Bandipur Village

The two main highlights of Nepal are Kathmandu and Pokhara, the two biggest cities where a lot of people start their trekking in surrounding areas. It will take you a day-long bus-ride to travel from the one to the other, mainly because of road conditions and traffic-jams (especially around Kathmandu). However, we found an excellent solution to shorten this long journey; a stopover halfway! We visited a little village on a hilltop at a height of 1030 m, called Bandipur.

The Main Street

The town itself is beautiful, by some called one of Nepals most charming towns. It's very small, with a main street lined with traditional houses, partly transformed to nice cafes and lodges. We truly loved the relaxed vibe in this cute town.

The surroundings are beautiful too, ideal for a nice hike through forest, hilltop shrines and mountain villages. We walked to Bandipur Adventure Camp; a campsite with a beautiful view over the white peaks across the valley. Another place for this beautiful sight is Tundikhel, a local picnic spot that used to be a place where traders would gather to haggle goods from the surrounding countries. As we are huge fans of viewpoints, especially with sunset or sunrise, we also climbed up to Thani Mai on Gurungche Hill, a little hill right next to Bandipur. From here you have an amazing 360-degree vistas in the country.

8000m high peaks

Sunset views

To end our journey to Bandipur, but also to Nepal, we wanted to enjoy the views from a whole other level: we went paragliding! A lot of people decide to paraglide in Pokhara, but we decided to do it here. It is way less touristic and has better views in our opinion. And it was amazing!

Paragliding