Our Winter Apartment in Pokhara Nepal

Two months ago, to pass the time during an all-night bus trip from Zadar Croatia to Sombor Serbia, I pulled out my little notebook and began to draw a picture just as I used to as a child in boring school classes. The picture, as always, was a blueprint of my dream home. I fussed for an hour or so with where precisely the bathrooms would go, indoor-outdoor kitchen layout and very satisfying things like that, and then fell asleep.

Imagine my surprise when waking two months later in a hotel room on another continent to push the heavy curtains aside and see my dream house across the alley, glistening in the sunshine!

It is in fact, a small guesthouse serving tourists in Pokhara Nepal who come to trek the Annapurna circuit. I am certainly no trekker (a fact amply proven to my embarrassment yesterday afternoon when I stood heaving chest and thumping heart to one side of a local path so as to let a tiny child carrying a 4'x5' foot bundle of hay pass me on his way up the hill.) However, I am married to a Serbian trekker always dreamed of mountains beyond Montenegro and Croatia.

So, now we are all moved in -- I to my dream home which will serve all winter as our "Base Camp Pokhara" as my husband goes off on a series of his dream treks. Our apartment is in the top left corner of the picture. It's filled with light and air. There is no TV, no landline phone, no heating system. And hot water showers are best taken in late afternoon when the sun's had time to warm up the rooftop tank. Don't plan on washing your hair on cloudy days. I guess next time I fall asleep with blueprints dancing in my head on the bus from Zadar to Sombor I should be a bit more explicit about the amenities!