Pokhara

Pokhara is quite the vacation town. This is a lake town, so boating is
popular. But boating in little row boats, where you hire the boat and the
rower. No motor boats. Some people do fish the lake, for subsistence, but
in row boats. We boated from one end of the lake to an island where there
is a Hindu shrine.

Lots of people come to the shrine for birthdays, marriages, other
celebrations. You have to take off any leather clothing, shoes, purses,
belts, etc before going down the stairs to light incense, get your picture
taken, light a candle, and so forth. Quite a hub bub of activity.

On the boardwalk, the Indian with the Cobra.

We went to a raptor rescue place and learned about parahawking. See more
at http://www.parahawking.com/
We also learned about vulture restaurants .... it is actually a
conservation effort to save the vultures in Nepal, Tibet, India. A huge
number (99%?) have died off due to a medicine given to cows that vultures
are unable to digest when they eat the cow after it dies. Read more at
http://birdeducationnepal.blogspot.com/2013/01/jatayu-or-vulture-restaurant.html

The raptors that are rescued are unable to return to wild, but they can be
exercised via parahawking. We did not do. We got to hold one of the
Egyptian Vultures. His name was Bob.

Although it rained, it was hardly worth noticing. Afternoon was spent
shopping. The rain was reason enough to buy another hat to keep the drops
off my glasses. We managed to check out about 8-10 shops which are about
.0001% of the shops that are on the main street! Took taxi back to hotel
for $3.

Tomorrow, off to rafting.