Adventures in Nepal

Kathmandu turned out to be my favourite city yet visited on this trip. There was so much to see and do, yet also lots of bars, cheap resteraunts and bearable accomadation. The 5 of us got to a guesthouse in Thamel, the backpacker area of Kathmandu, and me Neil and Paul got a room between us, paying the equivalent of 70p a night. We spent 5 days in Kathmandu in the end. We visited the Monkey temple, a buddhist stupa famous for the many monkeys loitering there, as well as Boudha stupa, a huge building that looks like a cross between a temple and a gigantic laser beam. We also visited Kathmandus durbar square; the royal courtyard full of temples. However, even just walking round the streets of Kathmandu, you would always come across an interesting temple, stupa, statue or old Newari style house. There was also lots of shops selling very very cheap North Face gear, as well as Tibetan objects and Gurkha Knifes. The bars were great and often had loud live music and cheap beer. There was also Cheers Bar next to our hotel, which would put on pirate DVDs in the evenings. I could have spent a month there easily. However, after 5 days I left for Besisahar, the start of the Annapurna circuit, whilst the others left for Pokhara to do some rafting (I was tempted to go, but was not sure how long the Annapurna circuit would take, and was not sure if I had time - in hindsight, I did). My last day in Kathmandu I got some mild food poisoning from a bad chicken chow mein, and spent the night being sick, not a great start for the trek. I had left my big backpack and guitar at the guesthouse in Kathmandu, and carried only my small backpack for the trek; that contained a change of clothes, waterproof gear, hat and gloves, first aid kit, toiletries, map, guidebook, wallet, torch and emergency space blanket. And a towel, which was the most important item. The trek was over 300 km, and reached a high point of 5416m at the Thorung La Pass; the guidebook advised 14-16 days to do it in. The first day, I walked the distance the guidebook recommended, still ill, and got to my destination, a village called Bahundanda, at 1.00pm. It thunderstormed for the rest of the afternoon. The next day, I got to that days destination (according to the LP guide) by 10.00 am, so continued on and did almost 2 days in 1. The terrain was getting more and more spectacular with every gorge I turned into and every mountain pass I trekked on. I went through pine forests and passed raging rivers, I saw the worlds 8th highest mountain. This was all incredible. The storm had taken all the dust out of the air so the views were superb. I was also, despite my fears of being unfit, doing far more then the guidebook thought doable at a faster pace, overtaking the other trekkers I saw. I got to Manang at just over 3000 m after 5 days and spent a day acclimatising there, and watched Slumdog Millionaire at a ver basic cinema, which consisted of a projector, some pirate DVDs and a man giving free Popcorn and cups of tea. From Manang, I walked to the next town at 4000m, from here I spent a day going up 1400m to the Thorung La pass and down 1600m to the next town. This day was arduous but also one of my favourites, there was a real sense of schievment getting to the snow covered top, surrounded by swirling prayer flags, huge cairns and great views. The remaining part of the walk to Naya Pul should have taken 7 days but I pushed myself to do it in 3, including walking 32 miles one day. This was not all downhill either, on the 2nd day I ascended up to Ghorapani, a climb of 1500 m, more then the day I climbed to the Thorung La! Finishing the trek was amazing, I had done it in 10 days (including one acclimatisation day) and felt ready for a good rest. I met some great people on the trek as well, whilst I usually walked alone (so I could go at my own pace) the lodges themselves were really social places where everyone relaxed after a hard days trekking with a cold beer and hot food. After the trek, I took a bus to Pokhara.

Pokhara was very very chilled out, like the Nepalese version of a cross between Varkala and Pushkar. It was a town by a lake, with lots of bars, cafes and cheap accomadation, as well as very little traffic. I checked into a dorm, and met a canadian girl who introduced me to some aussies that were in Pokhara. I also met Paul who was in the dorm next door coincedentally, the others had gone trekking but he had stayed and so I spent a lot of time over outside that dorm drinking and playing an Irish guys guitar he had brought (mine was still in Kathmandu). I spent 4 or 5 days in Pokhara, but really didn't do much, I played poker quite a bit, drunk a lot, celebrated Nepalese New Year (2066! I was in the 60's....) and slept. I felt I had earned it after my trekking. I am still on a net profit from my efforts at Poker over the course of travelling, so its all good.

