Road Trip!!!

Right! Ok, so after the hippie music festival I headed further north to the so-called "gold coast" in a car with Ammon and Sarah. The Gold Coat is an infamous sport for surfing and partying, the epicentre of which is ata place called "Surfer's Paradise", it used to be called Elkton or something but when it didn't bring in enough tourists it changed its name to be called after the nearest hotel, Surfer's Paradise, and has never looked back! It is now the Miami equivalent here with high rise buildings, malls, bars and many ways to part with cash. Oh and a big gold beach with surf. Thats what I hear at least because we stayed just down the coast from surfers in a very sophisticated apartment of a friend of Sarah's who doe something well payed in supermarkets and while she started work at a new job we fully took advantage of her new pool and beach location :)

We used the time on the gold coast there (Palm Beach to be specific) to decide on our routes onwards. I had left Sydney with the aim of seeing what turned up, Ammon had a car to return to Sydney (as he was weirdly uninsured to drive in a different state! Which incidently also has an hours time difference despite being on the same longitude) and Sarah had a one-way bus ticket to Cairns. My dilemma was that I wanted to go North but was wary of getting stuck in Cairns, 4000km from Sydney with only very expensive routes back! I decided to sign up for a car relocation for the hire company Apollo who needed a car delivered to Cairns in 4 days and would pay up to $250 of fuel and give me the car for free to do it! Luckily Sarah took pity and decided to accompany me and so we set off for Brisbane the next day to pick up the car.

After taking the wrong turn out of the train station 3 times on the way to the hire place we finally picked up our car (named WOU after a distinctive number plate) and invested $10 per day for a sat nav that we named Berty, who was not always on the ball and certainly easily confused but I'm sure meant well. The car was a shiney air conditioned automatic Toyota with cruise control, by far the slickest number I have ever driven and it certainly felt like backpacking in style! We took along our tent and provisions and stopped off first at the Galss House Mountains. Tese are a very distinctive land formation that look not much like mountains but are names after the glass houses in Kent apparently. They rise with vertical sides out of a completely flat plane and are apparently volcanic plugs in old tectonic hotspots which thousands of years ago were the same height as the land around them but now that land has sunk they remain like great volcanic posts on the landscape.

That nigh we set up camp in Bundaberg, a small sea-side town infamous here as the brand name for a large percentage of the nations alcoholic beverages. Howver we were more interested in the loggerhead turtles who lay there eggs on its beaches and once it was dark we went over to sign up for a $10 trip down to watch. It was an incredible sight to see the huge (100kg) turtle lay its eggs, then thoroughly bury them and return to the sea (it all took about an hour and she laid over 100 eggs) although we did share the experience with about 40 other keen spectators!

In the morning we headed off early with great ambitions to arrive at Eungella National Park, inland from the Whitsundays, another 600km or so up the coast. We also took our lunch break at Rockhampton where we visited our firts Aboriginal Cultural centre where apart from having a good chat with some aboriginees we were given a personal didgereedoo recital and taught to throw a boomerang! (Well at least made a start). From there we went on up to some well-regarded caves where we were given a tour round by someone clearly just out of the girl guides and learnt about how some people get married in the caves there which could only summon Miss Havisham style imagery! The cherry on top though was that walking out I saw my first wild kangaroos and wallabies (smaller kangaroos) which was very exciting!

The next 350km up to Eungella certainly felt long, and unfortunately Sarah's driving liscence had expired leaving me to cover all the miles with a steady supply of coke and cheese straws for focus. After a very unfortunate hour detour due to missing a sign post we arrived at the Platypus Bushcamp an enchanting little campsite in the middle of the forest! Unfortunately despite our 80km detour the platypus that we got up at 5.30am to look for did not appear...possibly because a barramundi fish presented itself instead but we just cant be sure! Still, with less mileage to do the next day we chilled out in rubber rings at the water hole there for a happy while before hitting the road again this time aiming for Townsville, the capital of Far North Queensland, for no more particular reason than being in the right place. We arrived and found fpr the first time we were not the only campers and actually had to share the site with others! It is strange thing here that actually there are so many amazing things in Australia that there never seem to be many people at each one...they are simply too spread out! After a very long walk into town the main highlight was a race up a giant spiders wed climbing frame on the beach there and a very nice esplanade!

