After the Annapurna Circuit Trek, we decided to enjoy a few days of well-deserved rest and relaxation in the adventure centre of Nepal, Pokhara. From here, you can zip-line, hike, kayak, raft, paraglide... just to name a few, and there's also several sites to see in the area: the World Peace Pagoda, Sarangkot's view of the Himalayas, walk along the Phewa Tal Lake, visit a Tibetan refugee camp. In our case, we mainly chilled and indulged in a lot of good food at the Moondance restaurant, but we also rented scooters (about 10usd per scooter for 1.5 days), and scooted the surrounding area to see some of the sites.
We happened to be in Pokhara during the Dashain festival - a 15 day festival that on one of the days, each family in Nepal sacrifices an animal… that adds up to a lot of animals! We could see the herds of goats making their way toward Pokhara the day before the sacrifice, and we watched as families picked through the herds to find the perfect goat to buy (which they either walked home on leashes or managed to carry on their motorbike/scooter). We learned that not all families sacrifice goats - the type of animal depends on the cast that your family belongs to. On sacrifice day, we saw our hotel staff preparing (sacrificing) a goat in the hotel parking lot…. not sure this ritual would fly so well back home ;)
