Pokhara
— — the lake that holds the fishtail mountain.
Not only on a wall.
“Phewa Lake lies long and quiet at the city's western edge, and on a clear morning Machapuchare — the fishtail — stands inverted in the water before the first boat goes out. Lakeside is a single road of teahouses and trekking shops, the start of the long walk to Annapurna Base Camp for some, and for others just the place where the mountain finally shows itself. The World Peace Pagoda sits white on the southern ridge. from the studio
Pokhara, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Pokhara is the second-largest city in Nepal and the capital of Gandaki Province, lying in a broad valley at about 822 metres elevation roughly 200 kilometres west of Kathmandu. The valley is rimmed to the north by the Annapurna Himal — Annapurna I at 8,091 metres and the unclimbed sacred peak of Machapuchare at 6,993 metres — which rise from the city in one of the steepest elevation gradients on earth. Phewa Lake, the second-largest lake in Nepal, fills the valley's western floor. Pokhara is the main gateway for trekking circuits in the Annapurna Conservation Area.
Phewa Lake covers about 4.4 square kilometres along the western edge of the city. On still mornings before the valley wind picks up, the lake mirrors the Annapurna range and the inverted fishtail of Machapuchare almost edge to edge, and the wooden doonga boats put out from the Lakeside ghats with a single oar and a single rower. The Tal Barahi temple sits on a small island near the eastern shore, reached by a five-minute paddle. The lake drains south through the Pardi dam into the Phusre Khola.
Pokhara has two clean trekking windows. October and November bring the post-monsoon air at its driest, when Annapurna and Machapuchare hold themselves above the city all day; this is the busy season on the Annapurna Base Camp and Annapurna Circuit trails. March through April is the second window, warmer and a little hazier, with rhododendron flowering through the mid-elevation forests. June through September is the monsoon: the mountains spend most days hidden, and the city receives more than 3,000 millimetres of rain a year, among the highest totals in Nepal.