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Published: November 28th 2008
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We were glad to get out of india for a month to the relatively relaxed kingdom of Nepal. The border crossing went smooth, apart from some dodgy shopkeepers and scams involving currency exchange - we skittled their plans and took our precious rupees with us.
So we took an overnight nap in the frontier nepalese town of birawara and slapped on luxurious amounts of deet and went for the full body cover of clothing under the mossie net. It was stinking hot with no air-con and the tiniest little fan blowing hot air in our faces all night. Still better than getting Malaria tho hey?
The bus trip next day to the capital Kathmandu was typically scary but with amazing scenery. We left the lowland Terai region and were soon climbing into the sub-himalaya region. We wound up the kathmandu valley passing numerous small villages and automobiles on thew wrong side of the road. They reckon Nepal is in the top 10 worse places to catch a bus - nevermind, has to be done. So it was sardines inside the bus and the driver was allowing anyone game enough to do the 8hr trip clinging to the roof. We
arrived in Kat and it didn't disappoint, plenty of western favourites and pubs (no pubs in india). So we took it all in over the course of 4 days as we prepped for Everest (more on this later).
SEE EVEREST TREK BLOG
Chitwan National Park is one of the jewels in nepals tourist crown. The draw of seeing tigers, rhinos and elephants etc in the wild is too much to turn down for most travellers, us included. We hooked ourselves up with the mega cheap, rock-bottom budget tour to the national park from Kathmandu. We probably got what we deserved and ended up nick naming it Shit-wan NP. We saw a couple of Rhinos and a handful of birds. Our guided sumed it up when he said he hadn't seen a tiger for 2 years - oh well. The domestic elephants were pretty cool and quite accomodating, letting us pull their ears, stand on their trunks ride on their backs.... for a while. On the command of their Mahout (trainer) the elephant would play toss the tourist! this usually involve a dousing of water from the trunk and a shake of the back to dislodge any pesky tourists.
We both held our ground for a moment before being sent packing into the Chitwan river with a splash. This was great fun for a while, until someone spotted a garial crocodile floating by down the river - that put an end to the fun and games. I think the elephants were glad of the rest after having 50 odd tourists line up for the ride. We put 50 rupees in the elephants trunk to say thanks and don't spend it all at once.
Next stop on the Nepal odyssey was Pokhara. Set on a lake in the Annapurna region, surrounded by mountains, it was a top spot to spend the remaining 4 days of our Nepali visa. We slowed right down here and just chilled in our guesthouse and dined on the local food which was very handy. One restaurant in particular tickled us pink, it was 'Holy momos', brilliant hole-in-the-wall place selling only momos - it didn't disappoint. We feasted on 3 different types of the tibetan speciality. Picture this; Tortellini type pastry filled with anything from cheese to chocolate then steamed, fried or souped..mmmmmm. I rowed lisa out on the lake one early morning to see
the sunrise and I had whipped up a cooked breakfast to boot. So we had champagne and breakfast on the lake, very peaceful. We spent the rest of the morning going in circles as I foolishly lent the oars to Lisa so she could strutt her stuff. A dead dog floated by and we knew it was time to head home - what a fantastic morning though. As if trekking to Everest base camp wasn't enough, we took a trip up to the world peace pagoda, it took about 3 hours but we were ably assisted by 3 pre-pubescent boys keen to make a quick buck, we paid them off and reached the top unaccompanied. The smile on Lisa's face could bearly be contained as she noticed dozens of wild flowers at the summit. I took pics of the pagoda and Lisa photographed every flower she could see. Next day we were off back to India. Neither of us were very fussed on the 3 day trip ahead to Rajasthan, something like bus, train, bus, bus, train... Jaipur.
So long from Nepal, its been swell but the swelling has gone down.
Stay tuned... next week, Rajasthan!
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