Lazarow World-Hike-About: 70.12 Nepal: Pokhara from Shanti Stupa and Pumdikot, Shiva Temple, overnight. (Also, a Travel Experience included).

From a room with a view.

A walk through the jungle to get there.

Sun sets on Fewa Lake, still light for much of the city.

Earlier, the Annapurna Range struggled to find air and light; now it's lost sight of Fewa Lake.

We awake to the action below our window.

Clouds begin to scatter in the morning.

The scatter continues, revealing wonderful sights.

Sunset on the mountains.

Early morning flyers grab access to magnificent views.

On the way to paradise.

Early morning freshness seems to rise from the water.

Simply: We love the view, the sight. A person knows he/she has arrived.

Arriving at Shiva Temple, making our way around to the entrance to formally greet the 'chief'.

A full frontal with Annapurna in the background.

Our waiter grabs a camera and spends two minutes showing off his style with the gadget.

Two views from the temple.

Color protrudes clouding.

A ride and experience arriving in Nepal.

It almost goes without saying that a long journey over continents will result in the unexpected occurring—it invariably happens. Not all is bad. In fact, there are good occurrences and mostly inconvenient events that might occur. No use worrying about them as there's not much one can do to prevent them other than to avoid mishaps from poor or careless behavior. We had a good flight beginning in San Diego, arriving in Dallas nearly 3-hours later, followed by a 14-hours flight to Doha and then a further 4.5-hours in the air, arriving in the city of Kathmandu. Thereafter, a further 30 minutes of flight to the City of Pokhara. Fortunately, the flights were decently spaced so the stops were never very long or too short to create dashes for a connection. Nevertheless, that was much flying in anyone's flight plans, we would think. As we undertook the flights, we could hardly argue with the comment.

Upon arriving in Kathmandu, things changed and we had quite a tough Thursday based upon a lack of sleep, a 13.75 hours jump forward into the future and some events that occurred soon thereafter.

We arrived at the immigration counter and the officer seemed to be struggling with my passport. I thought it had passed the test because since it was issued, we had undertaken 3 trips to Nepal, our first being on the now expired document. After 5 minutes of struggle to attain confirmation, he excused himself and went to confer, we suppose, with his superior. Fifteen minutes later, he returned and began to bang on the keyboard, scan the passport and cover his face with sour expressions. What were we to think? Clearly, things were looking bleak and we wondered whether we were about to be turned back and head to our source airport. Fortunately, whatever the issue was, he either ignored it or accepted our situation, and we passed through immigration.

We were moving fast now as we had lost much time and wondered whether our baggage could have been moved. Fortunately, many people surrounded the carousel so we were still okay. However, there were no baggage carts available. I headed back in search of one and did manage to find a cart hanging about the toilet area at some distance from my commencement point. All was good.

Upon looking at the passport stamp, I noticed having applied and paid for a 90-days visa, we were issue one for 66-days. Heck, where did that come from. It's something we don't understand and will be following through soon, once we have learned to speak Nepalese so we have a fair chance of being understood. Yeh! Right! Let's move on; why get stuck on the small things.

We needed cash. Always a good thing especially as credit cards are not used much in this country, including at our first apartment. We are splitting our time over 2 apartments, the first being for 3-weeks with the latter for the remaining 9-weeks. In between, we intend to hike in other neighboring regions, Jen's health permitting. Although we remain bound to our leases, we take 'short term-leases' at other accommodation. This can be anything from an overnight stay to something a little longer.

Back to the cash. We approached the ATM machine and made our choice. Unfortunately, we did not know the limitation of withdrawal. On our first try, apparently, we had reached the maximum although we had yet to make a withdrawal in a week. We tried a different machine and failed again. Things were becoming interesting. We had discovered previously that different local banks set varying limits. We went to another ATM and this time got some inside information from a fellow working close by who gave us what we needed to know. Hooray! It dispensed an amount but not sufficient to pay for 3-weeks rent. Aha! We remembered we were carrying Euros, too. A quick deal and we exchanged the currency for a large wad of local notes. We were weighed down in currency but still an insufficient amount to cover the bill. We would have to deal with that issue later.

