Kathmandu has swallowed up many of the little towns lying around it, so it takes up much of the sprawling basin that it lies in – which used to be a lake (so I hope it doesn’t rain). We went to a couple of these other towns, or Squares which they’ve now become. Kathmandu Durbar Square and Patan Durbar Square. Basically, they’re an excuse for a temple or two. The place is filled with them of various sizes, shapes and styles, some in need of a little renovation, others beautifully white-washed with their gods freshly painted. The streets are so busy with all-sorts that it’s almost like the town grew up first and the temples were placed wherever there was any space left. They sprout up on street corners, amongst markets, in people’s doorways. Many, as well as used for praying in, are used as shops or to dry laundry on in the sun.
The strangest thing in Kathmandu (if not the whole of Nepal) has been seeing where the Kumari Devi lives, their ‘real living Goddess’. They believe Continue Reading »
It’s all too much; first we go paragliding in Pokhara, then we head off to this place north of Kathmandu near the Tibetan boarder (The Last Resort, hugely overpriced and badly run) to go white water rafting and on the following day I did a 180m bungee jump. Then, after walking up the side of the gorge (45mins in sweltering heat) we go and do the world’s biggest bridge swing!
Things got a bit out of hand you see, Helen even went back for seconds, jealous I was.
Not much to say about it all except we strongly advise anyone to do a bridge swing like this if they ever get the chance. 8 seconds of falling, you run out of scream and you can’t keep your eyes open.
A very big thank you to Chad for his rafting pics that one of the kayak guides took, they look fab :)
check ’em out
“It’s so pretty”, they all said. “You’ll love it, it’s so much more stunning than Everest!”. That was it, our minds had been changed. We were no longer going to climb up to Everest Base Camp, but to that of Annapurna, a bit further over to the west of Nepal. (Excuse me if I go on a bit in this post, but it’s been an awesome 10 days).
On another of Rory’s recommendations, we strolled up to The Himalayan Glacier Company in Kathmandu to meet our wonderful guide, Giri. A gentle, kind and fun guy who looked after our every need, every day. Naba, they person who Guy had been liaising with over email from India, put the finishing touches to our trek while we all chatted and got excited. The next day we were up super-early (a common theme throughout our trip) and off on the ‘tourist bus’ to Pokhara, 150km away on the same rickety old falling apart ‘highway’ that clung to the mountain side on which we had arrived from the Chitwan Park. On the bus we met Sila, our porter who would carry our rucksack throughout the trip for us. He spoke no English (but we swear he understood more than he let on) and whilst we only managed to get one smile out of him for the first few days, we were joking and playing cards with him by the final day. He left flowers in our room one afternoon for our arrival off the mountain :-) sweet.
Now, if you’d have told me the trek would have been so hilly I’d have probably trekked elsewhere. It’s like being on a step machine in the gym and staying there for hours at a time – the only difference being the irregularity of the steps; uneven slabs of grey slate, over gnarly tree roots and through waterfalls of icy cold water with slippery stones. Up, down, across, over, wobble, whoops, up, down. It’s hard on your body but we made sure we were ultra slow. Our last bit of exercise had been that silly Ironman back in June. We told Giri we’d be happy to take it really easy so we became the tortoises of the mountain; constantly being overtaken by dashing hares, only to pass them again whilst they were having an extra-long recovery tea break in one of the many guest houses along the way. By the end of the day we often arrived before them all. At times it was quite soul destroying to haul yourself up wobbly uneven steps on one side of the mountain, only to plod all the way back down again on the other. It is never East Anglia flat, only Nepali flat… something which takes a bit of getting used to.
It was also surprising, in terms of our altitude, how Continue Reading »
