Travel Photography | Nepal | Sunrise Over Annapurna Range | View From Sarangkot

© 2012 Wazari Wazir | Sunrise From Sarangkot | Pokhara | Nepal

Sarangkot is the most popular tourist destination from where the tourist can enjoy the great view of the Pokhara Valley and the magnificent view of the Annapurna Range. Sarangkot is only 5 km from Lake Side, Pokhara. Sarangkot is the highest view point for a sunrise and it is just 1592m high. Sarangkot is 5 degrees cooler than Pokhara. Sarangkot can be reached easily by 45 minutes by a car ride to the top from Pokhara and then 45 minutes hike up to the main view point.

Many tourists come to Sarangkot for sunrise view and go back after few hours but it will be good if tourist stay there for one night and enjoy the view and city light of Pokhara from Sarangkot. Paragliding can also be done from Sarangkot. From Sarangkot, on the northern direction we can see Dhaulagiri in the far west.

The journey from Kathmandu will take somewhere around six to seven hours depending on traffics, road condition and also depending on your driver. For Pokhara trip, we took a package tour arrange from our hotel in Kathmandu, actually this is just a short visit, we have nothing much to expect in particular and the package was not a burden to our pockets. We choose to stay for two night in Pokhara at Lake Side, just a few minutes walk to the famous Phewa Lake.

In the afternoon after we arrived, we spend few hours visiting the lake and took some pictures of Annapurna Range at sunset. Actually the best time to photograph Annapurna Range from Phewa Lake is in the early morning, at sunrise, so you will get a beautiful reflections of the Annapurna Range on the lake when the water is calm, so you will get a nice reflection on it like a mirror, compared to  the late afternoon when the lake  is busy with boats carrying tourist for a sightseeings all over the lake.

Anyway, to get to Sarangkot, we have to wake early, beacuse our driver will pick us at the hotel somewhere around 5:30 a.m. So we should be ready somewhere around  4:30 a.m or 5:00 a.m, after performing our morning prayer (subuh), we went outside, and without an breakfast, we start heading for Sarangkot. The road is narrow and winding and to my surprise, it was jammed with tourist bus, cars and van heading all the way up. I really did not expect this things to happen at the early hour in the morning but then, November is a peak period to view the mountain range, the weather was fine and the sky is clear for most of the times.

From the parking lot, we have to climb for about ten to fifteen minutes to get to the viewing spot, actually there are many viewing spot to choose from, you can climb all the way to the top of the hill or just choose anywhere that you think will give you the best possible photo opportunity without too much crowd. The photograph that I’m sharing it here is not taken from the very top of the hill but somewhere in the middle, the reason is that, I’m running out of time, if I decided to climb to the top, I will miss the opportunity to take the very first light of the sunrise shimmering over the Fishtail or Machapuchre peak.

© 2012 Shukur Jahar | Sarangkot | Nepal

© 2012 Wazari Wazir | Six Idiots in Nepal | Photograph by Our Driver WIth Cropped Legs

© 2012 Shukur Jahar | With Our Driver, (Third) From Left and With Parking Lot Owner (1st) From Right

We are very lucky on that day, because the weather is so great, the sky is so clear and just to let you know, we are the last group of people leaving this viewing area. Most people leaved this area when they have taken the picture of the sunrise, we supposed to get back to our hotel or should reach our hotel by 7:30 a.m but at 8:30 a.m, we are still up there taking pictures of the great Annapurna Range. We don’t have to worry so much then because, we are not sharing our vehicle with other tourist, we chartered the whole vehicle to ourselves.

Then, we get back to our hotel, had some breakfast, took a shower and start our sightseeing over Pokhara with the same driver. We chartered the vehicle for the whole day.