Off roading in Nepal (Sarah)

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Our journey overland from Wivenhoe has got us to Nepal so far. We have been here for six weeks now and much of our time has been spent off the road in one way or another - a fantastic antedote to all the time spent on the road since September!

Our first stop was Pokhara - we both finally sucummed to the inevitable phenomenom of Asia - the travellers squits (I'll skip the details but we're both OK now!) This forced us to stay off the road for a while but gave us the perfect excuse to while away many days by the beautiful Phewa Tal lake in various cafes playing endless games of scrabble, drinking tea, reading and recuperating! Once I felt better I was able to attend a daily yoga class - it seems that my relaxed state of mind had an incredible effect on my body - I found myself in all manner of challenging postures - headstands, back bends and twists with the help of Devika, my brilliant Nepali teacher. Really looking forward to immersing myself in more yoga classes and courses in India.

Eventually we felt well enough to venture on foot and off road on a trek to the Annapurna Sanctuary. We took 6 days to get to Annapurna Base Camp and 4 days to come back down to Pokhara. The trek took us to many rural Nepalese villages, through terraced agricultural land, past herds of buffalo, dozens of donkeys and many sightings of monkeys, eagles and marmots; alongside beautiful rivers and waterfalls, through bamboo and rhodadendrum forests, up to the very sparse, icy and rocky terrain of the base camp area. The highlight of the trek was reaching Annapurna Base Camp soon after sunrise on a crystal clear morning; being surrounded by some of the highest peaks in the world was an unforgettable experience.

Upon our return to Pokhara we decided to get off the road and into the air with a paragliding trip! Pokhara is one of the worlds top paragliding spots as the thermals over the valleys of the Himalaya's are particularly consistent. The launch site is on top of Sarangkot and as a passenger you are simply taken to the site, attached to a paraglider and told to run off the cliff when he says GO! No time to get nervous cos you're running off the cliff before you know it, then you just sit back and enjoy the ride! The paraglider catches the thermal and you circle round and round to get higher in the air current before flying off across the valley; once you lose height you catch another thermal to gain height again and so on. The view from the air back across the valley to the Himalaya and over the Phewa Tal was magnificent and whilst catching the thermals I found myself in the flight path of an eagle also on the way up! The paragliders use the flightpaths of the eagles, hawks and falcons to see where there are good thermals so it's an incredible on the wing bird watching experience!

From Pokhara we headed to Chitwan National Park to stay in a lodge in the jungle. We were picked up from the highway in a jeep which took us down a bumpy track, across a series of streams and a river deep into the jungle. The lodge was peaceful and relaxing, our days and nights accompanied by the sounds of jungle life which we got to see during the various activities we took part in. We went off roading on a series of elephant safaris as this is the best way to safely look for wild animals in the park; we saw a number of types of deer, crocodiles basking in the sun, big groups of wild boar charging through the undergrowth, monkeys grooming each other and swinging through the trees. We also went on a canoe ride which was a fantastic bird watching opportunity; we saw peacocks, blue kingfishers, pied kingfishers, falcons, ibis, egrets, siberian ducks and a number of storks both by the water and in flight - they looked really pre-historic in the air! The highlight of our time in the jungle was on our last elephant safari - there had been a number of rhino sightings so we went off on an elephant safari in pursuit! The mahmouts worked together looking for tracks and signs of recent rhino activity and eventually we found a lone rhino deep in the undergrowth! The adrenaline rush from being close enough to the rhino to hear him snort before he thundered off into the jungle left me shaking for ages after! We got some pretty good film footage which I will add to this blog when I get a good enough connection!

Kathmandu has been our last stop in Nepal; after a number of weeks in the relative calm of Pokhara, the serenity of the mountains and the retreat of the jungle we needed to get used to the noise and chaos of city life before we head for India where things will get even more hectic! One of the main challenges in Kathmandu has been staying on the road despite the mopeds, taxis and cycle-rickshaws trying to push you into the gutter! Bob nearly got knocked over today by a water buffalo that was galloping up the street head butting everything in its way! It has been fun here - we spent Christmas eve with a collection of people we have met along the way who happened to be here for the festive season, then we went to a top hotel for a delicious lunch on Christmas day where we had turkey and christmas pudding! We have visited the beautiful Durbar squares in the old part of Kathmandu and the old city of Patan; circumambulated the Buddhist stupas at Sowyambhunath and Bodnath; strolled around the Hindu temple and burning ghats at Pashupatinath and wandered along many narrow streets on our way to and from these sights, catching glimpses of life taking place in courtyards and through doorways - Kathmandu is a crazy mix of East and West, old and new, rich and poor, traveller and local, Buddhist and Hindu; a fascinating and exciting city to explore!

Our ambition of overlanding from Wivenhoe to India is nearly complete! We're back on the road again now as we make our passage to India...

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