NATURE AT ITS BEST AT TIGER MOUNTAIN LODGE

Pokhara is a lovely little town with lots of outfitters and gear shops as this is the jumping off spot for a climb into the Annapurna Range of the Himalayas.  Nepal has 8 of the world's top climbing mountains and most of the year, you can find climbers in town here and in Kathmandu.  There is even a famous restaurant/bar in Kathmandu called Rumdoodle where you can find the business cards and signatures of the "grand ones" stuck and painted on the walls....complete with dates. But here in Pokhara is a beautiful lake and dozens of stores and restaurants catering to the climbing and the Nepali vacation crowd. 

There are lots of hotels in town, be we are headed for the mountains and hopefully some good hiking and bird wathcing.

Tiger Mountain Lodge is a beautiful small lodge perched above the town and an absolutely wonderful place to do bird watching or mountain watching.  From the deck of my cottage, I can see three ranges of mountains.  Accommodations here are spartan, but this English owned lodge is more than comfortable with modern bath and huge kings sized beds. At night the mosquito netting is dropped around the bed and a coil lit in every room to keep out the "critters".  However it did  not keep out the giant black ants that were having a war in my white sink.  Every time I went in the bathroom I would wash about 100 or so down the drain (they were coming in thru the overflow drain) only to have them return.  In the morning I discovered what must have been an ant war in my sink as there were heads and half bodies still there but the big black creatures had all but disappeared. The ant war besides, the bird calls in the morning were magnificent and even a monkey somewhere decided to add to the chorus.

 

So here today, gone tomorrow...this is the motto of the travel professional.  Check out as many hotels as we can see and off to the next place.....Bhutan!  Can't wait!