No views in Nagarkot
Trip Start
Nov 04, 2007
1
61
62
Trip End
May 03, 2008
Nagarkot,
Nagarkot,
Nepal
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
We nearly didn't make it to Nagarkot. The bus had been going for about 20 seconds when Ros said "is the road tilting or is it the bus?". It was actually the bus that was tilting, and Ros now wanted us to get off and wait for the next one, if it wasn't for the fact that it was the last bus of the day. She then remembered the advert on the London Underground that said a London bus can lean 22 degrees before toppling over, so thought we'd probably be ok.
Nagarkot is a well known point to get stunning views of the Himalayas, including Everest, and apart from spending some time in the peace and quiet of the Nagarkot hills, this was the main reason for going. We headed straight for the Hotel At The End Of The Universe, and before you ask, yes it did have a restaurant! It was just as you might imagine a hotel with that name. It was up a winding pathway and there were only two other guests apart from us. With the wind swirling around, the wooden walls creaking, and the rain lashing at the windows, it did exactly what it said on the tin! Nagarkot is about 2000m above sea level, so the air was cool, clear and fresh. We took a cosy little cabin room and settled in for the evening in their floor-cushion restaurant, crossing our fingers for fine views the following morning.
The whole finger-crossing thing didn't work. Even though the hotel manager was also crossing his fingers, we woke up to cloud cover, so there were to be no views for us. Nevertheless, we set off on a 4-hour mini-trek down the ridge of a hill towards the town of Nala. It was a pretty boring walk to be honest. We saw the Nepalese army in training, and we saw two wild rabbits and that was about it.
Nala is a tiny village, and we only intended to get the bus straight out to the nearby town of Dhulikhel. It turns out however, that Nala has two bus stops, so we were lead through the village to the correct bus stop by a local who was keen to practice what little English he knew. It was nice see a real Nepali village - tourists don't really visit Nala. Although it wasn't as neat and tidy as the tourist villages, the people were friendly and it had a good atmosphere.
We arrived in Dhulikhel (via two buses) to find that it wasn't nearly as interesting as Lonely Planet would have us believe, so wandered around a little and were soon on the bus back to Kathmandu.
