Nepal- the most beautiful country I have ever seen!

We travelled to the border of Nepal Varanassi after a 7 hour train ride to Gorakhpur, a 3 hour local Indian bus to the Nepalese border at Sunnali, then hopped off and walked across. I am so geeky as I think this is just so cool, just strolling across a border! We sorted the visa's and then instantly felt like we had been transported to another universe in the space of 5 minutes!! Nepal is the complete opposite of everything North Indian .... its calmer, spotlessly clean, people are not in your face at all times and of course, the scenery is absolutely amazing. The Nepalese people are sort of half Indian / half chinese and they are really beautiful. They are so warm and inviting and women are more apparent on the streets and working. In fact we were all a bit lost as we have had to start asking for things again when we walk into a shop whereas we are used to people just jumping on us and not letting us leave without pestering us for half an hour. We got a breakfast of vegetable curry (the best I have ever had), chipatis and spiced tea, negotiated a taxi and were on our way to Lumbini. We were only here for around 30 minutes but we already had a small party waving us off , including a taxi driver who we declined for being too expensive!

Lumbini is a very small town with only a few guesthouses despite being the birthplace of Buddha. Kerry and I were feeling dreadful, we both had really bad colds and lack of sleep so we chilled out while the other two rented bikes and went exploring.

Then we went on to Pokhara, it has the biggest lake in Nepal with the backdrop of the Himalayas .... pretty stunning and very peaceful. We arrived by local bus, which does still make us slightly nervous as we are always the only tourists but it was fine. The funniest moment by far was when we stopped at a bus station for a few minutes. Dee spotted a guy loitering by the bus and thought he had a gun. We tried to suss it out and it definitely looked like the barrel of a rifle sticking out of his bag. He caught us looking though and started walking around the bus. He looked really menacing with long hair and a bandana. Panic set in big time, he got on the bus and walked straight over to us. I was fully prepared to take off my money belt and hand it over when he reached in his bag. Until he pulled out a tiny wooden instrument and started playing it with a bow (which we had thought was a gun) and started singing to us! Bloody hilarious! Oh I was sooo relieved!

We were told the bus would take just 6 hours. It actually took a bum-numbing 9 hours and 3 buses (one broke down and one had a crash). So despite getting up at 7am we still didnt arrive here until after dark. We were all pretty fed up and miserable as it was raining and much much colder than when we were in Varanasi. So we decided it was worth trying to negotiate a cheap rate in a mid-range hotel at least for a night so we can get clean and warm. We did really well and managed to get a lovely room for just 2.50 a night (the room itself is a similar standard to a holiday Inn in the UK). It has hot showers, room service, satelite TV...the works. We were jumping on the beds when we got there!

The people here are the most friendly in the world despite the fact that Nepal is one of the poorest countries in the world. Every single person we pass in the streets says hello and asks us where we are from. Its so laid back here. We have spent our first day here just going for walks, climbing to the top of hills which I think equates to a trek as it bloomin steep and hard work and took more than 4 hours so therefore it is a trek! The views are just amazing, pictures to follow soon!

So on our second night we went for a lovely Nepalese feast and got a little bit merry. As we were walking out met this guy called Paul who I got into a bit of banta with as his mate was from Essex and suggested we go and meet him in this bar. With a few vinos inside me I dragged Kerry along and we eventually found this great little bar with a good mix of locals. We only planned to stay for a drink which turned into 4 and then cocktails that were leathal and my eyes stopped working! Met Scott from Dagenham who was a falconer and moved to Nepal and created Parahawking; paragliding with hawks! So with my beer goggles on I listened to his story and then somehow agreed to do it. I woke up the next day and the first thing I thought was "shit what I have agreed to!". So 2nd major thing I have learnt is don't agree to things when drunk (first was buy a lonely planet for every country, keep up!). Dee and Marianne thought it was hilarious as I was so hung over and just kept shaking my head saying what have I done, but they too agreed to do it but without the hawks.

So I was completely shitting myself and also trying not to puke with the hangover from hell. But being strapped to a rather hunky Italian certainly helped and things weren't so bad! My stomach literally flipped as he shouted "go" and we ran off the cliff and i instantly loved it! I had to feed fresh beef to the hawks on the way down and it was amazing having them land on my arm and taking the food. All went well until we stacked it on the way down in front of loads of people but I didn't mind landing on him at all! ha!

The next day we went to Chitwan were there is a national park. We had to get up at the crack of dawn and were greeted with a group of mpeople we also met at the Blues bar. I was so hammered I'd forgotten we scribbled down the name of our hotel on Lees arm so they book the same trip as us! So glad we did, we spent the next few weeks with the lovely Lee, Ben, Simona, Ann and Shane. Chitwan was really great, they have a small community who live in the mud huts and speak their own language. It was very quiet and chilled and a world away from the madness that is India. They had fields of weed Kim! We went on a canal boat trip and forest walk, but the highlight was bathing with the elephants and going on a walk through the forest on them and seeing rhinos and wild deer, but no tigers which we were hoping for. At night they cooked us great food and had drinks around the bonfire. The guys we met made it and we all met up again in Kathmandhu.

Kathmandhi was a cool city and full of unique temples. Ann, our self appointed guide who is the most loveliest anhd enthusiastic traveller I have met so far took us around a tour set out in the l.planet and we had a great time going to all the temples around Durbar square which is a world heritage site. We also had fun at the monkey temple, the sun was shining and the monkeys were humping literally next too me! It was the Tibetan new year while we were there and they had a street festival and it was lovely to see all the peopledancing and celebrating. It's the year of the rat and Dee and I saw a rat in our hostel so hopefully this will bring us luck!

Dee and I also took a mountain flight over Mount Everest which was ok but not really worth doing but I reckon that's as close as I'll get it to it and we got some great pictures. The reason whyu not sure it's worth it as I got a flight back to Delhi and saw it again so could have saved myself the money!

From Delhi Kerry and I headed to Goa for some much needed sun. Dee stayed on in Delhi for a week with family and Marianne stayed in Nepal for an extra week. Nepal is just so wonderful and I recommend anyone go there as soon as possible before tourism changes it. I will defo go back there and do a trek and more paragliding and see more of the country. 2 weeks wasn't enough!

---

---