Advertisement
Published: November 30th 2008
Edit Blog Post
Nepal. Brilliant. Immediately lept to number one fave country visited on our adventure (odds on India staying bottom throughout are pretty high!). Even in the trip from the airport to our hotel in Kathmandu we got the feeling that Nepal would be far more enjoyable than India.
Few facts on Nepal - 24 million people, just been taken over by the Maoists after centuries of royal families, they only eat Dahl Baht (rice, lentils & veg), it is one of the poorest nations on earth, 8 out of 10 of the highest peaks in the world are in Nepal, it has an incredibly ancient history & is deeply religious (in a good way), it only opened up to foreigners in the 1950s and the people are really really friendly.
We spent our first few days in Kathmandu which is a must visit place for all you adventurous soles out there. We went for a walk on arriving at our hotel which is something we never really felt comfortable doing in any of the cities we stayed in India. We very quickly discovered that it is very easy to get lost in Kathmandu - it's a crazy maze of little
streets, paths, passageways, temples, squares, shops, stalls and markets. They all look very similar and they are all incredibly old, proper old. We eventually found our way to Durbar Square at dusk when the power went out. All the tiny little shops (and I mean tiny - 5 foot high by 8 foot square) were all lit up by candlelight. It was like going back in time about 150 years especially as most of the shops were selling various types of food they would have also sold 150 years ago. It really was something else (I swear the opening scene in Gremlins when the Dad buys the cute critter was based on Kathmandu under candlelight!).
Another big big difference between India and Nepal were the shopkeepers. In India they are really annoying to the point that you dont even want to enter a shop. If you do, they don't give you a moments peace and trail you around the shop. Heaven help you if you actually linger on something or touch something. The Nepalese are far less pushy and much more fun to barter with. We've spent a lot more here than we budgeted for & Hilary's spreadsheet skills
have gone into overdrive!
After a couple of days we were joined by our first travel buddy - Andy B. We hope there will be plenty more of you coming to join us as it's been great to see what Nepal has to offer with a friend from home joining us for the ride.
Once Andy joined us, the Nepal adventure went into overdrive:
1 day sightseeing in Kathmandu
2 days white water rafting on the Trusili river where we nailed a class 3+ rapid and camped out on the sandy river bank. Unfortuntately we also saw a 'floater' washed up on the shoreline.
Arrived in Pokhara (gateway to trekking the Annapurna)
Paragliding - yep even Hils and Andy overcame their fear of heights to soar like an eagle by running of the top of Saranghat's 800m peak with a 'wing' (and a pilot) attached to them. They were a lot happier after the experience than on the way up to the take off point I can tell you!!!
4 days trekking to Poon Hill - my word did Hils and I underestimate the hard work involved in doing what is considered to be one of the easier
treks. Andy on the other hand bounced up the bloody mountainside like a mountain goat crossed with Usain Bolt. Very infuriating.
Day one was the toughest with every step being upwards and there were 3,200 of the blighters, not to mention the steady incline where no steps were required.
Day 3 we woke at 4am after staying in a room that could easily double for a deep freeze. Boy was it cold. We marched up to Poon Hill where we waited for sunrise. It was worth it as hopefully the photos on the blog show you. We then put our foot down and completed about 9.5 hours of walking before finally coming to a rest at Ghundruk which is a gorgeous hillside village (not unlike where the hobbits live!). One of the most incredible things you see trekking in Nepal is the Sherpas carrying very heavy loads up the mountain at about x3 the pace we manage with day packs. Not to mention the views!
You also witness just how poor the people really are & how dependent they are on agriculture. Tiny oblong fields are cut into the hillside, many are only about 12 feet wide and may be
50m max long. They use cattle to plough the land and a lot of the women work as potato diggers. But there also apppears to be a glorious freedom that comes with this way of life.
Babies are carried on their mothers backs tied on with shawls, whilst they are working on the farms or lighting fires. They just seem to know that this is the way it is and happily watch on. Small children politely sit and ask passing trekkers for sweets and chocolate in the languages they've learnt for these words. It was also great to seem them free to venture off on their own, easily climbing really quite steep rocky slopes around their families farm land without any parents lurking fearful of an imminent fall. The older kids also seem to be better craftsman than most of us will ever be!
So much about Nepal couldn't be further than how things are done in England and we are loving it for just that reason. Andy, Ben and I all feel like we've been away forever in these two weeks. I can't see Nepal ever becoming a rich country as the landscape doesn't appear to allow
them to evolve and mass produce. This nation seems to be hugely overlooked as a source of cheap labour in the way that India has developed yet their english is very good and little accented. The people of Nepal are proud nationalists that are committed to their way of life and only seem to aspire to a slightly better simple life. They welcome visitors with what feels more like intrigue in other cultures and an enjoyment of talking, than a desire or desperation to make money out of people - despite their obvious needs.
Only in the mountains of Nepal I imagine will we find a night's accommodation for less than a packet of Pringles! We'll let you know if that ratio is ever repeated (2.5:1 for those truly interested).
Nepal has scored very highly on out trip. If you ever want to pay a visit let us know so we can put you in touch with the chap that organised our visit. His name is Santaman and he really does live up to the name. He is a wonderful guy who really took care of us and made sure we had a really good experience of Nepal.
Next stop Bangkok and yes we did make in before they shut the airport - by one day! On arrival we may straight for the western styled coffee shop and slurped our way through a very good Latte - one of the luxuries we missed out on in Nepal. More on Thailand to follow and we could be here for a very long time indeed!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.135s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 11; qc: 29; dbt: 0.0302s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Crispin
non-member comment
Facial Hair!
Good to hear you are all having jolly goo fun and also decent effort on the blog, albeit some way from Wicker (or even Charmers for that matter). I also took a few minutes to browse the pics. Ben with a patchy beard... well done pal............ C (just pissed off that I'm not having fun in Nepal)