The World Peace Pagoda and Pumdikot Hike is a one-day guided walk in Pokhara that crosses Phewa Lake by boat, climbs to the white pagoda on Anadu Hill at about 1,100m, and follows the ridge through Pumdi Bhumdi to the 51-foot Shiva statue at Pumdikot, around 1,400 to 1,500m. We collect you from your Lakeside hotel and bring you back to it. Many pokhara day hike listings stop at the pagoda; ours keeps going along the ridge, which is where the walk stops being a tourist stroll and starts being a hike. It sits in our Day Hiking collection as the one lake-and-ridge day on the Pokhara side.
The first stretch is water. A boat from the Lakeside shore crosses Phewa Lake in 15 to 20 minutes, and the fare is in your price. If you ask on the morning, the boatman can pull up at Tal Barahi, the small island temple in the middle of the lake, for another 15 to 20 minutes. The boat lands below the pagoda on the south shore, and from here the walking starts: stone steps and dirt path through forest, shaded for most of the way, about one hour to the top and roughly 300m of climbing. That phewa lake boat ride and hike combination is why the south-shore route beats the road. You arrive at the pagoda already warm, with the lake behind you.
The world peace pagoda Pokhara shows off from every lake-side window is also called Shanti Stupa, and it stands on Anadu Hill. It is 115 feet tall, about 35m, and was inaugurated in 1999 by Japanese monks of the Nipponzan-Myohoji order. Shoes come off at the foot of the final stairs. From the platform you see Phewa Lake, Pokhara city and, on a clear morning, the Annapurna range. There are cafes just below the top. This is the peace pagoda hike Pokhara visitors usually have in mind, and it is the first half of our day.
From the pagoda the trail turns along the ridge toward Pumdi Bhumdi, a former village committee that is now part of Pokhara. You pass houses, small terraces of farmland and patches of forest for 45 minutes to an hour. The last stretch is a steep stair path, the hardest part of the day, and the reason we rate this hike Moderate. At the top is the Shiva statue Pokhara added to its skyline in 2021, the Pumdikot Shiva statue: 51 feet high, 108 feet counting the white base, with 108 shivalingas around it. It was finished in late 2021, and the site around it is still being built out. The Pumdikot hike ends at a viewpoint over the valley with the pagoda small and white to the east. Pumdikot is about 13 km from the centre of Pokhara by road.
Getting down is your choice. By default our vehicle meets you at the Pumdikot parking lot and you are back at your Lakeside hotel in about 30 minutes. If you would rather walk, ask us and we take the Dam Side forest trail through Raniban forest, over the suspension bridge near the dam, to the road below. That adds roughly 1.5 hours of downhill walking and is done in daylight with the group together. Season matters. October to April gives the clearest Annapurna views, and the dry months run September to June; in the monsoon the steps are muddy and leeches appear. Our best time to trek in Nepal guide shows the full year.
The hike is also the easiest way to spend a spare day in Pokhara before or after a trek. If you have a free day in Pokhara before or after Poon Hill or Mardi Himal, a morning on this ridge loosens the legs without costing a day. See our Ghorepani Poon Hill Trek and Mardi Himal Trek if the pokhara hiking tour has made you want something longer.
Cover photograph: the World Peace Pagoda above Pokhara, by Yallu007 on Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
