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Published: January 30th 2009
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i am going to make this the shortest blog yet as i have been extremely relaxed to say the least recently with concern to blogging and would rather do short ones than not at all.
after a week in Kathmandu the hotel owner told me that there were 3 ozzie girls doing a package trip that included rafting, safari and a short trek into the Himalayas, which happened to be the exact part of my trek that i missed due to going to Kapils village for the festival. by this point we had become friends and he gave me an amazing offer that was just enough to cover his costs, as he was already making money from the girls and pretty soon we were on our way.
we caught the bus to the depature point for the rafting, kitted ourselves up and set off down the river. this time was a lot better than in Thailand, there were some serious rapids and at one point i was very close to falling over and two of the girls did. we were being told to "pass the T bar" which meant hand her the paddle and rescue her, however we all
heard "faster team faster" and continued paddling into one of the Ozzie girls faces, who was stuck in the rapid, until the guy finally jumped forward and rescued her himself...... oops 😊 we then cought the bus to Chitwan where we had some amazing food, watched a cutural show of various dances and all joined in at the end dancing like tribals in a circle.
the next day was the elephant safari, so we saddled up and went off into the jungle walking through rivers and saw two rhino right up close and some wild boar. when we got back we went to the river and washed the elepahants, sat on their backs while they sprayed us with their trunks and shook us off into the water, they would then lower their heads so u could hold onto their ears, put a foot onto their trunk and they'd lift u back onto their backs ( i was glad we only saw them shitting in the river after we got out! 😊
in the arvo we went down the river in a tiny canoe that sat about 10cm above the water and drifted past countless crocodiles tht were abour 12ft
long. the girls were pretty scared as it seemed our only defense was to be quiet, which we were prompted to do by our guide from the front of the boat with the finger over the lips gesture whenever we got near one of them. we then went for a walk through the jungle after a briefing of what to do if various different animals were to attack us but didnt manage to see anything other than a tigers footprint. then it was over to the elephant breeding centre (asias largest) to see some baby elephants.
in the mornong after a guided tour around the village we set off for the 6 hour journrey to Pokhara which i have done before and know how beautiful the scenery is so i opted to spend the duration on the roof for the full panoramic view. that night we met our guide Bhimsen who i would later become good friends with and were invited to his room for copius amounts of chillums accompanied by The Venga Boys playing in the background ( i didnt stand for it dor very long before i found a reggae cd 😊
on the way to
our starting point we all rode on the rooftop and watched as children would run across the road with a lenght of rope to stop cars to ask for money as it was the Tihar festival (not very safe but effective 😊 we walked to our first stop point passing villages and waterfalls and cows and dogs covered with flowers for the festival and spent the night in Tikadunga where i again had the blessing of waking up at 5.30 needin the toilet to witness the spectacular night sky that was covered in stars.
the next day was the walk to Gorpani which was the base of Poon hill that we would be climbing the next morning before sunrise. despite our early start it was of course festival time so me and Bhimsen got on the Roksi (nepalese rice whisky) and Himalayan herbs. we set off at 5am to reach poon hill for the sunrise which was one of the most amazing views i have ever seen and probably ever will, we were blessed with a clear sky and the panoramic view of the Himalayas glowing pink as the sun rose was pricless. we descended back down and took
Tikka from a girl at the guesthouse as Tihar is the Sister festival and climbed Gurung hill which was again about 1 hour uphill but by this time the clouds has risen and we coldnt see more than 15 metres in front of us as we were in the clouds. then it was on to Tadopani where some children came into the restaurant with instruments singing and dancing for the festival and an american dude accompanied them with his guitar.
the next day what was supposed to be a 3 hour walk turned in to 5 hours due to a recent landslide that blocked our path. we spent about an hour and a half in the hotsprings and then carried on with what was supposed to be a 4 hour trek that we made in 2 by almost jogging the whole way so we caught up with 2 of the girls and arrived before dark.
in the morning was an easy walk to the bus stop where we again boarded the roof (the only way to travel in Nepal) sampled some of the rare himalayan herbs that Bhimsen had managed to find, sat back and took in the
surroundings. in Pokhara we went to the lake at sunset and chilled there for a while had some food and got our heads down for the 6 hour bus ride back to Kathmandu in the morning. it was a tourist bus so the only person on the roof was me, which ment i was able to arrange the bags to make a perfect bed, put on my ipod, lay back and enjoyed the ride!
take it easy everyone and i'll try to upload some more soon (i always say this, i know😊
Much love
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Kshitiz
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real nepal
that was cool to see the pics and read your article. i am a nepalese guy n my home town is chitwan but now i am in MD. So it was so nice to see the places where i used to hang out with friends and smoke.....