The Village and Around
A signboard announces you're in Daman, but blink and you'll miss it. The village consists of a loose gathering of houses, a couple of agricultural research facilities, a seismic station and - its one unmissable landmark - an enclosed view tower that looks as if it might have been built for air traffic control purposes. Operated by the adjacent Daman Mountain Resort, the tower offers the best views in the village (admission Rs20 for non-guests). Tourism boosters claim you can see seven 8000-metre peaks from here, which may be stretching it, but certainly Annapurna, Manaslu, Shisha Pangma and the distant plume of Everest are visible, along with the closer and hence more prominent 7000-metre peaks of Himalchuli, Ganesh Himal and Langtang. A couple of high-powered telescopes give awesome close-ups of the peaks from this angle: the magnified view of Everest is almost identical to the one you get from Kala Pattar, ten days into the Everest trek. The view from the tower also gives you a good feel for the topography of the central hills and the Kathmandu Valley, from Phulchoki to the Trisuli Valley. An even more sweeping (though unmagnified) vista can be had from the Everest Panorama Resort, a thirty-minute walk up the Rajpath, which also happens to be a fine spot for breakfast or lunch. One hairpin turn below the Everest Panorama, a signposted path winds through oak and rhododendron forest to a Buddhist gompa in another twenty minutes. Run by a Bhutanese lama, the monastery is small and unembellished, but the view from its meditation perch is awesome.
Your Tip for Daman
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