Pokhara Luxury Tour

A twenty-five minute flight from Kathmandu, and into a resort chosen for the view rather than the address - either up on the ridge above the lake or in quiet grounds set back from the main Lakeside strip. Pokhara rewards paying attention to where you stay more than almost anywhere in Nepal, because the mountains are visible from the town itself and a good room means waking up to them. The afternoon is free: a boat across Phewa to the Tal Barahi temple, or nothing at all. Your guide meets you to plan the following days around the weather, which here changes the order things are worth doing in.

We drive up to Sarangkot at 1,592m privately, ahead of the convoy of shared jeeps, and are in position before the light comes. Annapurna I, II, III and IV, Hiunchuli, Machhapuchhre and Dhaulagiri light in sequence while the lake sits under mist several hundred metres below. Back down for a late and unhurried breakfast at the hotel. In the afternoon a private boat takes us out on Phewa when the water is still rather than when a group is ready, and across to the foot of the ridge for the climb to the World Peace Pagoda, which gives the best single view of the town, the lake and the range together in the late light. Dinner by the water.

Nothing scheduled, deliberately. Pokhara is one of the few places in Nepal where an empty day is a good idea rather than a wasted one. If you want to fill it, the options are all easy to arrange at short notice: a mountain flight along the Annapurnas, paragliding from Sarangkot, a helicopter into the Annapurna sanctuary and back before lunch, Devi's Fall and the Gupteshwor cave, the International Mountain Museum, or the two-hour walk up to Australian Camp on the ridge. Your guide and vehicle are available all day either way.

A last morning by the lake - breakfast with the mountains, a final boat, or the Bindhyabasini temple above the old bazaar, which is the oldest part of Pokhara and quite separate from Lakeside. We then fly back to Kathmandu, twenty-five minutes, arriving in time for an onward connection or an afternoon in the city. If your international flight is the following day we can hold a room and arrange the transfer accordingly.