On our final day we set out at 8am giving us time to visit Mission Beach before returning the car to Cairns. The beach was a beautiful secluded spot and on getting out our lovely AC car we realised we had finally reached the tropics! Palm trees and rainforest surrounded us and we also enjoyed some thai noodles from a little local market. We delivered the car just about on time and after a whistle stop tour of the coats and alot of fun had arrived at our destination!

Sydney Goodbye

Well...for those of you who don't know. last wednesday I made a snap decision to go travelling up the coast to Cairns rather than stay in Sydney right up until New Years. I had had a good month but couldn't see much excitement on the horizon in staying another one and was starting to fel like the adventure I set out on in September was grinding down slowly to a safe standstill. My itchy feet got the better of me and now I am gone.

I am now in the visitors centre of a small town called Mullumbimby which even the people half an hour away in Byron Bay have not heard of. I came to meet up with some friends here from the Blue Mountains who were camping here at a music festival. I think we were safely the only internationals there, and the whole festival was a fantastic affair full of more hippies than I have ever see, young, old, middle aged and toddlers. My own highlight was a final rave to aboriginee didgeree doo band but the real life Aussie Sound of Music styule family country jug band were also memorable!

I'm sorry I can't add any more pictures now but we are on our way up to the Gold Coast where we hopefuly won't have any TVs thrown on our heads by partying "schoolies"!

here are a few of my last images of sydney...

Sydney the third

Hello there!

Well I am once again writing to you from sunny Sydney, although I'm sorry to say that this time there a few less exciting adventures to report because I was actually doing some work for several days this week! I have moved base from Coogee which is down in the south, near Bondi beach to Mosman which is a lovely surburban area on the north shore. I am currently house sitting (and more importantly plant watering) here pending a probable move even further north to Manly if I can find a place I can afford! Later today I am going to view a room in an apartment up there which makes me feel very grown up indeed!

The real highlight of this week has been dinner at Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron (I am not sure why it is known as a squadron rather than a club...but if you can shed light please leave a comment :) ). It is in a beautiful location with sweeping views out over the harbour but I was shocked to find that on ordering the marinated lamb it was given to me raw on a plate. Now, call me old fashioned, but not cooking the food in a posh institution in England would not go down so well I don't think! It turns out however that these folks are so addicted to barbeques that it is not infrequent for it to be a DIY job. Being both English and a girl I felt about as unqualified as you can be for cooking steak on a barbie, but luckily there were some Aussie blokes around with helpful tips, like please go away and leave it alone. Perfect!

Mountains and Sea

Hello again from Sydney again!
Australia is a stranger place. It is the most like England another country could possible feel I think. It is full, well, firstly of us. I work with english people (who all had the same idea), I live with a half english person, I go travelling and meet english people. It is also full of our history, Queen Victoria buildings, Prince Henry Cliff walk, and Queen Elizabeth Road. The coins are stamped boldly with the face of our Queen, and the dollars strangley mimic our pounds and the 50cents are link enlarged 50p hectagons. They even have a national holiday for the birthday of OUR Queen, we don't get that!! My heart warmed a little when I saw that I could take the train to Croydon, which along with many other English place names is immortalized here. It si strange to think on the way past Penrith (lake dist.) or Torquay (Cornwall) that really is what the founders of these places came from and yearned. On the other hand the Australians wear pants, drive on freeways and eat chips out of foil packets so its not quite right. Oh, and the sun shines (one of my favourite bus advertisements here states simply "someone has to look after the English backpackers" It is for suncream). I find it ironic that here we are colloquialy (I would say fondly, but I suspect it is more mocking) referred to as Poms, translated to me as "Prisoners of Mother England". Centuries ago we packed off our convicts here and now the ones are left are all thinking ...dammit, if only my great grandad had been a bit more wayward I could have had all this too!

