Finishing Trekking and Nepaling

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Today we walked to Nayapul from Jhinu an 8 hour walk (very tiring). We finally got to see a beautiful view of the mountains which was nice. At lunch we stopped and played cards while waiting for our lunch ot come. I slid and fell down the stairs a bit only to be caught with a firm grasp by a man carrying something on his head. I got a sunburn from the intense heat and after lunch ended up having to put up my umbrella to protect me. The whole day Milan was about 20 minutes ahead of me so I had to ask where to go a couple of times. When I finally reached Nayapul he was gone - disappeared. I saw a bunch of people I knew from Jhinu but they hadn't seen him so I ended up takign a bus back with them.

I took another bus to lakeside and after checking my e-mail (to learn that mom and dad really are comign to China) ended up sitting with Aklesh - a Fijian Australian that I knew from Jhinu - and Milan. It was really interesting, Aklesh and I got to talking at one point to the owner of the restaurant (Tibetan Lhasa Restaurant - really great food). His parents are from Tibet and fled in the 50s when the chinese were taking over. He said about 100,000 Tibetans fled to Nepal - trekking the whole way and a bunch continued on to India when they heard "His Holiness" was going there - again trekking the whole way. In the 90s man Tibetans went to the US to stay in refugee camps provided by the US government and a couple years later more fled to camps in Canada. Now his family (15 of them) all live in Pokhara. Unlike his parents he has never trekked in his life. He was an extremely positive man telling us that life has it's good times and it's bad and in the bad you have to just hold on and know the good will come.

We finished our dinner and started waling back to the hotel when we met Krishna and two Portuguese men that Aklesh knew from trekking. At one point I got to takling to the Portuguese abotu China and the US. it was interesting, they really didn't like Americans. The Americans they met didn't know any history or geography of Europe and went there simply to see the monuments, not caring one bit about the people. So they were really happy to meet me, an American who knew where Portugal was, some Hispanic history and was living in China learning Chinese.

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Photos

Raj and I
In Pokhara just before I left to go back to Kathmandu. This is one of the many guides that helped take us trekkers on the treks - not my guide though.