Look carefully at the photo. Very carefully. I snapped it on Sunday morning at Sarankot, near Pokhara, in central Nepal. People come here from around the world to see the spectacular sunrise over Fishtail, Annapurna and other famous mountains.

Do you see those amazing white peaks, just behind the big hill in the middle of the photo? That’s where they’re located.

Well, we didn’t see them either.

We awoke early and left our hotel at 5:15 a.m., hoping to watch the sun cast a golden glow on these snow-covered giants. Instead, we saw fog — layers upon layers of dense fog.

We weren’t alone. All around us, people were poised with their cameras and tripods, waiting to snap a photo of a lifetime. Instead, they ended up taking photos of each other, or selfies.

November is usually among the best months to see Nepal’s famous mountains, especially at sunrise. As they say here, it’s peak season, long past the summer monsoons. But nothing is certain in this country, and Mother Nature has her own ideas about who gets to see her jewels, and when.

We experienced the same disappointment a week earlier when we visited Nagarkot, a resort town north of Kathmandu with a famous view of the eastern Himalayas. There, too, the sunrise and setting were beautiful but we saw only glimpses of the white peaks hidden by fog.

At Sarankot, we waited an hour, hoping the fog would clear. Finally, we gave up and drove back down the hill, stopping at the Bindhyabasini Temple to watch morning puja, or prayers. Sure enough, that’s when the skies finally cleared enough to give us a partial, but wonderful, view of the peaks. The video shows how we were able to see the mountains in one direction and the temple scene in the other.

That’s Nepal. It rarely works the way it’s supposed to. But if you have faith and patience, it usually gives you more than you hoped for.