I am sorry that it has taken so long to update you on things here, just as I thought it was getting boring alot of fun things started happening again! I thought I would let you in on a few of the best bits! The picture opposite is believe it or not the hub of one of the wprlds most succesful, innovative and influential companies: Google. Although you could be forgiven for mistaking it for a children's play area. This here is the "barrier reef room" but there were beaches and jungles galore throughout the building. Still, you can't knock a system that has worked so well, and besides they let guests eat their amazing staff buffet lunches for free :)

A little while later (even if I wanted to tell you exactly I can't quite remember any more) I decided to take a trip to the blue mountains. This was partly because in all the excitement of google's inflatable crocodiles, sailing schools and living in a nice apartment I wasn't feeling much like a backer and I was becoming increasingly suspicious that I hadnt seen much of a glimps of Australia at all or met nearly enough random characters. I am extremely glad that I decided to go, because I got the lucky fortune of staying at a fantastic and friendly hostel where they had a fire outside in the evenings and once brewed a big pan of mulled wine just for free :) Also despite a setting out in the rain (again! why does this happen everytime I start walking anywhere?) on my own, ipod plugged in and stomping away, I soon stumbled upon another english girl on my route and having got chatting after about 20 minutes we then caught up with a set of 3 banterous American guys and the five had a fun day of wondering about in the bush, eating cake in town and talking about the little idiosycrancies of all our commonwealth countries. I was more than chuffed at the days social success and the next day I went to Wentworth Falls with Sarah, the girl I had met first (the guys headed back to Sydney), it was an absolutely stunning walk in glorious sunshine and here is a picture that does it no justice at all.


Today, as I write this I have just got back from my first yacht race which started in Pittswater, about 25miles up the coast from Sydney and finished up in none other than perhaps the most famous harbour in the world. It was fantastic fun, the wind was good, the sun shined, we messed up the start but still managed to pull in about 5th across the line. Here is a picture of the exciting arrival at the opera house and bridge, pleased note the actual matching team kit!!

Sydney

I arrived in Sydney after an epic 2.5 days travelling of which the vast majority was spent in zombie boredom apart from the suprise magic of a butterfly park inside Singapore airport terminal 3! It is an incredible airport and if you ever get the chance to transfer there then you should! There's also a free cinema, free internet, free butterfly park and if you're there more than 5 hours then there's a free Singapore city tour. Really, they could charge entrance fees, I'd go!

On arriving in Sydney I made my way to the apartment of Ashley, a friend from college who is Australian and works here as a lawyer, and his fiance Allison. I was very chuffed to find they have a lovely spare room, with a double bed and a fantastic view across the suburbs of Sydney towards the airport where you can watch planes taking off and landing from a distance. They are also a mere 10 minutes walk from Coogee beach which the next big place south of Bondi and the next day I walked with Allison from Coogee to Bondi along a coastal path lined with sculptures which were there for a competition called "sculptures by the sea" highlighting a simple philosophy here that if you take something and put it by the sea it will be better. They are afterall mostly descended from us sea-side loving brits! And I was not dissapointed either by the endless series of beaches or the endless numbers of posers in speedos, bikinis, clutching surf boards and clearly trying to test how far away you can sneak from the beach before your beachware counts only as underware.

The next day I had the surreal coincidence of meeting my Dad just down the road here on the other side world, which was fantastic because I got to join him for his hotels all-you-can-eat buffet breakfast and believe me I took on the challenge. He also offered the handy service of whisking away some of trekking gear to make more room for beach kit! So overall I came off well.

