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Published: November 8th 2010
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Greenery...
... plus water feature!! Hello again people, it's been a bit of a while since my last update as I felt I was churning them out at too fast a speed, so I decided to give you a little break! That however means that I now have a substantial amount of information to update you on so I'm going to break it into two parts for you! As the title has already hinted to you I am now residing in Nepal at the time of writing this, having had my fill of India, and have been here for the last month.
Picking up from where I left off in the last blog entry, I departed Amritsar with a couple of guys from London that I met whilst staying at the Golden Temple, Adam and Seb, and we headed even further north (there's a lot of India to get through!), to the town of Mcleod Ganj in Himachal Pradesh. This town is basically famous for being the home of the Tibetan government in exile, and of its leader the Dalai Lama, so it was obvious what the main focus of the trip was going to be! Whilst we were there we checked out Dalai Lama's
temple, Tsuglag Khang, where he gives teachings at sporadic intervals. He was actually giving a couple of teachings about a week after I had arrived but I simply did not have the time, or the patience, to wait around to see it! There really wasn't enough in Mcleod Ganj to keep me occupied for that amount of time. In addition to exploring the temple we went to check out the Tibetan government buildings which were a short walk out of town, and in all honesty are a far cry from the Houses of Parliament, however whilst there we got an idea of just how genuinely disgusting Tibetan tea is! As well as this, I trekked out of Mcleod Ganj alone to a couple of the surrounding villages, Bhagsu and Dharamkot, in order to get a bit of practice for the trekking that I would inevitably be doing in Nepal, but this was disrupted by the fact that I got ill, AGAIN. It was at this point, struggling around forested land in the northern reaches of India holding an aching stomach for the seventh or eighth time, that I decided that I had had enough of the country and it was
Yet more...
With interesting peak included... time to move on. However before I headed back south in order to progress into Nepal, I decided to pay a visit to Manali for some chill out (and recovery) time. It doesn't look far on a map, but as it turns out in order to get there with clean boxers (and my little remaining dignity intact), I had to double drop some Imodium and clench my chebs for the duration of an 11 HOUR overnight bus journey. Fun as that was it was a cakewalk in comparison to what was around the corner for me in this nations "wonderful" capital city.
After a couple of days chilling in Manali, I headed down to Delhi with the intention of progressing onwards to Varanasi for a couple of days, then crossing into Nepal by land. I could of had this boxed off if a certain website (Cleartrip) had allowed me to purchase train tickets that were available to go onwards from Delhi to Varanasi, but despite me making several purchases during my tenure in India, their website had decided that my card was no longer up to their standards. You can probably see where this is going and yes it
Interior of a buddhist temple in Upper Pisang...
Decor skills-wise, this is just being arrogant... does get worse. And more ridiculous.
Having put up with another 17 hour bus ride to Delhi (Oh joy!), I got there hoping to get a train ticket sorted and get away quicksmart, as every other traveler I had befriended that had been had told me how horrible it was. They were right, to a man. Having got to the train station with the expectation that I would be able to purchase a train ticket, which I personally don't think is asking too much, I was told I would have to get back in a different rickshaw and travel back across the city to purchase a ticket. I got this info out of a local you understand, the staff at the station couldn't be bothered to help me out that far. Eventually, after 4 different rickshaw rides, I found out that I would have to wait at least 3 days for a train to Varanasi and just decided to pay for a flight the next day, as every single person I had encountered that morning was horrible, including one of the guys whose taxi I got in who I agreed to pay 20 rupees for him to drive me less
Upper Pisang...
Looks alarmingly like the city of 'Edoras' (Capital of Rohan) in Lord of the Rings... that a kilometre, then tried to claim we had agreed 20 U.S dollars. Having argued for a minute and then eventually telling him where to go with the assistance of a barrage of expletives, he then proceeded to ask me if I 'wanted to fight?', by which point I literally had steam coming out of my ears and seriously wanted to Bruce Lee-it up, but I decided it would not be worth my while starting a brawl in the middle of India on a Sunday morning (and most likely getting my arse kicked. And thrown in jail), so we argued some more and eventually came to an agreement. He got paid 20 rupees as had been initially agreed, so the entire altercation had been completely pointless anyway. What a tosser.
Having sorted out a flight I then stayed with some friends of the guy who sorted out the ticket, who after talking to I found were surprisingly polite in comparison to what I had experienced earlier that day. I eventually discovered they were all from Kashmir and were just living in Delhi! If there's a bit of constructive advice to be deciphered from all that moaning, it is if
you visit India, avoid Delhi!! I rose at 4 in the morning the next day to fly to Kathmandu, and was just relieved to get to the airport, the Delhi experience had put a bit of a dampener on India for me, but thankfully everywhere else I visited was a hundred times more enjoyable!! Having touched down in Kathmandu, the first few days were spent checking out the capital, and if there is a city more plagued by air pollution in the world then I am yet to visit it! 90 per cent of the people you pass on the street are wearing surgical masks to combat it! I took a tour of Kathmandu's temples, but they were nothing in comparison to what I had seen in India so I failed to be all that impressed, besides which I had probably seen enough religious architecture to last me a good while whilst in India, and I had come to Nepal to see mountains!! In order to prepare myself for the longer treks I was to do (which will be covered in the next blog entry!), I did the 6 day Helambu trek, a good idea judging by how exhausted I
Me looking like some kind of Farmer/Shepherd
Technically a dangerous one this, there's a drop of a good few hundred feet over that ledge! Sleep well Mum and Dad... was by the end of it, in order to get used to the steep climbs and high altitude. I then headed out to Pokhara which, as well as being a lot nicer than Kathmandu, is the jump off point for the world famous Annapurna trek, which I shall share details of the next time that I update you!!
Just a small apology with regards to the negative vibes of this entry, but anyone who knows me well knows that I pride myself on my honesty, and all I've done is tell the events as they went down! Besides which, the first four blog entries were uber-positive, and I feel it's important to let you all know that this traveling game isn't all roses!!
Also a quick word about the lack of relevant pictures included, I have given up with the memory card that I brought out here, I'm pretty sure that it has a virus on it (any advice on how to remedy this kind of malfunction would be greatly appreciated!), so I have purchased a new one, and the pictures here are a few examples of the scenery on the Annapurna trek, details of which will be
included in the next blog update, as well as much more!!
Until that day comes, take care!!
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Kayleigh
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Oh Dear
Ryan!!!! Is it a little sinister of me that this has been my favourite blog to date! I have just been wetting mysefl reading it at work! Its good to hear that you can still have a good rant about things...i was getting worried with all the 'positive vibes man' thought you were turning into abit of a 'gap yah' student! haha! But seriously what a shame that dehli was a let down! The comment about you almost soiling yourself was a personel highlight and the fact that you incorporated chebs into a blog is just brilliant! As i said i have read this from ym desk at work...at 7.20 on a very cold, windy and dreary bonfire night. Im relying on a sparkler tonight to somehow improve my mood! I dare say the firework display of hyde park leeds will hardly be anything to compare to the sights you have seen but nevertheless i am heading there tonight...life is thrilling for mini mccue! Glad to hear you are ok and i hope your chronic diahorrea has settled. Also if you do excrement some faeces onto yourself i want all the details! Keep them coming bro! I miss you and love you lots. (hope thats not too gay to write on here) Much love xxxxxxxxxxxx