We were delighted to have a couple of completely unscheduled days in Pokhara after our rigorous trekking.  The only thing I really wanted to do here came from a small paragraph in Lonely Planet which mentioned that Pokhara is the only place in the world you can go parahawking.  Not paragliding, parahawking.  Parahawking is a strange combination of falconry and paragliding where you let a falcon direct you into the wind to find the best currents for paragliding.  Then as you’re floating down, you feed the falcon to reward it for all of its hard work.  Unfortunately for us, the falconer was on holidays in the UK the whole time we were there.  Reason #1 I want to return to Pokhara.

Even without falcons, Pokhara is a well-known spot for paragliding as the mountains surrounding the small lake town are ideal for jumping off and swirling around in the currents that rise up from the lake below.  I went paragliding ten years ago in Switzerland and loved it, so we scheduled jumps for the following day. 

We were lucky it wasn’t raining, but we did get a lot of clouds and fog, so my photographs were not as great as I had hoped.  Paragliding, if you’ve never tried it, is amazing.  There’s nothing like running as if you’re about to free fall down a mountain and then realizing you’re still running but there’s nothing under your feet.  You sit back as the parachute behind you, now full, yanks you backwards and up into the wind for incredible views and occasionally a few stomach-turning drops.

Here’s a secret about Pokhara which none of our guide books mentioned: it has some great local music.  We hired a couple of kids (named Kiss and Jelly) with a boat to paddle us around the lake for an afternoon.  They played music for us by local band Razor, which was great.  Later, we made the mistake of going to some cultural dinner show one night.  It was difficult to pick the dancer who least wanted to be there, it was quite painful.  We left and found a live band doing hilarious 90s covers including Mr. Big!  Pokhara’s not an incredibly late-night town, but if you look around there are some fun spots.

The smartest move we made in Pokhara was to purchase upgraded bus tickets back to Kathmandu.  Our bus trips had been so slow and miserable that we decided an air-conditioned coach was worth the relatively astronomical $20.  We lucked out and only ended up with about 8 people on the enormous and comfortable bus.  The ride back was fast, the bus didn’t seem like it was going to break down at any minute, and we even stopped for a buffet lunch which was included in our fare.  I know, it makes me sound like I’m lazy, but after my last few car rides in Kathmandu, I felt it was a solid investment in my safety.