Over the next few days I headed into to the city (to the North) and then even further North up to Balmoral Beach where I was hoping to work as a dinghy instructor. I turned up on the off chance I might find the place in jeans and a t-shirt and all things undesigned for sailing instruction and was immediately told to go out, introduce myself to people and help out with the next session. Luckily it turned out to be a cool place, full of English people who had all had the same idea and the next day they even gave me some paid work...so here is a picture of 'the office', and another picture of 'the commute'. On the downside it really does take a good hour and a half to commute over from this side of the harbour to where I work and so soon I will be moving North to Manly (although I have been informed/ found out the embarrasing way that jokes to do with how 'Manly' the people there are will drop like a led balloon).

Last Days

So, following our trek we still had one week left to spend in this beautiful mountain kingdom. So let me introduce to a sport I like to call "Extreme uphill mountain bike pushing." Just incase someone tries to catch you out I should warn you that it can also be known as just "mountain biking in Nepal" and it is a bad idea. I know this because we decided to spend a few days of our last week chilling out in a small village called Astam where Purna (who had organised our trek) and his 2 brothers was building a small eco-village on some of his Father's land where they grew up. We decided to try and cycle there, Dave beinga keen biker and us thinking it would be fun and give us a bit more independence round the village. We quickly realised that this was no Cambridge, taking 3.5 hours to complete Purna's alleged 1 hour ride!

The village was a stunning spot though, at the top of a hill in between Pokhara and Annapurna the views of the mountains were fantastic. The building on the right in this picture is where we slept and just outside there was a hammock where I spent many happy hours reading, staring at mountains and generally chilling out :) The shack in the foreground was the kitchen since the building of the eco-village was not quite complete! Here a great guy called Ganesh spent endless energy cooking Dal Bhat and pancakes over an open fire inside. One night we celebrated with a special meal of dal bhat with chicken curry. For the first time in my life I saw 700 rupees turn into a live chicken which was beheaded with a heavy knife, twitched for a long time, and was then plucked, washed and butchered (bones included) all in this little shack! A few hours later there was chicken curry for dinner. Also straight from the source came the milk, which was milked straight from their 2 cows before breakfast, the honey which came from alocal man who collected honey from the source and the veg which was all grown on a small plot in the eco-village. It was fascinating to see this way of living, so much more complete than a trip to sainsbury. At the end we thoroughly enjoyed our cycle back down a good 750m or dirt track and had a few less locals laughing at our impractical machines!

The next day we started to retrace our steps first back to Kathmandu where we had just a couple of days left to spend doing a bit more sight-seeing and present shopping before going our seperate ways. We took a trip over to Patan, a town just a few kilometers from Kathmandu with the greatest density of temples in the Kathmandu valley. The Patan museum was also full of interesting explanations of the hinduism and buddhism as practiced in Nepal and all the complex relations between the two, it had been our only museum trip in 5 weeks and we were probably due one! We also visited a couple of large buddhist stupas packed with Tibetans who fled to Nepal after the Chinese invasion in 1959 and now form large communities in the mountain areas and the capital. On thursday morning we boarded planes to return to Delhi and from there both flew to Bombay on seperate flights from whence we parted ways, Dave to England and myself to Sydney where I arrived on saturday night.

From Muktinath back to Pokhara (days 11-16)

So...the final 5 days of the trek remain, and I will whizz through them in pretty much the same wy that we seemed to! In Muktinath, after nearly 11 hours of walking I had my first REALLY hot shower since starting this trip. It was fantastic. For moments it was actually scolding hot! For a comparison, at one of the places we stayed I was parceled off with a bucket of hot water and a scoop to a small wooden hut on stilts, everywhere else there have just been very cold showers.
Later in the evening we also visited the Muktinath temple, a place of pilgrimage for many Hindus. It is significant because there they found a natural gas from the ground, hot stones and water, which unites air, water and fire in one place.

