A very early start this morning to pack,load the minibus and proceed up yet another tiny switchback road up a local mountain above pokhara to see the sun rise over the Himalayas. Thankfully the rain and hail has helped clear the air and although there was some cloud we were fortunate to see the sun through the clouds and just as we had to leave we managed a pretty clear view of Annapurna. We then retraced our steps back along the river to the next town stopping for an amazing view from one of the suspension walkways across the river. It is surprising to see banana trees at the side of the road.Another fine lunchtime stop overlooking the river and mountains before we hit a long tailback of traffic trying to get to Kathmandu. We took a shortcut through brick and rice fields which was just as jammed but we managed to get to the "monkey"temple which overlooks the city.It is a holy site for Buddhists and Hindus and has several stupa and ancient temples.Of course it is crawling with monkeys because here they are sacred and thankfully tame(but not with each other).we even had our first beggars in Nepal but the city itself seems pretty clean generally and not particularly chaotic.Sadly the pollution levels mean you can't see the peaks any longer but we intend flying over them tomorrow morning to see Mount Everest!