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Note from Jonah: This is the continuation of a photo series from the Great Himalayan Mountain Range. The photos document a journey by car, foot, boat, plane and elephant from Tibet to Nepal.

Imagine carrying 40 pounds of gear walking up and down mountains for 20 days in the Himalaya, passing the world’s highest peaks while navigating some of the world’s most difficult terrain. At the end, hikers are rewarded with a beautiful destination: Pokhara and Phewa Tal. The peaceful mountain town sits on a still lake, surrounded by cafes, bars and steak houses for those that just walked 300 km.

After my failed attempt to track a Bengal Tiger in Chitwan National Park, I zipped back across Nepal’s southern Terei headed to Pokhara, the doorstep of the Himalaya. This lakeside community has front row seats to some amazing views of the Annapurna range.

The Annapurna (Sanskrit, Nepali, Nepal Bhasa: अन्नपूर्णा) is a series of peaks in the Himalayas, a 55 km (34 mi)-long massif of which the highest point, Annapurna I, stands at 8091m, making it the 10th-highest summit in the world and one of the 14 “eight-thousanders”. It is located east of a great gorge cut through the Himalaya Mountains by the Kali Gandaki River, which separates it from the Dhaulagiri massif. (Dhaulagiri I lies 34 km west of Annapurna I.)

The world famous Annapurna Circuit is now very high on my list of things to do in life. And although I didn’t have time to squeeze a ten day hike in during my trip to Pokhara, this was the last location I would go before heading back to China. After a long haul from Tibet to Nepal’s Southern border somehow I felt like I had hiked for ten days through the mountains — and this was my reward.

Pokhara has a lot to offer and if you need a break from the general chaos you’ll find in Kathmandu, this place is great. There are tons of short hiking options as well as longer multiday options. The lake offers a lot of options for boaters and the mountains give a home to parahawkers who glide high above the town.

The streets by Lakeside are lined with stores hawking fake North Face, Patagonia and outdoor hiking gear. I find when you do buy stuff at these stores, its likely to break within a couple weeks — and therefor, I try to avoid it. On an ethical level, I think its good to not support these businesses, but its fairly hard in Asia as stores are filled with bootleg things everywhere you look. My shoes were falling apart here so I picked up some North Face hiking sneakers for about $4.00 USD, which are actually still in good shape today. I’m fairly certain none of this stuff is real, however the quality of fake goods in Nepal seemed to be infinitely better than in China.

Culturally, Pokhara is very interesting. I spent a couple days walking around with doing some small hikes up to the surrounding mountains. The people I met along the way were friendly and much less aggresive than those in Kathmandu or Chitwan.

While the town is touristy, the large majority of these people seemed to be from India. A lot of traditional looking Nepalese seemed to be just as happy to hang out with the toursts as well, although many of them were looking for handouts.

While taking a water taxi across the lake I noticed school children and teachers who had to commute by canoe to and from class. Their houses are all built on steep rice terraces which surround the lake. These steep rice terraces combined with mountain and lake views makes Pokhara very storybook-esque.

While I’ve seen children in China have to take take long hikes to get to school, I hadn’t really seen a community where children commute via canoe. While I grew up taking a school bus, this seemed a bit unusual; however, to these kids its just a normal way of life.

At some point while lost trying to find a path around the lake an eight-your-old boy’s head popped out of a rice terrace. He told me he knew how to get to the path and proceeded to become my official tour guide for the next few minutes.

I asked him what he wanted to do when he grew up, to which he responded he wanted to be a tour guide. I told him he was already doing that, at which point he then demanded money. On a practical level and entrepreneurial level I was impressed. The kid earned it, so I paid out.

Hiking through rice terraces is always fun. You get surrounded by a really vibrant saturation of colors. While the rice is in a small amount of water, there are tiny paths you can walk on which connect them all.

The outside of the lake also has a lot of easily accessible wildlife viewing. This monkey was hanging out with his friends near the World Peace Pagoda. The monkeys here were very peaceful compared to ones outside Kathmandu or those I’ve encountered in Southeast Asia. However, anytime you see a monkey yawn, its a good indication that you probably don’t want to be bit by one.

On this trip, traveling on the Himalayan Shelf, Pokhara would be my last stop. On my last day there I had to drive back to Kathmandu to catch a flight back to Beijing. However, another land slide trapped me West of the capital making me take an unexpected flight. As a traveler, your last day is always a complicated one — if there are international flights involved. However, this hick-up was no big deal to the people in Pokhara.

The general feeling almost everywhere I went in Nepal was … well, a relaxed one. As this man’s shirt says “God made grass, man made booze — who do you trust?” The marijuana culture is certainly vibrant in Nepal. Almost everywhere I went people were trying to sell me “ganja.” Perhaps this is why no one seems to mind landslides, travel hassles and long delays. While almost missing an international flight certainly was a bit aggravating, no one else thought it was a big deal. “Relax, you’ll get there,” someone said. They were right — I did. But not without one more fun tale from the Nepal skyway.

The blog picks up with this extra leg of the trip on Wednesday.

Road Trip on the Himalayan Shelf: If you’re just joining now, here’s what you’ve missed:

1. Road trip on the Himalayan Shelf
2. Lhasa: City of Sunlight, City in the Sky
3. In Tibet, People’s Liberation Army (mostly) out of site, but not out of mind
4. Attn: Crayola — a new color for you — Tibetan Blue
5. Tibetan Cloudscapes
6. Tibetan Prayer Flags Littering Roof of the World
7. Should you pay for photos? The ethics of travel photography
8. 29 Minutes and 15 Seconds on Mount Everest
9. Desertification stretching from Inner Mongolia to Tibet
10. ‘The journey not the arrival matters’
11. Namaste and welcome to Nepal
12. Kathmandu: The greatest place on earth to get lost
13. Kathmandu: Full of mystery, culture, history — and trash
14. ‘A journey is best measured in friends, rather than miles’
15. Who has the strongest necks in the world?
16. Hey hey, they’re some monkeys
17. After the Himalayan: The Terai
18. Watch where you step: Chitwan National Park
19. At the end of the road: Pokhara
20. Final Destination 8 (in 3D): The luckiest travelers in the world
21. Tibet to Nepal: ‘The Journey Not the Arrival Matters’