Table of Contents
Prelude
Fortunately, love for the mountains was embedded into us from our early childhood. Both of us love the mountains as much as we love the sea. So, when we were planning for our first tour across the border, we immediately thought of Nepal. Out of all the places, we have been to Pokhara stands out as the best destination. It is the most favorite tourist destination of Nepal for many reasons. Like everyone else, we have been to this amazing place, and here we are presenting Pokhara Travel Guide for you. This will include; what are the best places to go in Pokhara and how to go to all these places.
How to Get to Pokhara
There are usually two means to travel to Pokhara. You may either take a flight to go to Pokhara from Kathmandu or take a bus ride. During our trip to Nepal for 7 days, we have visited Kathmandu, Chitwan, Pokhara, and Nagarkot. If you are taking of tour of multiple cities including Chitwan, we suggest to go to Pokhara from Chitwan by Bus. Both the Air means as well as the Bus ride offer amazing views. Journey by air offers you breathtaking view of the Himalayas. And journey by bus offers you amazing view of trails, streams, and countryside of Nepal.
Where to Stay in Pokhara
Being the most popular tourist destination Pokhara offers all types of accommodation from cheap to high end for all types of travelers and tourists. You may book your hotel/ hostels from any online platform e.g. airbnb, agoda, booking, hostelworld, trivago, etc. However, if you are a budget traveler like us, we suggest you to book your first night from any website before arrival. This might help you in getting a ride from airport/ bus station to your hotel. Out of all the options of stay, we prefer staying around Phewa Lake.
Transportation in Pokhara
Most popular transportation in Pokhara is Motorcycle. If you are traveling as a couple and you are confident with motorcycle with a valid license, renting a motorcycle is the best option for you. However, if you do not have enough experience of driving motorcycle in the highlands, it’s better to hire a car or motorcycle with driver. If you are a bi-cycle enthusiastic, you may also rent bi-cycle for touring around the city as well as the area around Phewa Lake. Considering everything, we recommend to hire car for going to Sharankot for watching sunrise.
Best Places to Go in Pokhara
Phewa Lake
Phewa Lake also known as Phewa Tal is a freshwater lake located in the Pokhara Valley in Nepal. Over the years this lake has become the center of the attraction for the thousands of tourists visiting Nepal. Phewa lake is the second largest lake in Nepal. A fantastic service oriented facilities have evolved around this lake for fulfilling the requirement of the tourist. Anyone can simply meet every requirement of staying, eating, clubbing, shopping, collecting souvenirs, renting veh/bikes, etc around this place.
Begnas Lake
Begnas Lake is another prominent freshwater lake in Pokhara Valley in Nepal. This beautiful lake is 21 Kilometer away from Phewa Lake and 13 Kilometer away from Pokhara City. This is a wonderful place to visit and stay for a while depending on your time available for traveling in Pokhara.
Devi’s Fall/ Davis Falls
Devi’s Fall is one of the most visited tourist site in Pokhara. Father of a woman who (woman) has been drowned in a pit of this waterfall in 1961 wished to name this fall ‘David’s Falls’. However, with the time it has been changed to Devi’s Fall. This site is 4 Kilometer away from Phewa Lake.
Gupteshwor Mahadev Cave
Gupteshwor Mahadev Cave is situated opposite to Davi’s Fall. Water from the fall passess through this cave. Anyone traveling to Devi’s Fall should also visit this place. This is the most famous cave in Nepal, and allegedly this has been discovered by some locals in 16th Century.
Pokhara Shanti Stupa
Famous Pokhara Shanti Stupa is situated at the height of 1100 meters on the Anadu Hill in Pokhara City. This is a Buddhist Pagoda style monument, which has been built in 1973/1974. This is one of the two of eighty peace pagodas in the world. This place is also one of the most scenic viewpoint in Pokhara. Beautiful Phewa lake and the Annapurna Range can be seen from here. Though the pagoda is situated on the top of Anadu hill adjacent to Phewa lake, yet visitors need to travel a long way by bike or car. If you want to ride your own (rented) bike, we strongly recommend you to be sure that you have past experience of riding bike in the high mountains.
Bashundhara Park
Bashundhara Park is adjacent to the Phewa Lake. It is very scenic place but unfortunately it is low maintained. Since it is very close the lake, a good number of tourists visit this place, and it remains crowded. You may rent boat and row in the lake.
Old Bazaar
Old Bazaar also known as Purano Pokhara locally is around 4 Kilometer away from the Phewa Lake. As most of the tourist remains around the lakeside, vast part of the Pokhara remains unexplored to them. However, if you enjoy history and native culture, you should go around these places. Apart from enjoying the scenic view of hundreds of years old architectural monuments, you will love photographing life-style in the streets.
