Pokhara
Pokhara is the final reward for the trekkers. Originally a sleepy but sprawling town by a lake, it has grown into the #2 destination spot for tourists to Nepal (behind Kathmandu ). Some visitors use this as the starting or stopping place for treks. Others hike for just a few days in the nearby hills. Many hike around the lake for the picture-postcards views of the Himalayas reflected on the water. And many just find this a very relaxing oasis to let time pass by.
The town is subtropical, with red and purple hibiscus in full bloom dangling from every eave. The hotels are very warm, even fanciful, with magnificent lush gardens to attract the tourists, along with the birds and butterflies. This is not an authentic slice of Nepali culture, but instead a great example of Nepali hospitality extended to westerners, and after a long hike it is wonderfully refreshing. We planning to stay just a day or two, but decide to settle in and write up our journal.
We are surprised at the lack of tourists in Pokhara. The streets are deserted. We already know most of the westerners in town –they just came off the trail with us! Somewhere along the way, Rod read through a census book for Nepal that gave statistics on the economy and tourism. In prior years, tourism was about 25% of the economy. Add the 20% from the Gurkhas income and 30% from foreign aid, and you can see there really is no domestic economy in Nepal . All other goods and services combined together are just 25% of the economy. Tourism is critical. The largest number of tourists came from India , largely on pilgrimages to holy Hindu sites. About half as many came from each of Australia , UK and the USA , with smaller numbers from the rest of Europe and Japan . Our experience in Nepal so far has been has tiny smattering of foreign travelers, mostly Israeli, with a few each from the UK , Holland , Denmark France , Germany , USA and Canada . With the instability caused by the Maoists in Nepal , few people are traveling here. In an overall global climate where tourism is down, that is especially severe here.
As we chat with the college student who works at our Pokhara hotel, we have to wonder about his future. He was planning to study nursing in England , but couldn’t get a visa. He is now finishing a Business Administration degree in Nepal , but has little hope of using it. All he needs for the Nepali economy to come back to health is for the King to restore a government (he abolished it in October), the government to weed out corruption (which was rampant), the Maoists to stop the violence, the global economy to recover, the US to not invade Iraq, and global terrorists to stop the violence that has stopped tourism. Two years ago, he might have been able to get his nursing degree in UK and return to a good job in Nepal . Now?
