Trek to Pokhara

We decided at the last minute to go for a walk to Pokhara. Boyd dashed down to Besisaha before lunch and still dripping with sweat but loaded with emergency peanuts and cheese we set off along the not so well trodden path to Pokara. We had a map photocopied from the Anapurna map that had nearly the whole route( only a couple of centimeter s chopped off in the middle).  Some directions delivered to Rissa in Nepalese by a quarry worker and a compass.

In this part of the world there are still walking tracks between villages but there is also a road which we followed getting a touch nervous that we might be running out of time for our walk to Nalma. True to form the kids stopped to admire Tractors, some stone quarries, moss, puddles and a man carrying a chicken in a bag.

We arrived at the first village, a tiny settlement that spanned the ridge between two valleys.  Boyd asked..... "Is this Nalma? "  Everyone replied "Yes!!" But we had been in Nepal long enough now...... So Boyd asked if Nalma was back the way we had come. To which the answer was emphatically Yes!  The compass pointed through the village and across the ridge. And once we had established that no we were not staying and that Yes we were going to Nalma an old man escorted us up the hill in the right direction and found us a local also destined for Nalma. A kind lovely lady who spoke no English but walked so patiently at kids speed, along the road, down the steps through a wedding at dusk and all the way to the only guest house in the dark in Nalma.

We gratefully ate delicious Dahl baht  and grunted at the locals who came to gaze at us through wire meshing that enclosed our dining area. Reminiscing of zoo trips we spotted another westerner  ( Noella) and invited her in. She had been staying In the village teaching at the school for 6 weeks and hadn't seem a white face for 2 weeks. The village had been a thriving tourist destination 30 years ago when the Anapurna circuit started Pokara. We had an insight into what accommodation looked like in those days. Our bedroom windows had iron bars and corrugated iron shuttets. Ama spoke no English but served DELICIOUS Dahl baht.