After Pokhara, I went to Royal Chitwan Park, a national park in the Terai area of Nepal. I did an elephant safari (riding on a howdah), slept overnight in a watchtower in the jungle, and canoed down the river there. I saw 10 Rhinos, a Marsh Mugger, lots of wild boar, deers and elephants, but no TIgers or Leapoards unfortunately. I also swam in a river with a herd of elephants, I rode into the river on one whilst it squirted water at me with its trunk, then I jumped off and swam around for a bit, clambering on and off the elephants. It was amazingly fun, one of the best things I did in Nepal. After a few days in Chitwan, I left for India. I met some other travellers on the bus to the border, one an Aussie called Kate. The two of us were the only ones going to India that day so we took a bus from Sunauli (the town at the border) to Gorakhpur, which I can safely describe as a hole. We both went to get Indian currency out of an ATM (we were using Nepalese before) only to find none of the ATMs accepted Kates card, despite the fact that she had been travelling in India before Nepal for 2 months. I was going to go to Varanasi that night, but ended up staying to help her out, as she had no money at that point. It took us a day to sort it out, none of the cyber cafes had skype headphones to contact her bank (and none of the electrical stores) and the payphones were to expensive, as the bank kept on putting her on hold for ages. Eventually, around midday the next day we persuaded the bank to let us use its phone for free, and got the problem solved (the card had been flagged for visiting too many countries). That left us free to move on, which was a great relief as Gorakhpur had nothing in it at all. We arrived in Delhi, which is where I am now. Kate has gone to Rishikesh, and I have an overnight train to Mumbai later on this afternoon. On the 28th April (5 days) I have a flight from Mumbai to Bangkok, and am very excited about leaving the Indian Subcontinent to start my travels in South East Asia!!!

The road to Nepal

From Auli I went back to Rishikesh, the bus journeys actually made the trip worthwhile anyway, even without taking the sledging into account. I spent the night in Rishikesh, and the next morning caught a bus to Delhi. Spent the night in Delhi, then took the night train to Varanasi the next evening, and met a French anthropology student who was doing a documentary in India for her university. She was going to meet her sister in Varanasi though, so I went to Shanti Lodge, one of the best places I have stayed in India. There was a dorm on the 8th floor, with wire mesh instead of walls on two sides, and loads of mattresses just scattered randomly inbetween plants around the room. The view was amazing, and two floors below was the resteraunt/bar which had a free pool table. I met a Welsh guy at the dorm called Jimmy, he had just come from Nepal but introduced me to two guys from England, Paul and Neil, who were leaving Varanasi for Kathmandu the next day, which was my plan as well. Got talking to them, they had also arranged to go with an American guy called Matt and his Polish girlfriend Anja, so the 5 of us got train tickets to Gorakhpur, the nearest Indian town to the border that had a railway station. Varanasi was really intense, incredibly dirty but fascinating as well, its a holy city on the ganges, and where the Hindus go to burn there dead. There are multitudes of holy cows, funeral processions and priests roaming the narrow streets. We took a boat ride down the Ganges, which gave a good view of the ghats, and saw all the India people bathing in the Ganges - not a good idea, the water is so polluted there its septic and has 1.5 million faecal coliform bacteria per 100 ml, where in water safe for bathing there should be less then 500 bacteria... Enough said. We left for Gorakhpur at midnight, and from arrived at 6.00 in the morning. Got a bus to Sunauli which was very crowded, cramped and noisy. Temporarily put off the prospect of public buses, we hired a jeep to take us to Kathmandu, we managed to haggle one down to a price only 100 rps each more expensive then the bus (less then 1 pound).

