Paragliding and puking in Pokhara....and white water rafting!

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The WORST journey that i've ever experienced was from Bhariawararwarawa (me and tom couldn't say it and so resorted to taking the mick) to Pokhara.....we were told there were no tourist buses and so we set off at five on a state bus...mistake number one. I've taken loads of state buses and they're ok, sometimes they breakdown, usually they're overcrowed and if it rains your generally going to get wet in my experience...but they get you from a to b relatively ok...

Me and Tom sat on the bus with a steaming plastic bag filled with garlicy veg chowmein that we had for tea - we were late and hastily had to turn it into takeout chowmein hence the scalding hot plastic bag on my lap...no cutlery..which was fun. anyway beside the point. the journey was supposed to take 8ish hours and it ended up taking 14!!!! Everyone on the bus was Nepalese and evidently everybody knew that at 1.00am we would stop to sleep for FOUR HOURS! tom and I were tearing our hair out with frustration not to mention we weren't tired, it was very dark, isolated and there was huge oversized creepy crawlies everywhere! urgh!

We FINALLY got to Pokhara and stayed at the Noble Inn, a nice budget family place. Pokhara is very touristy and has a huge number of restaurants, souvenir shops, tour operators, travel agents and equipment shops...since it is a main base for a lot of treks that go from there. It is centered around Phewa Tal - a large lake on which you can rent boats - 170 nepali rupees an hour to row by yourself..or with a guy...we chose to do it ourselves and had a lot of fun not being able to control it! We had a lovely few days in Pokhara eating decent touristy food and sorting out our activities and route.

We went Paragliding! (with Sunrise Paragliding who were very good) Most people who know me will think uh oh...but for those who don't...i had a brain tumour when i was 15 and it was taken out fine etc..etc.. i am now completely normal..ish! 😊 but the side effect is that i get very dizzy going round in circles.......i didn't quite realise how much going round in circles paragliding would be and therefore was spinning over this beautiful picturesque lake with stunning views of the himalayas with my head tilted to the side and sick being carried away by the wind! not a good look! but it was all good. Paragliding was amaaaazing i'm so so so glad i did it because it is incomparable to anything else - you are literally flying - and the pictures i took are fantastic!

Tom and i also went up to the World Peace Pagoda - supposedly a leisurely walk but i was puffed! we ended up completely lost on the other side of the hill jogging with our rucksacks as the sun was going down and we didnn't want to be in the forest after dark...because there had been muggings etc..but it was fine! The view was stunning...like so so so many we have seen!

After squeezing out all we could from Pokhara we organised a white water rafting trip to take us down to Royal Chitwan National Park on the Seti River. It was brillant...only two days of rafting and one of camping but it was really great. The Seti is more like a leisurely drift than rapids but it had its moments! For the first day it was harsh sunshine and we spent more of the day in the water being taken down by the current near the raft - this unfortunately didn't foil the sunburn! We got to witness completely remote settlements form a perspective that was completely unexpected. I was particularly interested in the pulley bridges...where a bridge was not used enough to warrant a proper structure - pulley bridges were used...two benches facing eaach other were slowly pulled across a large gorge by the two small boys that were crossing...hand over hand as they stared down at us - weird aliens passing through....

We set up camp in the early evening and tom and I decided - stupidly - to go for a swim......we had taken off our life jackets and helmets and began to swim across the river but we didn't realise wuite how strong the current was..at first when the tugging started and we were pulled down stream i thought it was quite funny but as we went over stones and couldn't fight the current even when swimming full pelt it because a serious situation. Tom who is larger than I am managed to reach the side while i went under and kicking as hard as i could was still vainly grasping for something or anything was really panicking...Tom swam back in and managed to haul me out and we both laid on the bank panting thinking about how the situation could have turned out differently...and how it was NOT funny..then we laughed it off nervously and had a hearty meal and slept like logs..

The second day was dramatically different - gone was the brillant sunshine and stormy moonshoon clouds threaten rain and then delivered dramatically - shees of rain and peals of roaring thunder which echoes of the surrounding valley again and again and again. We all jumped in the raft and set off quickly - today was noticably more rapidy and the driving rain encouraged us all to paddle as fast as possible. We got through all the rapids without much incident (getting drenched as huge waves of water swamped the raft - obviously) holding on for dear life of course. One of the most memorable experiences was passing through the middle of nowhere and spotting a crowd of drenched school children in their pristine blue and white uniform. A boat was ferrying them across the river but was finding it difficult in the rain. They all hopped on and squeezed onto our raft and we gave them a lift across - i've never seen such dedication to school! We finally arrived at the end point and we got dressed, got warm, eat well and headed off on our next adventure - Royal Chitwan National Park.

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