The 'New Beautiful' family

What truly made our time in Pokhara was stumbling across The New Beautiful Cafe, a modest, street-side restaurant that I miss dearly already. It is a must for anyone craving home comforts and the warmest family welcome in town.

The owner, Shambhu, had us at "hello", offering us discounts on the menu prices and grinning

broadly at us. And then the food they could cook, it was unbelievably good, dishes from all over the world, all made completely fresh to order and with such love and devotion. We were hooked.

Shambhu's gentle wife, Parbali, would welcome us by taking our hands and calling me "Sister". Her younger brother, Samip, spent hours beating the boys at Bagh-Chal (a brilliant game of goats and tigers on a grid). Then there were their two adorable children, Pranisha and Pranaish, who we played with. Pranaish, the little boy, kept coming back to me to play

with a set of small wheels that once belonged to a toy truck. So contented was he with this broken old thing; so giddy with excitement when I rolled them over to him, making "vroom vroom" noises.

On our last evening with them, we bought them all presents to thank them for their gorgeous hospitality. Wide-eyed, they thanked us endlessly for the gifts and insisted they treat us to breakfast before our long trip to Kathmandu.

At breakfast, they pushed mountain fridge magnets into our hands and gave us a little family photograph of themselves. Such beautiful and kind people, this is the Nepali way.