Pokhara - a diverse city

We continued on to Pokhara.

The city is located on Lake Phewa and promises a great Himalayan panorama. However, because it hadn't rained the previous days, the mountains were unfortunately not visible during the day due to the smog. Nevertheless, we enjoyed the beautiful ambience at Lake Phewa.

An absolute must is the sunrise in Sarangkot. Here we had a good view of the Annapurna mountain range and the Nepalese Matterhorn, the Machapuchare.

One morning we also visited the Hindu Bindhyabasini Temple. In this temple complex we were able to experience the Hindu sacrificial cult first hand and witnessed a live chicken being offered as a sacrifice.

A hike took us to the World Peace Pagoda. This is one of 80 Buddhist peace stupas worldwide. The first of this type were built after the Second World War following the atomic bomb explosions in the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Since then, the structure has been built in 78 other locations to promote peace among all races and faiths.

From there we continued our walk to the second largest Shiva statue in Nepal. This is surrounded by the deity Ganesha. According to legend, the deity Parvati, Shiva's wife, created Ganesha in Shiva's absence and placed him as a guard in front of her house. When Shiva returned, Ganesha blocked his way. To get into the house, Shiva cut off Ganesha's head. When Shiva then realized that he had killed his wife's son, he looked for the next best living creature. He found an elephant and cut off its head as well. He finally placed the elephant's head on Ganesha's torso and brought his wife's son back to life. This made Ganesha Shiva's son.

In the region around Pokhara you can also admire the Devi's Fall. Since the waterfall sinks 150 meters into the depths, we were able to see it both above ground and underground from a cave.

We also attended a sunset ceremony on the lakeshore. Accompanied by spiritual songs, three Hindu priests performed certain rituals with incense and fire. At the end, devout Hindus gathered in the middle to dance.