

Sunrise, Gaunshahar

At 5am we got up and went on a mission to watch the sun rise over Gaunshahar and the snowy peaks that surround it. Thanks to the huge storm we witnessed last night we woke to clear skies and set off in the dark towards the terraced fields above the school.

In the cold, we watched the sky turn orange and slowly begin to shine light on the reflective snowy peaks that stood tall before us. The sun crept onto the mountains changing their appearance with every inch it moved higher into the sky.

Braving the cold

Once the sun glare started marring our photos we headed back home for a final breakfast of omelette, jam, toast and tea. Delfina, the French volunteer, questioned why she wasn't getting the same special treatment we were and instead had to beg for breakfast. A quick discussion made it evident that the reason was her attitude toward Shamser and the volunteering set up. She didn't want to pay anything yet seemed to be expecting the same food and benefits as those who were.

Lion dog

After swapping emails and photos with Timmy we said our goodbyes to the Thapa family and headed down the hill toward Besishar. The village dog Lion accompanied us part of the way, seeing us off and saying farewell. The walk down was hot, despite the early hour, and we arrived in Besishar sweaty and ready to get on the road.

A break at the old waiting point

The man at the bus ticket office told us to kill half an hour and come back. We did so by visiting our favourite local cake store, enjoying some sweets and buying some snacks for our bus journey. Back at the ticket office people tried to convince us that we would need to pay lots of money if we wanted to get a micro bus anytime soon. They soon realised that they couldn't dupe us though when we laughed at the prices they quoted us. They directed us to another ticket office further down the road and we bought two tickets to Pokhara for 500 rupees. Much better than the 500 rupees we were quoted earlier that would only have only taken us to Dumre, half way. The only problem was that our bus wasn't leaving until 10:40am so we had some time. We spent it eating samosas and using Hotel Tukuche's wifi.

Local bus...goats

Our bus eventually turned up and we piled on, choosing to leave our luggage in the aisle rather than have it put on the roof. And it would not be the strangest thing to grace the aisles of the bus on the journey. Three goats were led on at one point and balanced themselves in the aisle until somebody got annoyed and relocated them to the boot.

We left only fifteen minutes later than scheduled and made much better progress than the bus that had brought us to Besishar from Kathmandu. While we did stop often to pick up passengers and while we did stop for lunch despite the journey only being scheduled to take four hours it was less painful than our previous experience. Just.

We pulled into Pokhara bus park around 4pm and got chatting to Bianca, another Aussie who had been on the bus with us. She offered to split a cab with us to Lakeside. We offered to walk the 5km with her. She agreed. We swapped travel stories while we walked and then parted ways as we approached the lake. Chris and I were headed to the north side of the lake where quiet was supposed to ensue. There were tourists everywhere and, having come down from the hill this morning, it was a strange sight. Adding to the strangeness were the Western girls getting around in short shorts and singlet tops when I had been covered up completely for months now.

After asking at a few guesthouses, turning one down when they let slip that they had different prices for locals and foreigners, we settled on Hotel Harmony after testing both their hot water and wifi thoroughly.

After about three weeks without hot water the showers we took were amazing. The water was so hot we even had to turn the cold tap on a little. That was a luxury we had not experienced in a long time. Once we had washed Gaunshahar off our skin we got dressed in the freshest clean clothes we had and headed out in search of Godfather's Pizzeria, as recommended by Coun. And it was just as fantastic as he described.

We started our feast with chicken momos and local Gurkha beer. Then it was on to the main course...a beef burger with chips and salad and a wood fired meat lovers pizza. But that was not the end of the banquet. We went on to have apple crumble with custard, a chocolate brownie with ice cream and two-for-one brandy cocktails. We were stuffed. We got the bill and noticed our main meals were missing. Being the honest people that we are we pointed this out to the staff. They returned having added our desserts to the bill but not the mains. Being the budget travellers that we are, we left it at that.

Grabbing a few supplies on the way home to returned to settle in for some wifi usage. Unfortunately, the power point that powers the router when the power is out (as it is quite often in Nepal) had decided to break this evening. Chris found this coincidence a little hard to bear but they got it working again so we couldn't argue too much.

We lay down on the bed and were thankful to longer be sleeping on a piece of ply wood covered only by a blanket.