Friday 24 January 2014

Lakeside, Pokhara, January 16th 2014.

So this is lakeside Pokhara...

Time to take a look around the place before sunset. Main street crammed with bars, cafes, restaurants, travel agencies, bars, cafes, travel agencies, convenience stores and endless souvenir shops, oh and more bars, those of the boozing and dancing variety I mean. Yes, Western vices have well and truly arrived here and look pretty well established, plenty of pandering and pampering - just one thing missing,  little Tesco's!

Could be called 'The strip' or just as easily and probably more accurately 'Holiday Street'. A hotspot of debauchery and mayhem in the full tourist season, but right now the place relatively quiet. Western style coffee shops are plentiful, at least 2 every 50 yards or so. The Olive Cafe selling illy coffee looks like a pleasant enough place. A bean coffee for 130 rupees, about 70p and Wifi thrown in, and this is just about as Western as I intend to get - although finding localised Nepali at Nepali prices might prove challenging around here!

The lane opposite should lead down to the lake hopefully as I don't really want to be pound these streets for too long as the sun looks about to set. Lakeside 6 is the only street identification I can glean from a sign board attached to Pokhara Dreamland Restaurant - full points for trying, but certainly not dreamland with just 2 old tables with 3 plastic chairs!

A quick looks at the lake on which Pokhara is famed and the reason this is a holiday hotspot. Plenty of activity with the boat hirer's doing a brisk trade, even at the extortionate prices posted on the board. More later, but for now a few photos as the sun sets and an eeri mist forms creating some pretty nice photos.

A plethora of lanes leading off Holiday Street and actually there seems to be plenty of localised food joints with quite decent prices - about £1.60 for a Nepalese Thakali.

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