Refreshing Countryside Walks in Pokhara Valley

Welcome at Pokhara Airport and drive (45mn) to the lodge. On arrival at the lodge, the Guests Relations Manager, Jhalak, will introduce you to the services available while you have a refreshing drink. The stewards will then show you to your rooms and settle you in. Options of relaxing or taking a brief village walk will be available depending on your time of arrival. Before dinner, Dol Raj and his colleagues will serve cocktails and canapés in the main lodge. You can meet other guests and discuss your travels. You will be served a continental, three-course dinner. Special dietary needs (or just particular likes and dislikes) can easily be accommodated especially if we are advised prior to your arrival. Local tea or organic coffee and petits fours will conclude the meal. After dinner, the bar will remain open until the last guest retires, with a good selection of brandy, single malt whiskies, port and other beverages.

Bed tea will be served in your room at the time of your choice or at sunrise, if you wish to see the Himalayan sunrise on the mountains.

For those keen on bird watching, a walk before breakfast with the lodge’s skilled local guides will offer the chance to see many birds as they forage for food. Bulbuls, Barbets, Babblers and other species typical of the middle hills of Nepal are seen regularly around the lodge. Breakfast is served on the lodge terrace – with a range of homemade bakery, preserves, and a selection of cooked items, there is something to appeal to all tastes.

After breakfast, we will head out on a day walk to explore the culture and flora of the hill villages around the lodge with the option of a picnic lunch. Combining steady walking, rural villages, farmland and forest, the walks will be a mini-trek and typical of a day’s walking in the Himalayas. An option of a shorter walk and return to the lodge for lunch will also be available. If returning to the lodge, lunch is a Nepali buffet featuring typical dishes of the region. Served on traditional bronze plates, spices are lively but tempered to suit international palates. Alternate light lunch options are also available to order – Dol Raj will ask you straight after breakfast.

After lunch, you may wish to relax by the pool or perhaps indulge in a massage or have a private yoga session (extra charge). In the evening cocktails and dinner at the lodge.

After early morning activities and breakfast, drive to Pokhara and visit the old bazaar – an early Newari settlement of traders on the trans-Himalayan trading route. Then we will drive to the Bhadrakali Temple dedicated to an avatar of the goddess Kali, a form of the wife of Shiva, and see the Manang Gomba, a Buddhist monastery opposite the temple. Heading south again we will visit Devi’s Falls that typify the dramatic karst gullies of the Pokhara Valley. Nearby is the Gupteshwar Mahadev Temple in a cave.

After some free time in the lakeside area for lunch (own charge) and an optional visit to the Tal Barahi Temple on an island in the lake (own charge), a visit to either the Gurkha Museum or the International Mountain Museum in the afternoon will end the day before returning to the lodge. In the evening cocktails and dinner at the lodge.

After breakfast, head out for a full day Gurung Village Walk or Thulakot walk. These walks both explore further afield and allow a deeper understanding of the diversity of different ethnic groups that abound in the Middle Hills of Nepal. The walk follows hilltops and ridge-lines with nice mountain views. The Lodge kitchen will provide a special picnic lunch. The expert local guides from the Lodge will be on hand to explain and unfold the cultural panorama as well as identify plants and diverse bird species. In the evening cocktails and dinner at the lodge.

After early morning activities and breakfast, transfer to Pokhara airport for departure to Kathmandu. Picnic lunches can be provided for those travelling by road.