From Muktinath we carried on the steep descent to Marpha. We passed through the Nepali desert, which is in the rain shadow of the mountains and stays dry even in the rainy season. The rivalley was cut away dramatically with cliffs on either side giving it the same dramatic look as the Grand Canyon, carved out of red rock. It was tough going along the valley bottom because the steep cliffs acted as a wind funnel an we blown backwards by air and dust. The trail was also a rudimentary jeep track and sometimes jeeps would pass flicking stones out as they went. When we reached Marpha it was like an oasis in the desert. The town was built on a patch of flat land to one side of the river and the wind shadow of anothermountain. It was surrounded by the most green we had seen all day and is the "apple capital of nepal", famed above all for its apple brandy, which of course we were obliged to try.

A couple of days further down we reached the town of Tatopani, which translates literally as Hot Water. The town is famous for its hot springs, although the locals pump the wter into two stone pools to make more space. We spent a relaxing couple of hours resting our aching legs and feet in the pools, in preparation for our final big climb the next day.

The final big climb took us up about 1800m to Ghoripani, it was then just another hours climb up to Poon hill (a 3200m hill) which is famed for its stunning views of the mountains at sunrise. It was another early start, and at 5am of our last day we started the climb up to see the sunrise, along with a trail of so many people the glints of head torches seemed to form a path all the way back down the hill. I really need to put a panorama together to show you, because the top of the hill commanded a 270 degree view across both the Annapurna range and the Dhulagiri ranges, but here is a botch job that my camera has done (don't look to closely, but it gives youthe idea) of the Annapurna range.

We returned to the guest house fpr breakfast and then made a 7 hour hike down hill to Nayapul where our trek ended and we got a taxi back to Pokhara. The final day was spent passing through terraced farmland that looked like it was straight out one of those aerial picture books and waterfalls that looked like they were straight out of Timon and Pumba's paradise in the Lion King. It was both happy and sad to have finished the trek, we were more than happy with some clean clothes, warm showers and a lie in, but it was sad to leave behind such incredible, stunning mountain scenery as we have had the chance to explore.

Thorung La: Passing higher than the Alps (days 5-11)

Luckily on the 5th day the rain stopped. I had woken up early in Tamang (6.15am) in order to check and seeing the windows still rain streaked grumpily snuggled deeper into my sleeping bag. It made me jump when just 10 minutes later our guide came knocking on the door telling us we could see the mountains for the first time and that we would be making the early start that we had agreed on if the weather was good. I leapt out of my sleeping bag in t-shirt and shorts, threw on a coat and flip flops and went in search of the mountains I had almost started to doubt ever seeing. Here is a picture of my first glimps of Monasolu in the early morning from our guest house in Tamang (around 2000m).

The days walking showed us that we come arrived up and out of the valley and the walking was now easy going on a wide path through pine forests that rose gently reminding me uncannily of family strolls in Ashdown forest (the setting of Winnie the Pooh) . Mountains would appear on either side, majestic and astounding, even more impressive for their extra coat of snow and the days were short. We would start early while the skies were clear walk for 3-4 hours and arrive somewhere early enough to get a good room. October is peak season here and the trails were busy, even more so because so many had been held up in the rain, and others with limited time to compete the trek were having to come down because the pass had been closed when they arrived, those who arrived late sometimes could not find space.

On our 7th day we arrivd in Brackha, a small village just 20 minutes short of Manang, the district capital (although still supplied only ny mule train and the occasional helicopter). At 3500m this was the start of Yak territory and a popular place to stop and spent 2 days acclimatising to the high altitude. From here we took 2 trips, one to the Manang view point and the other to ice lake. Here is a photo from the Mananag view back towards Brackha and along the trail we arrived on.

On the second day we decided to take a hike up to Ice Lake, at a height of 4600m which would take us well into the snowline we had been watching for so long. This turned out to be quite an epic undertaking. It was a climb of 1300m, roughly equal to Ben Nevis, but at altitude and much steeper than the way hills are formed at home! We started early, around 7.30 and reached the lake one packet of bisuits and 2 mars bars later at 12.00. The high altitude luckily wasn't making either us of feel ill but it was difficult to reathe enough and I found myself panting after just a few steps and my legs seemed to burn anaerobically however much panting I did. Still, reaching the lake we felt like we had really climbed up into the Himalaya for the first time...here I am on the way back down.