We left the International Arrivals terminal and made our way to domestic departures. I had in my head that the walk was short and downhill. Turns out I got the two parts mixed up. Rather, it was uphill and not a very short journey. Nevertheless, I was fixated on the idea of walking and so Jen joined me as we made our way to the departures hall. I was pushing a trolley with 4 pieces of baggage and a backpack as well. When we arrived at the baggage check, the people surrounding us, showing their usual consideration, cut in front of us and managed efficiently to keep us fighting to move forward, and at times, struggling to remain on our feet. I think they do have a 'take care of yourself first' policy in this part of the world.

We made it through the checkpoint with 5 pieces of luggage, no serious injuries and momentum to keep moving forward. I went ahead to see about securing an earlier flight and achieved success. Things were looking up as this saved 90 minutes of waiting with an earlier arrival, too. We headed to the gate to seat ourselves when we were approached by a gate attendant who asked as what we were carrying in our baggage that appeared to be of an electrical/electronic nature. However, he spoke in a manner that was beyond my understanding.

He asked me to follow him which I did which was to the side of the building where luggage travels to the plane. Three other fellows approached me and asked what the 'thing-a-majig' was. I really did not understand what they meant. I asked them to open the bag and show me. They did. The only thing that stood out was a new Kindle that we were carrying. After a brief discussion, they sent me on my way. What that was about I had no idea. What had been interesting was how quickly we had been identified, and stopped. Then I realized, of course, we look a little different from the locals.

After an uneventful flight and collection of our baggage upon arrival in Pokhara, we loaded our pieces and ourselves into a small taxi. Most (all) are small. Unfortunately, the address we had was in typical Nepalese form, less than adequate. While we knew the general positioning of the location, we did not have an exact address. Our taxi-driver was rather impatient and after 10 seconds of circling became a little 'hostile', an unusual form of behavior in the country. I suggested he take one more look on 39th Street and then if unsuccessful, drop us off at our friends and usual landlords, Mina and Buddhi. He did this and we offloaded everything, walked about 150 yards from the sidewalk and entered their property. Fortunately, they were home. It was quite surreal not actually having a good address to point out and having a taxi-driver unwilling to help us.

The real sad and important issue was that we learned a month before that Buddhi is suffering from cancer, a very difficult situation, of course. We caught up with Buddhi who then jumped on his scooter with his son and went to find our address. Some people are just decent. In the meantime, we sat with Mina as she poured out her heart on their travails. Medical care is not offered on a first-world basis although far more affordable than in the US. Buddhi arrived back within 10 minutes, arranged a taxi and after our 'goodbyes', (see you tomorrow), we went to our apartment. Turns out to be a terrific place, 7-storey building, but it does have a paper sign on the corner advertising its name (Boldly?). Although it's on 39th Street, turns out that 39th is not a street but a partial alley for a block or two. We should have known that since this was our fifth visit.

'Okay', we said, 'let's settle the bill'.(Normally, say with Buddhi, we might have to remind him to charge us).The manageress spoke to us but her 18-year old daughter who we thought at the time was about 13, was the real communicator. We were settling up which was not much money but comprises a fortune of bills ($1=144 Rupees). They do not accept credit cards. Unfortunately, with the limit on withdrawals, we were a few Rupees short. "How about some dollars," I asked. They jumped at it. There I was, my mind so tired I could hardly think straight, converting dollars to Rupees and negotiating with the 18 year old who looked 13.

We had arrived. All that was left was to lug two bags weighing over 50 pounds each, one was actually a lot more as we had to consolidate 2 into 1 earlier for the small plane, and climb the equivalent of 4 American floors. While Mount Everest is probably tougher, at the time, I did not think so. All is well that ends well except we did not know of the hot water issue awaiting us in the winter season of the year 2082. (More about that later, the year, that is.)

Shanti Stupa dominates the limited light.