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Title	Hiking from Davis Falls to Shanti Stupa
Route	Driving (Kathmandu>> Pokhara), Hiking (Davis Falls>> Shanti Stupa), Driving (Pokhara>> Kathmandu)
Date	December 14- December 15, 2013
Hike Duration	4 hrs
Coordinator	Sampurna Chhantyal
Participants	Bhesh Raj Sejwal, Bikash Shrestha, Bikram Shrestha, Christina Karki, Krishna Aryal, Minesh Maharjan, Naresh Maharjan, Rabin Acharya, Rajiv Neupane, Sampurna Chhantyal, Suraj Byanju, Sushant Pandey, Sunil Manandhar.
Report By	Krishna Aryal, Rabin Acharya
Photos By	Sunil Manandhar, Bhesh Raj Sejwal
Creative Support	Kanchan Raj Pandey, Rinesh N Bajracharya
Edited By	Rinesh N Bajracharya

Rabin Acharya Beginning of the Journey.... Cool welcome by the nature along with the foggy sky marked the beginning of Saturday morning. Our group of 14 people was keenly waiting for an adventurous journey to Pokhara. Around 7:30 am we left the office in Kathmandu and headed towards Pokhara. By 9 a.m. we had reached Naubise where we stopped for breakfast. We had a mixture of chana (chickpea), puri (bread) and curry, which helped us fulfill our appetite. We left the place after half an hour and continued our voyage. DJ Sushant played refreshing songs in the van. However, we started feeling hungry again and had nothing to eat. Thankfully, after a drive of around 2 hours we found a good restaurant “ Duna Tapari” in Damauli. We enjoyed mouth-watering lunch served in the restaurant and left the place after 1 hour. With singing, dancing while enjoying the food, we reached Pokhara around 2 p.m. We had booked four rooms for our group in a beautiful hotel in Lakeside named “7 continents”. We stopped by the hotel for refreshments before getting ready for the hike. And the hike began... Our hiking to “Shanti Stupa” began from Chhorepatan around 3:30 p.m. Shanti Stupa is a buddhist pagoda style monument in Ananda hill of Pumdi Bhumdi VDC of Kaski district. After hiking for little while longer we reached the most awaited Shanti Stupa. Hiking was fun and not too tough. I personally found the place very good for a short hike. The foggy weather made the city view a bit unclear; however it was enough to lure our heart with the beauty of Pokhara. The charm of Pokhara was evident, MacchaPuchre Mountain and Fewa Lake was adding to the beauty of the city. We captured the beautiful scenery in our camera and started hiking down. Downhill was easy and took us 35 minutes to reach the base. Then, we returned to the hotel. After the hiking... It was already 6 p.m. and we were too tired because of the hike and travel. After resting for an hour we went in search of cheap yet decent food. We popped into the restaurant named “The Third Eye” that was near the hotel that we were staying at. The food was good for an affordable price. We enjoyed dinner for an hour and headed towards the hotel. We went to bed at around 9 p.m. for a good night sleep. Next Day... The next morning we woke up and freshened up around 7 a.m. After an hour we set out for boating. We stopped by for breakfast before starting our boating trip. We went to Talbahari temple and continued our boating adventure for another hour. At 10:30 a.m. we checked out from the hotel and revisited the “The Third Eye” restaurant for lunch. Around noon we left the adorable Pokhara city and headed towards Kathmandu valley. We reached back at Kathmandu valley within 6 hours. We were at Deerwalk at about 5:30 pm. The adventurous journey had ended with safe arrival to the place where we had commenced. It was a beautiful experience of my life and I got a chance to know my colleagues better. Krishna Aryal Time flows in its own way, but the bundle of memories stay in our mind. 14th December 2013, we rejected warmness at early morning, accepted cool welcome breeze of the winter and moved as planned. We had planned to leave our office at 6:30 am, but that was just 'a plan'. We finally started our expedition at 7:00 am. I caught the van from Teku. At Kalanki we completed our hiking group after Sunil joined us. Our hiking coordinater Sampurna Chantyal with Naresh Maharjan and Suraj Byanju got out of the van and bought stuffs for our long journey to Pokhara. Finally our journey caught its speed. We didn't get into any traffic on the way down from Thankot. We were just enjoying the words that we were throwing at each other. None of us could stay untouched. We had our breakfast at Naubise at 9:00 am. The view along the Trisuli River was quite attractive and we decided to enjoy it a bit closely as we get off the van. We snapped some pictures and enjoyed the views from the side of the road. After a few minutes we again moved towards our destiny. Our search for restaurant ended at around 12:00 pm at Duna-Tapari restaurant at Damauli. After a superb lunch continued, by 2:00 pm we had reached Pokhara. We booked rooms for our group in the hotel “7 continents” in Lakeside. After we got refreshed, about one hour later we got ready for our hike. Our hiking to “Shanti Stupa” began from Chhorepatan around 3:30 p.m. After a short hike up hill, we reached to Shanti Stupa. In-spite-of the fog we could enjoy the beautiful scenery of Pokhara along with the snow covered mountains, Machhapuchre and Annapurna. We captured lots of wonderful pictures before we returned to our lodge. We were little bit tired so we took rest for some time and enjoyed chatting. We enjoyed the evening view of Fewa Lake with coffee. After that we visited the lake side of Pokhara. We really enjoyed the whole place. After about one hour we went to a Thakali restaurant, “The Third Eye”, for our dinner. By 8:15 we had finished our dinner. We were tired after all the stuffs so we decided to rest, by 9:15 we were already asleep. The next day, we woke up and got ready by 7:00 am and headed towards Fewa Lake for boating. We had breakfast and hired three boats and moved towards Tal Barahai Temple. Then we enjoyed boating around the lake. Around 10:30 am we went for our lunch. At 11:30 am we started heading towards Kathmandu. We enjoyed oranges, noodles and lots of songs throughout the way. The reasons to laugh and enjoy throughout our journey were numerous and so were the collection of wonderful memories. We can still enjoy the pictures taken and remember the moments which bring smile to our faces. I would like to thank Deerwalk for this wonderful opportunity and a chance to make these memories.

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