Kathmandu Pokhara Tour - 5 jours

It was a wonderful experience to have this tour. Really thankful to the tour operators for organizing such a wonderful trip. The euphoric sightseeing visit was so thrilling and up to the mark. Highly recommended ✅

We were two couples, both seasoned travellers and visited Nepal after Bhutan. Nepal was quite different than Bhutan and we were to book this trip again, we would have visited Nepal first (we were so inspired with Bhutan) I will rate each of the categories for our five-day tour with Alliance. Airport pickup - Very Good As expected, our guide and driver met us two times upon our arrival in Kathmandu (29.09 and 11.10) and there were no problems finding our name and proceeding to the hotel. The first time, the guide allowed a handicapped man to hold our sign and he helped carry our bag and was tipped by us (our flight was late). This is was a bit unusual (as we did not know initially that this man was not our guide), but okay as it helped this person. Driver - Average We had two drivers, but the main driving was done my Navaraj (spelling). He was a patient and safe driver and did a good job considering the poor road conditions and extreme traffic on the way to Pokhara and in the Kathmandu valley. However, he was not always punctual and on two occasions we had to call Kishor (who always answered his mobile) to find out where the driver was. This happened on the day we returned from Pokhara and also on the day of our departure, we asked him to be at the hotel at 7:15 (our flight time was earlier than originally booked), and he arrived a little before 8. This caused undue stress for us at the airport. With all due respect to the Nepal culture and lifestyle, the German guests are used to being punctual and this was a problem for us. I am guessing there was a misunderstanding between the driver and I or there was more traffic than he planned on. To try to improve communcation, I did write down the pickup time and also asked him for his phone number (which was a wrong number when I dialed it) Hotels - Very Good We loved the Yatri Suites hotel and this was a great recommendation. The rooms were very comfortable, clean and the food was very good at the hotel, as well as the location (close to shopping). We also found the staff to be some of the best we experienced in our vacation. I would highly recommend this hotel to anyone. (and will leave an excellent review on Tripadvisor.com) The City Inn in Pokhara was not the same standard as the Yatri, but more of a tourist hotel. We were initially give rooms there without a view (and smelling of smoke) but after complaining, the manager Cam provided us to rooms at the top of the hotel with very nice views. The breakfast was fine, but this hotel did not really seem to set up for dinner. We did eat (we were the only customers dining) there but found the Indian food to be quite average (frozen sauces, microwaved etc. but the chicken was tasty). Would probably not eat dinner there again but liked the hotel and the staff there. Guides - Good to Very Good We had a total of three different guides. Sirus (sp?) picked us up and provided the main tour of Kathmandu on morning of Aug. 11. He was a very pleasant fellow, with good English. I found his "depth and breadth" of information he provided was rather limited. He would introduce a building or attraction, provide a very minimal amount of information and then informed us to view it on our own, and we established a rendezvous place and a meeting time. While this provided us some flexibility, I would have rather had a guide which provided more specific information and really made us feel like we were seeing very special places and to enhanced the overall visit. With Sirus, I had the feeling that he was bored, and has done the tour a 100 times before, checked the items off the list, and could not wait for it to be over with. However, to be fair, he did answer my many questions sufficiently and was a great guy to chat with. The guide in Pokhara was Deepak and he was filled with much information, providing an numerous facts and statistics about Nepal and Pokhara . The others in the group found him to be too talkative, but I personally liked him due to his great enthusiasm, carefully explaining our program and pointing out extra things along the way. I had to interrupt him, but did get some questions in. He delegated the boat ride and walk to the Peace Stupa to another guide who was also quite good. Overall Experience - Good Overall, I thought the trip was well organized, provided us a nice overview of Kathmandu and Pokhara and allowed us some flexibility and I would recommend this company. I also feel it was a good value for the money and I appreciated all the email correspondence and communication with Kishor prior to the trip. Had the driver been more professional / on time and the hotel dinner in Pokhara better, I would have rated it an "excellent". We would have also enjoyed an extra day in Pokhara had we had the time.