The bus journey to Pokhara was lengthy. It was meant to take 5 - 7 hours, but ended up taking nearly 8. It was, however, peppered with stops, beautiful mountainous scenery, and the occasional bird of prey swooping past. Sometimes we would stop for no apparent reason, where nothing would happen, and twice we stopped for food. The second time we thought we would look for something to eat, and there was a vegetarian curry option. Other than salads, this is possibly the first place on our journey so far, where we have stopped on a bus journey for food and actually been able to eat a meal. Loving Nepal's vegetarianism, we did eventually arrive into Pokhara.

Pokhara's bus station was filled with touts and people offering us taxis . We flatly turned them all down as we planned to go directly to the permit office, to pick up our trekking permits for hiking. The office was just a few hundred metres away. We were looking for information as well, and were able to ask a nice man in the trekking permits office for answers to some of our questions. Two trekking permits each later, and $80 USD lighter, we were on our way. It was raining, but not heavily, so we decided to walk the rest of the way to the hotel. It was about a kilometre away, and we needed the practice lugging our heavy stuff.

Pokhara had a completely different feel to Kathmandu. For one thing, we weren't at the risk of death just by walking down the road. It was quiet, and the lake side area we were staying in was clearly touristic. We had a few touts encourage us to go into their shop, or to their hotel, but we kept plugging on in the light rain until we reached Hotel Diplomat, just off the road. The first impression was definitely a 'wow' factor; it looked amazing. We checked into a nice double room with en-suite. It was quiet, pretty clean and nicely decorated. The only downsides were the giant spider on the shower curtain and the giant ant which attempted to get into our bed. And no breakfast.

Feeling on a roll, we headed straight back out to get some necessary provisions and supplies for our trek. From little things like mini suncream, to big stuff like a suitable backpack, we went to various hiking and convenience shops within a very small radius of our hotel . We got some stuff sorted, and left the rest for the following day when we got too hungry. We had an expensive coffee in a place which had electricity when everywhere else did not (they must have had a generator), and later got another vegetarian curry from a place two doors away from our hotel. We had an early night, with the idea of staying in a pattern of early nights and early mornings.

On Friday 16th, we went out and set about obtaining the rest of the gear we needed. This included another torch for Jayna (torch number three), a coat for Ken, memory cards for the cameras, rental sleeping bags, and a whole bunch of other stuff. We were successful in a short space of time. We headed back to practice pack, and worry about the amount of stuff we were taking. Plus how the quality of our new gear would hold up with the conditions of trekking for several days. We were right to be worried, as the equipment did not hold up well, and we had to return one of the backpacks because of a faulty back piece. After more practice packing, we called it a night and went to bed, ready for the start of our trek in the morning.

Next destination - eight days of trekking from Nayapul to Muktinath on the Annapurna Circuit!