Pokhara - City of Lakes

Nepal is itself a world with its awe-inspiring mountains, intricate temples, lively festivals, colorful robes and prayer flags. It is the most beautiful destination for religious and spiritual travel and it hosts the uplifting places to travel. At the same time climbing, trekking or paragliding in the world’s biggest mountains, rafting down crashing rivers or tracking tigers and one horned rhinoceros in their natural habitat with the elephant safari make it a prime destination for the thrill seekers and adventure lovers all over the world.



Nepal’s second largest city with an area of 55.22 km2, Pokhara city is the most popular destination and gateway to the best trekking route Annapurna region trekking in Nepal. Three out of the ten highest mountains in the world Dhaulagiri, Annapurna I and Manaslu lie 30 miles northern of the city. Pokhara’s tourist scene lolls beside Phewa Tal (Phewa Lake), which turns an indifferent back to the modern Nepali city of Pokhara – in fact, if it wasn’t for the smog that increasingly obscures the mountains on most afternoons, you’d hardly know the city was there. “Lakeside”, as it’s known, may not be the rustic travellers’ haven it once was, but it remains Nepal’s little tourist paradise: carefree and culturally undemanding, with a steaks-and-cakes scene that almost rivals Thamel’s, and a pocket version of the same nightlife, to match. It’s significantly more laidback than Kathmandu’s Thamel, however – and relatively horizontal, if you’ve come up from North India.



Pokhara is the first place many travellers venture to after Kathmandu. It may be short on A-list sights, apart from the lake itself, but it’s very long on activities: for trekkers, it’s the gateway to Nepal’s most popular trails; for rafters and kayakers, it’s Nepal’s river-running headquarters; for paragliders and mountain bikers it’s one of the best spots on earth. The climate is balmy: at 800m above sea level it’s both cooler than the plains in summer and warmer than Kathmandu in winter. (It may be significantly wetter than the capital, but most of the rain falls outside the tourist season, so the only sign of water many visitors see is the lake, and the lush subtropical greenery.)



Pokhara has a real traveller vibe and you can spend hours wandering around cool cafes and craft shops, rowing the tranquil waters of Phewa Tal (the lake) or visiting Tibetan market stalls. The Annapurna range is a constant temptation for most students, and most group together to arrange biking, trekking, horse riding, rafting and paragliding. If you are looking for something more enlightening there are plenty of local temples and Tibetan villages to explore and cultural Kathmandu is just a short flight away.