Nepal Baby!

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Hello everyone weve made it to Nepal! Sorry for the late blogging but weve been emerssed in the Himalayas (we now call them the 'Himal' as were cool) for the last 10 days with no electricity or means of communication so apologies to all that were hoping for texts/phone calls!.

Well before we started our trek we had to get a bus ride from Kathmandu to Dunche - a public bus ride - an 8 hour public bus ride with no suspension and very little cushioning on the seats and a very bumpy road! As you can imagine it wasnt the most comfortable 8 hours of our trip - i managed to be propelled out of my seat and hit my head on the metal bar above me a number of times! ouchie!

The bus itself was a typical Nepalese/Indian public bus - youve heard about people sitting on the roof and travelling with chickens/goats etc? well this was exactly that! there were about 10-15 people on the roof (along with our baggage which i will explain later what happend with that) and boxes full of chickens! And as we were allocated seat numbers on the tickets we had we were sat next to the chickens all the way! But they were only baby chicks so the smell wasnt that bad. Plus they were looked after - when we stopped for lunch a women picked out all the dead chicks so the live ones had more room. awwww.

The Nepalese also love their music, so along with the sound of chirping chicks we had Nepalese tunes on full blast - party bus!

So that was the bus. The road was a whole other storey! If anyone has been on the Death Road in Bolivia it is exactly that! The road was only wide enough for one vehicle and it winds like a snake all the way up mountains with a shear 500ft (ish) drop on one side! We were all in fear our lives for most of the journey, couldnt enjoy the scenery as spent most of it with our eyes shut! Oh but to add to our comfort and peace of mind that we would get to Dunche alive, the driver was taking orders from a guy on the roof as whether to drive or not. 2 bangs we figured was 'go' and 3 bangs meant 'stop'. That was how they navigated round baends when having to overtake oncoming trucks. When reversing round the corner to make space for another vehicle, i did not find it comforting that my whole life was in the hands of the guy who banged 3 times on the roof to staop us going over! However, we finally made it to Dunche alive to discover our rucksack which was on the roof along with all the men, had been randsacked! we were fleeced of our sleeping bag liners, toothbrush, wet wipes, shampoo, showergel, and aftersun - all very important essentials for 10 days on a mountain! oh how smelly we were!

When in Dunche we heard that 4 buses have gone over this year, the last one being only last month. But you'll all be pleased to here that we booked a private jeep to take us back to Kathmandu. It was an extra 35 quid each but we figured our lives may be just worth that!!!

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