Mountains, part six (Dhampus to Phedi to Pokhara, and Kathmandu...thank god.

I say thank god because of our plane ride, which I'll get to.

The owner of the hotel got a phone call at 4am letting him know that there was no strike on for that day, so luckily we would not have to walk the 8 or so miles back to Pokhara and could just catch a ride on a local bus.  That also meant that we only had about an hour to the bottom, which was exciting.  It doesn't sound like much, but when it's a super steep descent along a rocky path, with two black-and-blue toes, it's a lonnnnnng hour down.

We came across a grassy knoll that screamed "Sound of Music," so we instinctively broke in to song and dance.

 

On the way down we saw some local kids, one of whom ran up to me with his(?) cell phone and asked if he could take a photo, and since i'm used to that happening all the time in the U.S., i politely agreed.

The one part that wasn't that exciting as we climbed down the last set of steep stone steps was the honking of buses that we could hear.  It was so nice to get away from that for a few days!

Once we made it back to Pokhara we relaxed over some delicious veggie curry, mango lassi, and fresh mangos.

The plane ride home.  Wow.
Guna Airlines is supposedly a new company, but the planes are about 40 years old.  They hold about 14 people at a time, so you know you're going to feel every gust of wind.  There was a missing bolt on the wing, which thankfully Max pointed out to me after we landed.  It didn't help when everyone on the plane was visibly terrified as the plane took a nose dive toward the Kathmandu airport, including a French guy next to me who does paragliding for a living, he said he feels safer in his paraglide than on these airplanes.  Then there was the typical Nepali landing where you fishtail on the runway and everyone looks to one another with a desperately scared look in their eyes.  It almost makes the roads seem like a better option, until you talk to people who have done overland travel and would prefer to put themselves in the planes.