Sarangkot
Sarangkot view point is located on the western side of Pokhara at an altitude of 1600 meter and around 11 Kilometer away from the Phewa Lake. This is perhaps the most visited and most popular tourist destination spot in Pokhara. Anyone traveling just for one day would also love to go to this place just to witness the magnificent majestic view of sunrise over the Annapurna. However, to go this place and witness the sunrise one have to get up really early before the sunrise. As traveling time from Phewa lake is nearly 30 minutes +/- depending on the traffic in the early morning.
Other Places to Go
Depending on the interest, time, budget and associated factors this list of places may vary from one to another. Apart from the places we have mentioned here, there are many other places may be explored. These are:
- Tal Barahi
- Rupa Taal
- International Mountain Museum
- Chamero Gufa
- Seti River George
- Gorka Memorial Museum
- Matepani Gumba
- Jangchub Choeling Monastery
- Bhimsen Temple
- Seti Gandaki Gorge
- Annapurna Butterfly Museum
- Kamal Pokhari
- Big Splash Waterpark
- Tibetan Refugee Centre
- Shree Gaden Dhargay Ling Monastery
Things To Do
There are many adventure activities you can experience during your travel in Pokhara e.g. paragliding, ATV tour, hiking, rafting, kayaking, etc. However, we suggest you to try paragliding for sure if weather permits. Unfortunately, during our stay in Pokhara we could not do it because of bad weather.
Annapurna Base Camp Trek
It is our lifetime dream to complete the Annapurna Base Camp (ABC) trek. We strongly suggest you to go for this trek if your health/ fitness permit. However, this trek requires permits from Nepal Tourism Board. Though the trek is 67 Kilometer long, due to difficulties of terrain, and depending on the average fitness of the group it takes around 9 days to and from Pokhara.
Living Around Phewa Lake
List of places we have mentioned here is not long, yet we loved this place so much that we really want to go there at one point of our life for couple of months. The serenity of the place has amazed us. We are sure, if you love peace, quietness, and serenity, you would be in love of this place.
What to Eat
Pokhara is a very resourceful place in terms of meeting your need of the stomach. If you have any preference depending on your religion, region, etc, be sure you have good options of numerous cuisine both local and international. During our stay we always consumed our breakfast at the hotels, lunch around the places we have been traveling to, and dinner in a new restaurant every evening. Out of tons of food items we have tried we still reminiscence about various types of Fish Thali (Fish platter).
What to Buy
Considering saving money while traveling, we always suggest tourists/ travelers not to spend money on souvenirs. However, if you really want to preserve some memories/ souvenirs of Pokhara we would suggest you to get those from Kathmandu as things here is littler pricy that Kathmandu. You may get some piece of shawls (scarfs), books, or any other local souvenirs relying on your taste.
Tips for Photographers
Entire Nepal is an amazing place for photographers. This country is blessed with diversity yet simplicity, and amazing people. It has everything to offer to all types of photographers ranging from landscape photographer to street/ documentary photographers. However, we request you to comply with follow suggestions:
- Villages and areas around tourist places offers numerous lifestyle/ portrait photography opportunities. Be humble and polite while meeting locals.
- Old Bazar and adjacent areas offers fantastic street and lifestyle photography opportunities. Try to visit these places in the afternoon and utilize the golden hour.
- Shanti stupa is a fantastic place for panoramic view of the Phewa Lake and Annapurna Range.
- Cater for more than one day for Sarangkot. Often due to cloudy weather tourists miss the majestic view of the fishtail.
- Know clearly whether you are allowed to photograph or not in any place.
- Before photographing people in the villages, temples, markets, and any other place sought their permission first.
- During monsoon carry enough protection for your expensive gears.
- If you carrying drone, use it prudently.
COVID-19 Preventive Measures
If you are traveling to Nepal or any other countries in the world please be very clear about the travel restriction imposed by the government and local Covid-19 protocols. Keep yourself safe, and help others to remain safe. Carry enough masks with you. You may not be able to carry large quantity of sanitizer, but at least keep a small refilable sanitizer with you always.
Final Thought
Beside describing about the touristic places, we have also briefly expressed our love for Pokhara. We understand that every city in the world may not be in the list of traveling of every travelers. We are also certain that a huge number of people want to visit this Himalayan country Nepal. Considering a wide range of options, we strongly suggest you to travel to this place at least once in your lifetime.