Thursday : sunny

Gosh we were lazy and little piggies today. When we left the hotel it was 11am, so we had steaks and beers for breakfast.

Yes big fat juicy steaks, we got told by a fella on the Everest trek (Tim) that Pokhara is the place for steaks. I wasn't sure how true the statement was, but after last nights and today's meals, I'm a believer. They're no 500gs but they're very tasty.

We hung out at the restaurant drinking for a bit then went for a walk about town. Very quiet today, lots of shops are closed and not many people knocking about because of the nation wide festival.

We moved on down towards the lake and walked from the southern end right up to the north end. Pretty Warm out today, Pokhara is 400m lower than Kathmandu so it's a bit warmer here. We saw a heap of buffalo in a park playing in the mud, they were very funny to watch.

All this walking was making us thirsty so we stopped off at one the many lakeside restaurants and grabbed some shade in under a bamboo hut. A few more hours went by watching the mountains change, drinking and looking out over the lake. This is a relaxing place.

We did some reading up on the festival too. It's called the Dasain and it lasts for 15 days. It's a bit of a vicious festival. It celebrates a goddesses victory over the forces of evil. Sounds a bit like starwars. Giant bamboo swings are erected and hand powered ferris wheels are also setup. Here's the vicious part, hundreds of thousands of animals are sacrificed across the country, in this god (Durga's) honor. I prefer the swings and ferris wheels myself. There's something like a dozen or more of these big festivals every year. Any excuse to do some slaughtering it seems.

Anyways we then walked back through the north end of town heading for the hotel. The north side is slightly different to the areas there are less shops, and more homes/restaurants.

We were able to hire a motorbike and leave it overnight at our hotel for tomorrow morning. We are getting up real early tomorrow, to ride up to Sarangkot where there's supposed to be great views of the Annapurna ranges.

While taking the bike for a test ride I topped up the bikes tank. Had trouble finding a servo open tonight too, again because of the festival. I rode forever, no street lights or neon signs here. I was getting directions off cabbies, getting pulled over by police, it was a mission.

Made it back to the hotel with the half melted ice cream that I picked up. b*****! just missed out on saving private Ryan. We got to watch jaws though. This hotels pretty good the staff are very friendly and helpful, much better than the last hotel. The reception fella came and checked out the bike we hired, then marked some POI on our map for tomorrow's ride.

Hopefully the rain that has just started stops.