Strike...

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Hello Everyone...

So we're still in Pokhara, not sure if the strike over here has been getting any UK press, but we're basically stuck here for the moment. Everything's shut during the day, although there are a few shops and restaurants open on the sly, we've been ushered to the back of a few restaurants so far. Everything's allowed to open in the evening between 6 and 8, then depending on if there are any angry maoists in the streets you're either allowed to hang out somewhere away from the windows or the lights go out and you're ushered out. There are no taxis/buses allowed on the streets so there's not a great deal to do, we've pretty much done what we can so we're just taking it easy, reading books and hanging out with some of our rafting friends. There are many worse places to be stuck...so it's not all bad! Apart from that our time in the jungle might be off the cards. No elephants for us. We did get pretty close to a monkey the other day though so that's made me happier!

Rafting by the way was fantastic....Tim fell out, and I did not, although I was holding on to the safety line far too often. It was pretty easy really, not much paddling involved and a good amount of rapids. We nearly all went out on a few occasions, especially on the last day when our guide decided he was going to flip the raft! That's when Tim went swimming far away....then held on to the nearest kayak. The camping spots were little remote beaches by the river, surrounded by mountains. At the first camp though there was a digger on the other side of the river working on digging a road, he stopped about 10 at night and started up again at 5 in the morning! - The next camp had a few local villagers that came down with baskets full of rum, whisky, gin, coke, sprite, water and chocolate - they made a killing!

It was really great to meet people on the trip, most of whom we've been hanging out with in Pokhara, but now we're getting a little stir crazy. Thank god for HBO.

We'll keep you posted on what happens here, we might end up flying to Kathmandu at the end of the week for a few days before we leave for Singapore..

Hope everything's all good back home.
Love Emma and Tim

oh and we'll get some of our rafting pics up soon!

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