I decided to move from TravelInn to Pushpahouse where I met another cool Chili couple. Also for the first time I met a nice Nepali guy through CouchSurfing who helped the three of us to go around Pokhara in local buses. We went to Devi's falls which is water falls called Davi after a woman who died there

This is Gnaish statue (God of luxury and money?)

people are trying to aim at his head with coins, whoever his coin fall on his head should get goodluck of somekind.

Then we visited mahadive cave which has a temple inside believe to be built by the gods themselves,

– Same as Mokatam monastery? -. Then we visited the bat cave, you could see lots of bats hanging on the ceiling.

Bat Cave

When we went back the couple introduced me to other tourists they met – mostly Spanish speaking – and we went together for a dinner. a girl in the group had already been to Chitwan (a city in Nepal with a national park that has elephants, rhinos, tigers and other wild animals), I of course wanted to go there until she told me how horrible elephants are being treated there. like hitting them on their heads for no reason or forcing them to shower too many times for the tourists to ride on them and enjoy elephant shower. all the nice activities you can do with domestic elephants she explained how abusive it is to the elephants. and so I canceled my original plan to go to Chitwan after Pokhara.

Anyway the Spanish guys offered that I join them in their trekking. It was a good idea but I had concern about them all being Spanish speakers, I also had to call the other girl I met earlier and see if she like to join as well. The girl said she'd rather wait and go with the other Nepali friends we met. anyway I decided to join the Spanish group can't remember why though. Cost around 3000 Nepali (around $30) to get permits for trekking The plan was to go first to poonhill then to ABC – a longer route, but fun –

The group I started to travel with

Since we were a big group we rented a whole microbus. My worries were reasonable, they tried to speak English for a while but would eventually switch to Spanish. Later throughout the trekking the couple I came with tried hard to speak English for me, it wasn't as easy for them to speak English as it is for me.

I love this trekking, walking between green mountains.

even though I knew the answer I couldn't stop asking same question each time I see green mountain: "How the hell did the water come up there?" waterfalls were also astonishing, it was like I am inside one of my computer's wallpapers only better.

Climbing wasn't so hard for me, I was smart enough to go with a very light bag. only few pieces of cloths, a bottle of water and some human dry food.

eventually we all reached our first stop at different paces and so we ended up in different hotels. in case you are wondering: yes, there are many hotels in each stop to the top of the mountain.

The gusthouse

The fish tail mountain

The next day we found that one guy went really quickly and we never saw him again. Two girls decided to stay because of altitude sickness. and I countinued with the chili couple and Mexican guy toward the top. [I don't mention people's names cause they might not want me to do so ]



Water is so pure up there that you could just drink it

By evening we became very close to poon hill, the first mountain top. we looked for a hotel but this time together. its great to have a girl with you, she was our "quality control" advisor when it came to choosing the right hotel. she actually found a bedbug in one hotel, luckily that was before we pay for it.

another thing to pay attention to when trekking in Anapurna is that many hotels would offer ou a free stay if you will eat at their place. as you probably have guessed by now, food up there is not that cheap. although if I sum my rent in Pokhara + food it would be more expensive than food alone at the mountains.


Couldn’t possibly imagine such food on top of a mountain

some chose to climb to poonhill and see the sunset that day while others chose to see sunrise of the next day instead. I wanted to see sunset and travel early in the morning to avoid the hot sun of evening time.

took lots of pictures there with the snow which is the first time I see outside my home's freezer.

Snow started to show up

I wanted to touch it, walk in it, even sleep in it. its like I found a treasure of some kind.

at that night I met other trekkers, Americans and Australians [ so English speakers ] I agreed to join them and that we start in the morning, and told my Chili friend if they like to join. the intention here – in case you didn't already get it – is to have a – more English speaking – company next day I ended up climbing with one Australian guy.

the company was good and the walk was nice except for one thing. the snow I've enjoyed yesterday has turned into ice, which I also liked so much until I started slipping. I didn't slip once or twice, I slipped none stop. every few meters. problem is in many places I can see the brown ice, I know I am gonna slip, I am extra careful not to slip then I slip nonetheless.

I reached the point when me my ass couldn't 'take it' anymore and so I decided – with lots of sorrow – to go back.

I stayed in Pokhara few days after that. I found paragliding over Pokhara’s lake pretty interesting but I wanted to do alone which wasn’t allowed. a professional must accompany you and do the steering

not knowing what to do next with Chitwan plans canceled I saw a backpacker heading somewhere. what caught my eye about her is that she was wearing two "backbags" one on her back and one in front, couldn't stop myself from staring for a while. later I will adopt this approach during my travels. anyway each one of us went on the opposite direction few minutes later I decide to go back and find her going in the opposite direction again. I asked if she was looking for something, turns out she was heading to TravelInn – my first hotel – and each time she ask someone they give her different directions. Apparently Egyptians are not the only one who does that

anyway as a gentleman I am I offered to walk her to the hotel – alright, I offered because she was interesting. can I continue the story now? – she has just returned from Chitwan, I asked her about the elephants but she had no idea. she simply did 3 days jungle trekking on foot and never had to deal with elephants in anyway.

wow, that's interesting I could do that too. I've always dreamed of walking in the jungle. a day or two after that the Chili couple returned back from trekking. they made it to ABC (Anapurna Base Camp) they told me they plan to go to Chitwan and I said I'll join them.