To Pokhara, with its lake. And some small cultural differences

 I’m in Pokhara, I have been here many times, but I never tire of walking beside its quiet waters.

The lake is busier these days than when I first visited. Busy boats ferry the faithful to and from the little island temple. Tourists (there are many Indian tourists here at the moment) row small boats, just for fun. Young people have discovered the delights of kayaks and boards. Life jackets hang like washing beside the lake.

It’s busy, but even so it’s respite from the mayhem of Kathmandu. I sat in a memorable traffic jam - in the few seconds it took for the policeman directing traffic to rearrange his genitals every driver had assumed their own rules of the road and the result was gridlock. At which point some drivers abandoned their vehicles, briefly, in order to advise the policeman on how to unravel the mess. Sorry, no photos - not of the traffic, nor the uncomfortable policemen. But this is Nepal - no tempers were lost. The jam unraveled. And maybe I was the only person who remembered it next day.

Maybe it’s just that life is tough for many people here. As a visitor - and looked after by Tika and his family - I am removed from the hardships that haunt many people’s lives. Clothes are washed under a cold, outside tap. Electricity is unreliable. Many young people have left, either for the cities or to work abroad. And so the old are left to care for themselves on these beautiful but unkind hillsides.

And there are other cultural differences - things that are unremarkable here but raise eyebrows in the west. For instance, these images line every temple:

This is a linga - a penis and vagina. Behind is a row of linga. I have yet to visit a church lined with sexual images, yet here it is a holy symbol of fertility and deemed unremarkable. But - and here I really hope I am not insulting any Nepali sensitivities - this notice made me laugh: 

(Though maybe Lord Shiva is interested in the dreams of an old traveller!)

And, supervising it all: mighty Annapurna. I have countless photographs of the mountains, taken over many years. And so I can see that there is significantly less snow than there used to be. Which means the waterfalls will be less powerful, and so produce less electricity - much of which is sold to India. When I first came here, every hotel room had a candle and matches - power cuts were common. Today, there are times of reduced power (known as load shedding) but power cuts are far less frequent. But if less power produced in the mountains, providing power in the valleys becomes a greater challenge. Tourists might be inconvenienced. For the Nepali it will turn the clock back twenty years or more.

But that doesn’t stop the mountains being breathtakingly beautiful.