Sunsets, Bon jovi and red carpets

We spent our last day in Pokhara relatively slowly, and in the evening we took a car out to Sarangkot, which is a mountain that you can climb to get amazing sunset views across the Annapurna Range.
It wasnt a bad way to spent Flower & Card Retailers Day (Valentines Day), looking across the Himalayas as the sunset, and the colours changed. The romantic occasion was only enhanced by a group of about eight Nepali boys from Kathmandu loudly singing "It's my Life" by Bon Jovi as they climbed the hill. Ahhh, the serenity. Unfortunately, the tradition of Valentines day has made it to Pokhara, with bars and restaurants decorated for the occasion, and offering special deals, dances and DJs. It's quite surreal.

We left Pokhara on Monday morning, and spent 3 hours in the airport waiting for our delayed flight. The flight in a tiny 20 seater plane was amazing, with fantastic views as we flew alongside the Annapurna Range.
This time our arrival to Nepal was met with Red carpets and polished brass flower pots. This time we werent upstaged by the Nepali Asian Games Team, just the King! We discovered if we were an hour later, the airport would have been completely shut down for his Arrival.

We checked into a hotel connected with the place we stayed in Pokhara, and have spent our few days in Kathmandu exploring, finding interesting cafes and doing a touch of shopping.
Yesterday we travelled away from the main tourist area and tracked down some fantastic fair trade shops to do a bit of shopping.

While eating lunch in a garden cafe, we discovered that they screen weekly movies in the evenings (Pirate of course!) so we headed back there to watch Invictus. It was a great film, and the vibe was great, with a mix of locals, ex pats and travellers. We met a woman from Phoenix who is a professor in Gender Studies and development in the US, establishing and supporting micro finance organisations over here. It's been nice to do a few things like this as part of our travels, as it gives a bit of a glimpse of the more genuine parts of life. Kathmandu is a strange mix of traditional and western culture all thrown in together, and as you'd expect of a tourist focused area, sometimes the impact of the western culture feels a bit sad.

All the same, we've enjoyed our time here, and are really glad we've made it to Nepal. We leave this morning and head back to Bangladesh to meet up with Alison again, and head down towards the sunderbans. We've got a tight transfer between plane and train this evening, with only a few hours to spare, so we're hoping it all works out!

Internet access is much harder to find in Bangladesh, so it might be sometime before we write again.