Nepal

Monday the 11th of October

I was not sure where to put the Nepal page as we are in India before and after Nepal so should I have put before the India page or after? Decisions, decisions oh how stressful life can be!

Nepal was never part of our master plan but all in all I think it is safe to say both Lou and I are glad we have had our little excursion into the land of the Himalayas. Well it has been a while since my last entry so lots to report, not least the fact I have finally got a haircut (about bloody time you fat hippy, as Adam would say.) My last haircut was on Lou’s birthday last December so it has been quite a while but in the end it just had to go. On a good day I looked like I was wearing a bird’s nest as a hat and on a bad day I looked like worzel gummages slightly retarded twin brother. I would love to say that I now look really smart with my new hair cut but in all honesty I could have probably done a better job than the barber, using only my left hand and cutting my hair in the dark.

Anyway that is enough about my afro problems let me get onto wonderful Nepal. Well we arrived in Nepal and after one night in the border town of Sounali we headed straight to the Chitwan National Park. Chitwan National park is on the boarder with India and is famous for its many types of birds and wild rhinos. On our second day we decided to head into the park on an elephant safari. Now unlike the elephant safari in Sri Lanka, this did not involve searching for elephants, no, this time we went searching for Rhinos while riding on top of an elephant. Now for anybody who has not ridden on an elephant I have one very important tip, bring a big pillow to sit on. We did not have any pillows and within about 5 minutes my back side felt more like the elephant was sitting on it rather than vice versa. Despite the numb bum we did have a great time and managed to see a few wild rhinos.

Well after a relaxing 3 days at Chitwan we headed north yesterday and are now in a place called Pokhara. Pokhara is a beautiful town nestled between the Himalayas and a lake and as such there is a load to do here, from boating to biking to paragliding, which brings me on nicely to what we have been doing today. Well today is mine and Lou’s two year anniversary and as such we decided to do something special, so after weighing up all the options we decided that the best bet was to strap on a glider and jump off a mountain, or as it otherwise known, to go paragliding. What this involved was heading out of Pokhara to Sarangot viewpoint, which is 2000ft above Pokhara and then from here you strap on your harness and basically run off the edge of the cliff as fast as you can. Once in the air you find the thermals and soar around with the eagles for half an hour before gliding back down to the lake in Pokhara. It really was fantastic and probably the closet thing to flying a human can get. Although Lou enjoyed it also she was not quite as impressed as me, although this probably has lots to do with the fact she got sick mid flight. Also on the negative side yet again I have brought batteries that did not work so, as such I was unable to take any pictures, although I will borrow some off of the company we went with. Anyway if you are ever in Nepal and fancy paragliding I would definitely recommend Sunrise Paragliding as they were excellent.

The plan for the next few days is to stay in Pokhara and do some cycling and trekking before moving on to Katmandu. Anyway that’s all for now folks as some of us have a anniversary to enjoy.

Thursday the 14th of October

I am pleased to report that we are still in Pokhara and still really enjoying it here. However time waits for no man and we still have Kathmandu and the rest of India to discover, so I think tonight is our last night here. We have had a very relaxing 5 days and now I feel a bit recharged and ready again for the hustle and bustle of India, as I feel that I may not seen the best of India yet.

After the excitement of paragliding I decided that I wanted more but instead of more paragliding I decided to have a go in a microlite. I did my best to try and persuade Lou to join me but after the vomit inducing paraglide flight, she was determined to keep both feet firmly on terra firmer. This microlite was more like a powered glider and was basically a hand glider attached to a bath tub with wheels, which then had an engine and propeller on the back. It comes under the class of microlite which I have flown in before but this was different due to the fact it is open to the elements where as before in England the microlite had an enclosed cockpit. Anyway the plan was to take off at 6.30am but due to bad fog we were grounded by air traffic control until 10.30am. After finally taking off we climbed up quickly and after about 2000ft we had flown through the cloud cover and I was confronted with blue skies and the simply breathtaking Himalayas before me. I had booked the 1 hour flight which meant we left Pokhara and flew out in a loop towards the Annapurna Mountains and also the Dhaulagriri Mountain, which at 8167m, is the 7th highest peak in the world. For the 1 hour flight you climb to a height of 10,000ft, which meant that due to the fact we were in an open cockpit, was very cold. I was pre-warned off this and suitably dressed but even with shorts, trousers, jumper, fleece, gloves and a flight suit I was still freezing. Although the spectacular views soon made you forget you could no longer feel your fingers. The only bad point was having to come back down to earth!