3 days later we reached Thorung Phedi, which is the final camp, at aroind 4400m before crossing the pass. The highest point of the pass is 5416m, higher than the highst of the alps and still a low point here. Here we started at 4am, incase of slow progress or altitude problems and to be sure of reaching the pass early before it gets windy. The climb this time was only 1000m, less than that to the ie lake but the extra 1000m of altitude made it much more difficult. Eating breakfast at 3.30am I felt a little quezy and by this time just looking at a hill I felt out of breath. The first hour of the climp was a constanlt steep scree slope and at the top we had a brief stop. The combination of an early start, an undigested breakfast and a slightly dodgy stomach had left me feeling pretty ill and we took a tea break at "high camp" the last place to top before taking on the pass. The second hour brought us out in to more open terrain with sharp climbs interspersed with flatter ground, but thi alo brought more wind and the temperatures were below anything I had experienced before, the snow on the ground was frozen so solid that our boots made no impact. I was breathing constantly as though I had just done a 2k erg test bd every breath the cold ear burned through my chest. Constantly walking uphill with 4 4 jumpers on, a coat, hat and gloves I was still cold. I was well out of my own temperature guage but a Canadian couple I asked guessed it might be around -10C. Cold. After this the sun started to come up and walking in the sun me and my mars bars gradually started to thaw. At 9.15, 5 hours after starting we reached Thorung La.

The view from the Thorung La was immense. Behind rose the gentle snowy slopes of the way we had come, where many trekkers were still trickling up. On the other side was a surreal window down into the world through the cloud, and across to another mountaing range (the Dhulagiri mountain range) which it felt like we were level with (although realistically we were a a couple of thousand metres lower). This was the way we would decend, down a full 1600m of snow and scree, at one point passing through a smoothed down half-pike of slippery ice until about 6 hours later we reached civilisaion again in the town of Muktinath.

The Start of the Trek (days 1-4)

"It looks like its about to flood" I say to David who nods in agreement.
"Is it about to flood??" I ask our Guide Om (same as Hom in Tibetan chants...meaning good luck, as he continuously tried to persuade us we had) not shading the alarm from my voice.
"Yah, yah" he replied keenly, as he did to 99% of questions asked only once. I frowned from Om, to Dave, to the small hamlet perched right next to the gushing river several hundred feet below us, clearly built on the flood plain. Infact it seemed to me the river in places ran right through the hamlet, creating a small island of guesthouses but it was hard to tell, the rain was heavy enough to make it hazey.

This was our arrival in Tal on the 3rd day of our trek. In Tal it had rained solidly for 5 days and as we sat in the restaurant that night the thundering sound of landslides some in the distance, and some quite close, could be heard as the saturated valley walls gave way. We were concerned for a little while that we had accidently stumbled here in the midsts of the monsoon season, and not the perfect clear skies forecast for Nepal in August. But no, for the Lonely Planet guide to trekking in Nepal confidently stated that a monsoon "was not a continuous downpour" but instead "a considerate rain falling mainly at night." No. We had commenced our trek in something much more formidable than a monsoon.

