HAPY Farmers of Spaceship Earth

After recuperating and enjoying a few days back at our hotel, we decided to take a boat across Lake Phewa and hike up to the White Peace Pagoda. The lake, although very dirty and brown at the edges, was quite pleasant. Our boat ride across was very peaceful and our "boat driver" although the more accurate term for him would've been "boat rower" got us there in no time. The hike up was really nice, it was very quiet and was a good break for us from the busy city. At the Peace Pagoda you are not allowed to talk and you have to walk around the circle in a clockwise manner. We walked around, made a few friends (outside the gate since you can't talk inside the gate), and started our descent.

Tadapani had some splendid views as well. There were so many waterfalls on our path that day, so many sections of serene nature scenes, and we even bumped into a train of donkeys as well as some buffalo. The villages we walked through were quaint and isolated. We got to Ghandruk in the afternoon and were glad to start heading back to our hotel in Pokhara. However, our journey back wound up being very stressful, and after much haggling, our jeep ride was still expensive and absolutely awful. They squished so many people into the jeep. Ye huda started off sitting in the back (which he was too tall for) and sat hunched until he told the shorter people in the front that if we were paying the same amount we should switch seats in the middle - very valid. I kept getting nauseous from all the twists turns, and bumps. We were always at the edge of the cliff and it looked like there were a few times we might go over. We even had to back up on the mountain roads a few times in order to let some...

We set our alarm for four a.m. in order to get ourselves up to Poonhill in time for sunrise. It was extremely difficult waking up in our dark, freezing tea house but we layered up, grabbed our walking sticks, and headed for those stairs. Sunrise was much more crowded than sunset had been, and we made many friends on the mountain that day. I was so happy I made it to the top in time for sunrise. At some point I had started lagging behind and had told Juda to go ahead of me so he wouldn't miss it. He was waiting at the top for me with a big smile when I got there. After hiking back down and enjoying a nice homemade breakfast, we continued our trek. We got to a beautiful section called Duhreli Pass and it was the most magnificent part of our trip. We sat there for as much time as we could and just stared out at the mountains and clouds. Day three involved lots of slippery stone steps and because we were going down we proceeded with caution, so much caution that we only got to Tadap...

Easy Breezy - That's how day two felt for us. We had heard through the grapevine that the second day of our trek was meant to be the easiest and much to our delight, it was! It started off with a few remaining stairs as we left Ulleri, but after that it was smooth sailing. We made it to Ghorepani with enough time for Yehuda to take a nap before we made our way up Poonhill for sunset. Poonhill was very quiet for sunset. The mountains were glowing, the sun was sinking behind them and the weather started dropping fast! We made our way back in the dark with only our cellphones to help light the way.