The next morning, we were off again. And then began the climb. The winding, twisting, contorting roads with tight hairpins and blind corners. Sounds daunting? It wasn’t. Not in the Brezza. Its commanding driving position gave me a clear view of what was up ahead and its perfectly waited steering and sorted set-up meant I could hustle through the corners without losing my composure. As we climbed higher, I started to drive slower. Not because the going got challenging, but because the vistas on offer were just too mesmerising to ignore. When you see a clear blue sky, a lush green valley and nothing at all in the way, all the way to the horizon where the two meet in a blurry embrace, it forces you to stop and stare and keep stealing glances when you get going again.
Once I got closer to our destination for the day, Pokhara, the views just continued getting better. And since I entered the city under the cloak of darkness, I didn’t even know that the best was yet to come. My hotel was on the lakeside, so I knew I’d see some pretty sights from the hotel’s rooftop. But when I huffed and puffed up the rickety spiral stairs and looked out, I had the urge to pinch myself. I was standing in a valley nestled within snow-capped mountain peaks on three sides and tree-covered ones on the fourth. The Phewa Lake sprawled across my left, reflecting the deep azure dotted-with-white of the sky and the snow-whitened tops of the peaks on its calm surface. Magical. I was in love already, but I needed a better angle, so we piled into the Brezza and I drove up to Anadu Hill nearby and then hiked up to the World Peace Pagoda.
