There's not much to say about the bus ride to Pokhara besides the fact that it was long, dirty and uncomfortable. Parts of the trip were beautiful but it was hard to enjoy them when your butt had been bouncing up and down on a metal bar for fourteen hours. Needless to say, we were relieved to finally roll into Pokhara at 6pm that evening. Our timing was impeccable; we arrived just as a torrential downpour began.

 

 

However, the rain cleared by morning and when we stepped outside our room the next day, we were treated to our first glimpse of the Annapurna Range that surrounds Pokhara.

 

 

We hiked to the peace pagoda that overlooks the town and, although by the time we reached the top the clouds had obscured the surrounding mountains, we were able to get a great view of the lake that Pokhara sits next to.

 

 

 

On the way there, we came across people doing laundry in the river. We'd put in clothes to be laundered that day but we didn't spot them...

 

We climbed down the opposite side of the mountain and hitched a ride with a somewhat strange fellow American who had a rowboat to take us across the lake and back to town.

 

 

Once in town, we picked up a couple of white t-shirts in preparation for the next day's festivities.

Every year all across Nepal and India there is a huge celebration surrounding the arrival of spring. For Hindus, this celebration is called Holi and it is a festival of color. It's form can vary from place to place but it usually involves people smearing bright powders and spraying colored liquids all over each other. If you are on the streets during Holi, you are pretty much fair game. It may sound crazy (and it is) but it's all in good fun.

 

 

As if Holi wasn't enough, Meg and I decided to try something else we had never done before on the same day. Pokhara is known as one of the best places in the world to paraglide. It's fame is due to the combination of an excellent launching point and the incredible backdrop of the Annapurna mountain range in the distance. So, on the morning of Holi, Meg and I were picked up and driven up to the launching point. The van provided a nice moving target as we drove through town and many of the local kids let a few water balloons fly. Once at the launching point, our tandem pilots prepped us with a few safety instructions and then before we knew it, we were airborne.

 

 

The views were spectacular from the air (that is Meg off on in the distance).

 

 

We ascended in the air the same way birds do, using the thermal updrafts. In fact, we used the vultures and hawks that were flying around us to find the thermals. After climbing up a few thousand meters, my pilot gave me some additional instructions and then let me take the controls. He directed me towards another thermal then showed me how to catch it. It was really an incredible experience.

 

 

I could have done without the high G-force landing though. Rather than ride back in the van, we chose to walk back to town from the lake where we landed (this was both due to the fact that it was a beautiful day and we were both still a bit weak kneed from the landing). Walking back, it quickly dawned on us again that it was Holi. Our white t-shirts were fresh canvases for the passersby on motorbikes and they were not white for long.

 

 

As we walked through the outskirts of the town, people were in a very festive mood and were excited to see us participating in the festivities as well. It turns out that having a little color on your face means that you are game for Holi and soon we were being bombarded by kids whizzing by and shouting "Happy Holi!" and then spraying us with a fist full of colored powder. Other people would be more polite and ask us if they could smear colors on our faces before doing so. The end result.

 

 

A little calm amidst the chaos.

 

 

The next day we took a 6 hour bus ride to Kathmandu to get ready for our trekking adventure in Langtang National Park.