Ok. Here's the thing. If you fancy a really good CHAT when I get back, if CONVERSATION is your thing. If 2 WAY COMMUNICATION IN ENGLISH floats your boat. I'm your woman. Really. I'd talk to anyone right now and I mean anyone. And that is probably why I have a list as long as your arm of eager young Nepali men just bursting to come to England and be my houseboy/husband and who are really (or pretend to be) totally, overly impressed by my utter ineptitude at the nepalese language. Though I have tried harder than most! I am also [View Full Entry]

---

---

Well after 3 days of total relaxation having as many massages and facials as I could - even a manicure and pedicure (!) I got my Yeti Air flight back to Kathamandu. Great flight. I sat on the left hand side of the plane so I could see the Himalayan range as we flew the half hour to the city. Definitely time to start heading back. Didn't really talk to anyone in Pokhara and I'm missing everyone at home a lot. Was wandering around Kathmandu doing some last minute stuff and bumped into one of the student doctors we had met [View Full Entry]

---

---

OK, last left you poised as I left Mamng. Wrote a sizzling account of the horrors of the next day and lost the lot. Grrr. Anyway, thought I'd let you know about the massage I have just had . For had read SURVIVED. I went for the most blissful foot massage at a place last night and usually a fot massage is a god indicator of how a full massage will be. I went for Back, neck and shoulder. Hoped I'd get the chap who had done my feet (not for any kinky reasons - he just knew what he was [View Full Entry]

---

---

Note the date. Spent the day relaxing. Had a Shiatsu massage (very good) and in the afternoon got a little boat over to Fishtail Lodge, a beautiful hotel on an island in the lake. Prince Charles has stayed there and it's jolly nice. For 300 rupees I used the swimming pool and chilled out on a sun lounger on the manicured lawns. I'm glad I wasn't staying there though. Less vibrant, traveller action and full of Japanese businessmen(nothing against them but not really anyone to talk to). In the evening had a fantastic vegetable curry at a little restaurant near my [View Full Entry]

---

---

We got up at 6am (not easy for someone who had only been in bed 2 hours) to get the bus to Pokhara. A 6 hour journey is the heat, on stony roads only going 10 km an hour. The driver kept stopping for unfathomable reasons. We were all tired, fractious, sitting in little pools of frustrated miseryand boredom and every half hour smothering our weather beaten faces with liberal amounts of E45 cream. A diverting moment at one stop when Charlotte got back on the bus with a cockroach the size of my kneecap on her arm. It disappeared onto [View Full Entry]

---

---

We were leaving Jomson in jeeps....sorry, A jeep. 15 of us. Use your imagination. Somebody else had in only ordering one jeep. No volunteers to ride on top? Funny that. On untarmacadamed (sp?) roads, but before we left I decided to put a little business in the way of the town's plumbers. More details of this on request. I'm a bit embarrassed. Fantastic not walking after the wind, dust, stone tortures of the day before and my mind turned to the porters (stop it Rachel) of the night before. They had a hundred songs to sing to us, but when they [View Full Entry]

---

---

Woke up in Muktinath on Easter Sunday morning feeling fantastic. Unsurprisingly. Plus, after not having eaten chocolate (even for medicinal trekking reasons!) since Ash Wednesday I got to crack open the mini eggs. Gave everyone one, including the porters. Then had to explain what Easter was and why chocolate eggs. Actually the link between chocolate eggs and the Easter story all seemed to get a bit tenuous when trying to explain it to Nepali people in very simple English, but hey, chocolate is always good! Brian told us the walk today would be easy and largely flat, so in high spirits [View Full Entry]

---

---

Awoke at 3.45 am, forced some hot muesli down my throat and bundled up in most of my clothes we set off for the high pass. Thorung La. The sky was inky black but spattered with stars and the twinkling in the clear night sky and the slowly moving thread of head torches inching its way up the ountain was all we could see. As we climbed, the sun began to rise and the top of the mountains became flushed with an ever deepening pink blush that glowed orange and pink against the dawn sky. It was utterly beautiful. I found [View Full Entry]

---

---

So we left Manang to head to Yak karka and from thence to Thorung Phedi, out last stop before crossing the pass. I had my all time low on the way. The snow was thick and underneath the snow was sheet ice. I had become separated from the rest of group, we were all dotted around and came to a very steep downhill climb. A tiny path that was just ice hundreds of feet above a murderous ravine. I think I have already mentioned my lack of balance and general unreliability of knees. I inched down, convinced at any moment I [View Full Entry]

---

---

Getting to Manang was like getting to the land of Canaan, or fruit and honey, ambrosia and nectar. We had all started to fantastise about Manang, hot baths, fluffy towels, spa type facilities.....actually when we got there we had rooms with an ensuite squat toilet and shower and this was absolute luxury!!! Although very snowy, the sky was piercingly blue and the sun hot. Clean once more and happy in the knowledge that we could spend 2 nights here, the mood of the group lifted considerably. We went to the Himalayan Rescue Association's talk on Altitude Sickness. Its very good and [View Full Entry]

---

---