We were in Nepal last week and celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary there. It was a VERY memorable anniversary and not entirely in a good way. We had a nice dinner at Moondance in Pokhara the night before and even joked that it could count as our anniversary dinner since we might be very tired after getting back to Kathmandu the next day.

So on the day of our 9th wedding anniversary, we woke up at 4.30am and a cab took us to Sarangkot to view the sun rising over Annapurna. You can trek up, of course, but we are lazy people. There was a free viewing area but some enterprising locals were offering an elevated view with seats and free hot ginger tea for just 100 rupees so we opted for that instead.

It was very cold and somewhat cloudy but still an awesome experience. The locals told us that we were lucky because it had been even cloudier the days prior to that. We had quite a good view of the sunrise but the clouds moved in very quickly after that.

After getting back to the Lakeside area of Pokhara, we had breakfast at the hotel and spent some time packing before heading out to explore the area on bikes. We cycled to the dam and the waterfront, stopping whenever we felt like it and randomly eating and buying things.

I had been wanting to try the fried snacks I see everywhere but Adrian was a bit paranoid about the hygiene level. He has not gotten over the fact that I suffered bad food poisoning during our honeymoon in Bali. We passed a stall that looked quite decent so we had some anyway!

After checking out of our rooms, we grabbed lunch at Black & White Cafe where I had the most amazingly delicious vegetarian Dal Bhat set ever! It was so good! We love Dal Bhat so much that we had it four days in a row while we were there and for me, that one was the best.

Sadly though, things went downhill after that wondrous hot meal. We got to the airport and were told we could not check in for our 2.15pm flight because there were four flights before ours that were delayed due to bad weather. Our options were to cancel our flight and get a refund or wait until 4pm for an update on the situation. The plane had to leave Kathmandu by 4pm so that we can get out of Pokhara by 4.30pm. They don’t fly once it’s dark.

After waiting 3 hours, we were told that the plane was boarding people at Kathmandu so we could check in our luggage and get our boarding passes. We were so happy! But just 5 minutes later, we were informed that our flight (and all the other flights after that) was canceled due to air traffic!

Adrian immediately got on the phone and asked our hotel to arrange a car and driver for us. We were driven to Kathmandu and it took us 6 hours, in the dark, and on very crappy and dangerous roads.

So it was a really memorable anniversary for us and although those 6 hours on the road were terrible, we had each other and I’m thankful for our driver who drove very cautiously and for the man at our hotel who cooked two bowls of hot noodles for us when we arrived cold and hungry.

Here’s hoping our 10th wedding anniversary will be unforgettable for good reasons!