Nepal

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Peace Pagoda?:
At the top of a hill overlooking Pokara there's a World Peace Pagoda, a huge while stupa with a golden dome. What takes the shine from the Peace Pagoda is the six foot chain link fence topped with three lines of barbed wire that surrounds it.

Nepal is quite an amazing place it seems that no matter where you go there are huge snow capped mountains poking out of the clouds! I spent some time in Pokara, a very touristy city towards the west of the country. You can get most things that you need in Pokara, and I'm sure the tourists out number the locals. The shops sell a variety of hiking gear, and those that don't are tour agencies that will organise your trip into the mountains.

Unfortunately I didn't have enough time (or the right foot ware) to be able to go hiking, but the pictures I saw, and the tales from the other travellers made sure that Nepal is high on my list for a return visit. I did managed to get up (very) early one morning, climb into a (very) small car, and head up a (very) steep hill. At several points I wondered if the car would actually make it up the hill, but it did and I got to see (along with a number of other tourist) sun rise over the Anapura range of mountains. Pretty spectacular.

However the highlight of my trip to Nepal has to be my overnight stay in a little village called Bandipur on the top of a small mountain range. The village has great views over a river valley and across to the Anapura range of snow capped mountains. It's rather like a place that time has forgot. The main street is pedestrianised, so there's no toot-toot of traffic, and each building seems to perfectly original with wood and hand made bricks. Okay, so it might be a tourist version of Nepal, but there aren't that many tourists there!

House in Bandipur

My hotel reminded me of something out of 'The Lord of the Rings', with a triangular stair case, candles for lights and not a level floor in the place.

While in Bandipur I experienced two huge thunderstorms, one in the late afternoon that didn't last long, but did deposit a large quantity of rain on the place, and turned the main street into a river. The second was a night, it lasted a long longer and I opened the wooden shutters in my hotel room to get a better view of the storm. No sooner had I got back into the warmth of my bed did a bolt of lighting go off directly above the hotel. No counting between the flash and the thunder. This was light and noise at the same instant, and a very loud noise at that - amazing.