In search of snow

Now in Shimla, my plan was to find a place in the Himalayas to ski. According to my Lonely Planet book, there were 3 places - Manali in Himachal Pradesh, Auli in Uttarankhand, or Golmug in Kashmir. It was mid March at the time, the book said that the first two had snow til the end of March and the latter had some into April. However a guy in Shimla told me that Manali's snow had all melted, but that Auli should still have some. Whilst in Shimla, I also walked to a famous Hanuman temple and generally chilled out. To get to Auli, I had to go Shimla->Delhi->Rishikesh->Joshimath->Auli. This sounds a lot but Rishikesh was a good place to break the journey, it is a holy town on the Ganges that the Beatles visited in the 60s, and is full of Ashrams and hippies. I stopped there for a couple of nights, met some other travellers, and didn't do to much, which was fine by me. The bus ride from Rishikesh to Joshimath was stunning, it followed the Ganges through the Himalayas for 9 hours along a high, steep gorge past huge statues of wierd Hindu Gods. I got to Joshimath around 4.00pm and from there took the cable car up to Auli, at 3000m. I got there; there was no snow on the slope. Not one snowflake. I went to sleep that night pretty disgruntled. The next morning, I woke up and looked around. There was snow nearby, The top of the mountain that the resort was built on had some, I could see. I decided to walk up there, however couldn't get any ski's to take up with me (the receptionist at my dorm looked at me like I'd gone mad when I asked). It took me 4 and a half hours to walk up to the top, there was quite a bit of snow. I was determined to get some winter sport done, and so took off my backpack, put my legs through the straps, sat on it and sledged down. Mission accomplished. I walked down tired but happy.

Walking in Pushkar, Camel Trekking in Great Thar Desert and Bus Rides through the Himalayas

So at my last post I was at Pushkar, in Rajasthan. As said it is a holy town so I spent the first day looking at the various temples; it is the only place in the world to have a temple to Brahma, the creator of the universe and one of the three most important gods of the Hindu Trimurti. The next 2 days were spent walking round the hills outside Pushkar, it had dawned on me that I had not done any more exercise then sprint baywatch style into the sea at Goa and Varkala in the last month, and I was hoping to do the Annapurna Circuit, a walk over 300 km long and going up to 5416 m in the Nepalese Himalaya. These walks were fun, you could buy hobnobs in Pushkar (believe me, when your 1000's of miles from home, hobnobs are perhaps the greatest things ever) so I would generally take a packet of them and walk through scrub and clamber up steep rocky faces to have lunch looking out towards Pushkar and having a brilliant view of the Rajasthani planes.

After Pushkar, I travelled onto Jaisalmer, a 12th century Rajput fort in the middle of the desert. I met some Swedish girls on the bus on the way there, so we decided to do a camel trek together, and so we arranged a 3 day 2 night trek. Jaisalmer itself was amazing, a huge fort with elaborate ancient havellas inside. The trek itself was great, I rode on a camel called Raju, and the guides made roti (Indian flatbread) and curries for us, and we also slept out in the dunes. However, after three days my legs were ready to fall off - camels are not comfortable to ride on! Back in Jaisalmer, the next day was the culmination of the Indian Holi festival. This day involved having massive colour fights with bags of dye, as well as improvised water pistols with coloured water, think smingus dyngus on a massive, colourful scale! I got covered in dye, mostly red but with patches of greens, yellows and blues. It was insane, and when I got back to my hotel every Indian there was completely drunk (it appears that Holi is also a drinking festival). My waitoer saw me, managed after three attempts to pick up a menu, then stumbled over in my direction before crashing into a table on the way.

After Rajasthan I decided to go somewhere cooler, Shimla, a hill station in the foothills of the Himalayas would be good. A bus ride there from Delhi provided me with my first glimpse of the Himalayas, it was spectacular. I climbed up a steep hill (Shimla is just one huge hill with buildings on one side) to the YMCA and checked in, being told that only one of the bathrooms was working because "Monkeys got in and smashed the other one up".

Long time no speak!

OK, apologies for the lack of blogging in the last few weeks, I have been too busy having fun, seeing amazing things and copiously drinking my way around the subcontinent! However, I'm now in Delhi with 3 hours to kill until my train to Mumbai, so will try my best to update you on all that has happened...