Yesterday woke up to another clear morning, so decided to visit Sarankot, a high view point for seeing the stunning annapurna range. We came here 9 years ago to see the sun rise, it was awesome. We grabbed a taxi which took us about two thirds of the way there. This is the first taxi we have had in Pokhara. It is quite steep and l thought Ray would struggle but he did well and took it slowly. The pathway is lined with little houses trying to sell you drinks or trinkets, they do not seem to understand that you cannot purchase from everyone lol. One enterprising lady we passed insisted that we took a bamboo stick each to help us up the steep terrain, it turned out to be very helpful. We passed the point where the paragliders launch, sometimes there are over 30 in the air at any one time!
We eventually reached the top, and spent time taking in the fantastic view of the mountains and valley below.
On the way down we had to run the gauntlet of people selling their wares yet again. We purchased a postcard from one young lad , who somehow mannaged to sell Ray some pendant as well. We then arrived back to the stick lady and purchased a couple of drinks for use of her sticks
! She did not seem content with that and tried make us buy a bedspread that she had made and was giving us the usual sob story , in the end Ray purchased more trinkets that he does not really want. It seems that you cannot make eye contact with anyone without them selling you something.
After passing the sellers we got onto the main road and decided to walk all the way down, with the trees over hanging it was almost like a English country lane. We were taking in the scenery when a man and wife on a motorcycle stopped and asked if we were English, when we replied yes, he said he had studied in liverpool twice on grants from England and how grateful he was the UK, then he wanted to take photos of us, together, separate, with him then with his wife all manner of combinations, by this time we were getting hacked off. He then wanted our email address so he could stay in contact ( why for heavens sake ). He could not find a pen, so stopped a passing taxi to get one, l think perhaps we made a mistake in the address we gave him lol. Then he wanted to know where we are staying. I think I may have told a fib! We finally managed to get rid of them.
A little further down the road we saw some brightly painted gates and decided to take photos when a lady popped out and invited us in so we could see the view. It turned out to be a monastery, she made us a lovely pot of nepali tea and offered some biscuits, She wanted nothing in return, just someone different to chat to as she seemed quite lonely.
We carried on down until we arrived at Old Pokhara, we mooched about and found a Seti River Gorge, we paid our entrance fee and walked across the bridge over the deep ravine, there is also an aqueduct here with the water roaring through from the mountains. We came across some steps and thought this was the way out, big mistake as it led to some old boys house and garden, this was a delibetate ploy by him as he insisted on showing every body his mangy animals. To my dismay he had hutches with rabbits the only ones l have seen here, they were in really small dirty cages. He insisted that Ray took photos of me, himself and poor bunnies.l was not happy about the way he mauled them about. He tried to lure us inside his house, but we politely refused. We then had to take more photos of him with ourselves, he gave us his address and insisted we post said photos to him, then he dragged out envelopes from around the world where other mugs had done this. Of course this is followed by here is the donation box for the upkeep of animals lol.
After escaping from him, we decided to try and find a cafe with toilet, we chose the most inviting looking one. We ordered tea as usual and Ray chose a vanilla donut, the vanilla was scooped out of washing up bowl in fridge. I thought l would play safe and have carrot cake although it looked rather dry but l need not have worried as the young girl serving grabbed it , took it to the chef in grubby kitchen who had a good feel of it then put it in the oven for a few minutes, took it out felt it some more and served it to me lol.
We finally arrived back to guest house in need of a good shower ad we were covered in dust.