Breakfast in our luxury hotel was a blessing on our final day. The room came with breakfast included so we made the most of it with Croissants and Eggs Benedict with a fresh coffee to top it all off. The hotel also had a selection of pastries to buy in a fresh bakery on site, so we bought a couple each for the bus journey back to Kathmandu.
Prior to the journey, the actual length of the bus ride was a bit ambiguous. Raj had suggested the journey would be 6, 7 and 8 hours, at various times and to different people, so we weren’t too sure what to expect.
A driver came to collect us from the hotel at 8am, taking us to the bus station on Pokhara where we caught a tourist bus to Kathmandu. The bus itself was a pleasant surprise, with air conditioning and reasonably comfortable seats. The luggage was all affixed to a roof rack and off we went.
The journey took us through a mountainous region and on to the Kathmandu Valley, via a temple that you need to take a cable car to, which appears to be very popular with the local Hindu population as there were cars parked down both sides the road, restricting traffic to single file and resulting in a huge traffic jam. Interestingly there were Hollywood style white lettering boards on the valley side advertising the national mobile phone network, ncell.
After 8 hours we arrived in Kathmandu bus station. From here we had to walk to the hotel, which was a fairly gentle ten minute walk, albeit through the crazy streets of inner city Kathmandu. On arriving at the hotel we recovered our bag, containing the items that we had left in Kathmandu.
In the evening we took a journey to La Sherpa, Kathmandu’s only Michelin starred restaurant. After the simple, but excellent, food on the trek it was quite an experience. The food, as expected, was first rate, as was the wine (a first in quite some time).
As it was the last night that we’d be together it was quite poignant with many promises to stay in touch and offers of visits if we were ever in the area. With that we retired for the night, hoping to see each other again, one day.
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