Apart from all the fun in the air, we have also enjoyed many of the other activities that Pokhara has to offer. This has included cycling, rowing on the lake and trekking in the surrounding hills. Pokhara offers both terrible and fantastic cycling, i.e. it is all up hill on the way there and all downhill on the way back. The boating on the lake was also great fun and a marvelous place to watch the sun go down, although Lou was a bit keener on relaxing than rowing so it was a bit hard on the arms.

So long for now amigos, dinners calling. Hope to see you, in Katmandu, but out of time so ending the rhyme.

Sunday the 17th of October

Well we have arrived in the capital, Kathmandu and now have only a month left of our trip. This is probably a good thing as the money is a bit lacking. We loved Pokhara and stayed there longer than anticipated but felt that we had to leave after the 6th night. This however was mainly due to the fact that our accommodation was also accommodating some strange lake rodent in the roof. They were quite cute but by the 6th night it smelt rather like a hamster cage, sawdust and wee! Lucky for me I had a blocked nose, however Ruairi never failed to remind me how much it stank!

Our bus journey here was only meant to be 6 - 8 hours but as our bus broke down you can add another 4 hours on top of that. Well it could have been worse!

Today we visited the main centre where all the stupas and temples are. It was very interesting to look at with so much history but there were so many people following us trying to sell us gurka knives and statues of buddha etc that the world heritage site, Durbar Sq, was spoilt. Never the less we snapped away and then left and wandered the old streets and markets.

There is a festival on at the moment and so there are crowds of people buying gifts for their families and farmers selling on goats and ducks for special meals. It is like their equivelant of Christmas. It is also a time of year for kite flying, gambling and drinking, so Ruairi will fit right in then. Ha ha! Readers; Ruairi does acually have a kite in his bag from Vietnam but he is planning on giving to a kiteless kid. No not a goat. Silly.

We really like Nepal, the climate, the mountains, activites and people make it hard not too. It is so beautiful and interesting place. It is a shame however that there are such troubles here at the moment with the civil war. The maoists mainly affect the small village areas but the road checks must really get to the locals, as a bus journey will involve many stops on route where by all the locals have to get off and have their bags checked. These problems have meant that many tourist are put off but this is good for our pockets as hotels are cheap.

We plan to see the areas are around the Kasthmandu valley and then perhaps a treck, cycle or raft. However I am keeping my feet firmly on or near the the soil after my sickness episode whilst paragliding. I think I will keep my ideas of flying stricty in my dreams in future. As to be honest dreaming of flying was for me, more enjoyable that the actual thing. The same cannot be said for Ruairi who is still thinking of ways to hit the sky!

Lou x

Tuesday the 26th of October

Well ladies and gentlemen I am slightly disappointed to report we are still in Kathmandu, mind you not because I dislike Kathmandu, no rather due to the fact we should have left last week but seem to have got stuck here. The plan last week was to go bungee jumping and white water rafting, so we tried to book it for Tuesday only to be told the next trip was on Thursday, then on Thursday we were told Saturday and finally on Saturday we were told they were fully booked. Not the end of the world we thought and instead decided to go to another rafting company and forget the bungee jumping, so we booked a day rafting on Sunday only to be told Saturday night that the trip was cancelled. Obviously at this point we thought bugger this and decided to forget rafting as well and just move on back in to India, unfortunately due to the Dasain Festival (more about this later) all the transport was booked up and we have ended up having to get a flight to Bangalore on Thursday. It is not all bad as Kathmandu is a nice place with loads of good restaurants and bars but I think I can speak for both of us when I say we are a bit Kathmandued out!

Apart from trying to book things over the last week, we have also explored Katmandu and the surrounding areas a bit. This has been even more interesting as it is currently the Dasain Festival, which is the major festival in Nepal and lasts for 15 days in which time they have various celebrations. It is a great time to be in Nepal, well unless you’re a goat of a buffalo that is! This is due to the fact that on the 8th day everybody sacrifices goats and buffalos (chickens if your poor) and one-temple alone sacrifices 108 buffalo. On the days leading up to this you could see goats everywhere being sold and on the back of people bikes being brought home, since then I don’t think I have seen a single goat. Although we managed to stay away from most of the mass slaughter we did happen to see one buffalo being hacked to pieces and ladies and gentlemen when you have seen one buffalos intestines being squeezed out, you don’t want to see it again!

Well that’s is all for now and also all from the Nepal page, it has been a wonderful country to travel in and I would love to come back here one day and do a proper trek in the Himalayas but for now that’s all and I will see you all back on the India page.