Today is a day of organising. We go for a walk to the Permit Office in the outskirts of the town for our Trek Permits, which cost 2000 NRP ($25 / £18). We then do some shopping to make sure that we have all the warm weather gear that we will need, etc.
Later, Laurie, Brian and I go on a boat on the Phewa Tal (lake) at the bottom of the town. This is a beautifully reflective lake overlooked by Machapuchure as well as the Annapurnas looming in the distance. There is a small temple island (with an even smaller temple) near the Pokhara side of the lake and we visit this for a few moments, myself watching the fish gathered at its edges hoping to be fed.
Our boat driver is playing us some of his favourite music on his phone. He only has three songs on it and one of them is a Nepalese pop song which is frankly dreadful, although he tells us it has very moving lyrics. I am sharing my cigarettes with him and he asks me if I smoke anything stronger. I ask him if he means marijuana but he says no. Whatever it is, he says he smokes it every day. This lake is safe to swim in, so I am not too alarmed to be in his care for an hour or two. Indeed, on our way back to the lakeside, we pass Joost, the ever smiling Dutchman, in the water. This is unsurprising because Joost even took the chance to swim in a lake in Iran which we were warned might be polluted with radioactive material.
My stomach is feeling much better and I venture to the Everest Streak House for dinner, eating a vast and spectacularly served steak flambé (pictures Laurie).
After leaving the steakhouse, I go across the road to an ATM to fill my wallet for the next ten days. However, in my absent mindedness, I walk away without taking my credit card out of the machine. A couple of local young men / boys who had been waiting behind me for the ATM alerted me. I was pleasantly surprised that they hadn’t just taken it without telling me and thank them, while at the same time silently cursing them for not at least taking it out of the machine before it got swallowed. This means that we won’t be able to get the bus to start our trek as early as we had planned as I have to wait for the bank to open the next day.
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