Blogs from Thamal, Kathmandu, Nepal, Asia - page 14

Hello Mums and everyone else, apologies for the delay in updates but we have just returned from a two week trek to Mount Everest base camp in Nepal, which by the way was fantastic, however as we've just found a reasonable internet café I'm going to try and catch up as much as possible and get the blog organized, especially as I just found an unsent blog I forgot to send from Australia so I hope you're all sitting comfy as I there should be a few stories to follow… Enjoy...... read more

Varanasi to Kathmandu Well its catch up time again if I can remember the last time I wrote we were heading towards Kathmandu, Nepal. The first step of the trip was to catch a train from Varanasi to Gorakhpur, once again the train ride was pretty much as before but this time we didn’t have to get a sleeper as the train journey was a mere 6 hours - oh joy… So we arrive at Gorakhpur to spend the night and to say “culture shock” would be an understatement. We had previously met another couple heading towards Kathmandu at the train station who had made the journey before so we followed in their footprints to try and find a hotel that was at least stay-able for one night - trust me this was going to be ... read more

Hello folks, Clare here. Yip i'm finally back in the land of the living, free at last from the grips of the sneakiest, dirtiest evilest little bug-ruin-your-life i've ever come across in my puff. After a couple of horendous days of sickness it just disappeared and i was celebrating with the ferver of a religious experience when without warning i was suddenly thrown back into the pit of hell. And so it went. For a week. Turns out I had contracted giardia, a sickness caused by a nasty little parasite which basically stays in your system recurring every few days untill you get treatment. So i've taken a double dose of everything in the pharmacy and am feeling tip top again. Phew. So, emancipated by not having to always have one eye firmly fixed on the ... read more

Hi Everyone, thanks for all you emails.......keep them coming! Just come back from a 20 day trek in Everest, superb but bloody cold! Decided to follow in Edmond Hillary’s footsteps (just missed the small matter of the summit). After 8 days of walking through villages and not seeing any mountains we started to think we’d made a wrong turn somewhere. We popped into a school for directions and then thought we should make a huge donation. Unfortunately owing to the stock at the local random hut we only managed to summon together 20 pens for the 150 children (still they were very high quality pens). The trail to Everest was pretty amazing, but rather too much up and down - we worked out that we were climbing the equivalent of Ben Nevis every day. Amazing what ... read more

We finally arrived in Kathmandu earlier today and checked into our room at the Kathmandu Guesthouse. I think it is one of the nicer places. We are all very tired from a quick and nerve-racking, face-paced, crowd strewn, busy, intense, motorcycles almost hitting us... walk. Colorful signs crowded the walls while hawkers surrounded us with calls of "Only two hundred rupees!" Women in their colorful dress hurried by, seemingly oblivious to the continually honking motercycles while children daringly darted across the tiny streets despite the fast cars. There are temples and shrines everywhere and people go to leave blessings and pray to these ancient deities. The people here are very very nice and generally want to do anything they can to please you. We go now to eat dinner here at the guesthouse. Keep in ... read more