It was in Tal I also had my first epiphany about life in England. That is that I will nver under-appreciate radiators again. Nor will I take for granted sealed roofs, sealed walls, tumble dryers, warm showers and least of all roads. The first days of our trek involved following the Marsyangdi river up towards its mountain source. The sides of the valley are steep to almost vertical, the path is littered with previous landslides and the path dips and rises steely up and down the valley walls and crossing long swaying bridges from one side to the other in an attempt to find solid enough ground for a trekking trail. Roads here are impossibly out of the question. The villages that litter valley full of farms and guesthouses are supplied by porters and mule trains alone. That means that when we arrived in Tal, following 2 days of heavy rain, we were 3 days walk from anywhere, the electricity was out because of the rain (and anyway supply is far insufficient for the population leading to daily powercuts) and there were no fires because chopping down trees here is a tabboo cause of more landslides (ref. your geography GCSE notes). To compund matters further Tal was full to bursting with trekkers already who had arrived the day before but not been able to move on up because just above Tal a waterfall which crossed the path was too heavy to cross. After much sweet-talking from Om (and of course a little of his good luck) we found a room which dripped on one side and had a fairly wet floor and slightly damp mattress but was otherwise and Ok place to spend a night. From here it was a 5 minute sprint across some mud to a restaurant where we spent our night drinking tea, playing cards, ordering excessive volumes of Dahl Bhat and hoping for the rain stop. The Ukrainians opposite us suggested we also order whisky, I am pretty confident it would have been vodka had that been in stock.

Rather astoundingly, and perhaps also due to the presence of our Om, the next day that black clouds that had boxed us into our deep-valleyed prison gave way to reveal Tal as really quite a beautiful and peaceful place. Breathing many sighs of relief (in part because it was a very steep climb) we carried on up with the valley. At the end we could see a towering snow covered mountain, but on enquiery were told that it was actually just a peak, standing a mere 3500m or so in height. What we had experienced as rain those further up the trail had experienced as snow, and Thorung La, the high point of our trek had become completely impassable, steeped in over a metre of snow. As we made our way onwards we knew that the weather must improve or we would not be able to get through and would instead have to turn and walk for a week back down the way we came. In the mean time though the rain had made the waterfalls and even more impressive sight and here is a picture of just one of the many that we crossed that day on the way from Tal to Tamang. If you peer closely you should be able to just about make out people queuing up to cross.

Kathmandu to Chitwan to Pokhara

I have run out of time to be writing this blog now, and you may well have run out of patience with reading it!

So in brief...

The next day we made our way to Chitwan National Park, first by taxi, then by white water raft (22km) which was alot of fun


Then by the roofrack of a Nepalese bus (which was even more fun) since the buses were all packed out because of the Dashain festival, but Dave has all the photos because by bag was wedged the other end of the roof rack to me. However, I can still impart to you my newfound but nevertheless authoritative wisdom that 21 years of car seats is just not adequate preparation for the glutaneous muscles for spending 2.5 hours sat on a grid of metal bars driving down a pot-holed road.

Then by jeep from the bus stop to our guest house, which was one of the most stunning sunsets I've ever seen and it sillouhetted workers wading home across rivers, water buffalo and paddi fields.

Then we spent a day in Chitwan, which was rather toursit packed but at times stunning. We saw a rhino taking a bath in the river while we were trying to canoe down in a very wobbly hollowed out tree and also a couple of crocks. If you look closesly at the picture you might start to wonder whether those are just clouds of some 8000m peaks in background, I got frequently confused, but often it turned out they were immense snow-covered mountains hundreds of kms away.

From Chitwan we took a 5 hour, extremely sweaty bus to Pokhara where we have now spent 2 days and I will tell you all about it when I get back from the 16 day trek we're starting tomorrow with a Nepalise guide I have just met, sporting a rather funky affro and a book I found that is "Not to be sold outside the Asian subcontinent" that I just had to have! (So far the english have invaded Burma with cannons for no good reason at all)

So until then take care,
Gabi

Around Kathmandu

Namaste!
So I left you last time around midnight in Delhi and now it is 4pm and I am in Pokhara, the second biggest city in Nepal on the edge of Lake Phewa and withing clear sight of the Annapurna region of the himalayas in the clear mornings. The annapurna region contains three of the world's fourteen 8000 metre peaks in it so it is an impressive sight! But more of that after the trek I am starting tomorrow, for now I will fill you in on all the adventures of the journey.

We arrived in Kathmandu on a plane from Delhi full of keen treckers. I was luck enough to bag a window seat and the landscape coming in looked so hilly (I would say mountainous but here that means a whole different thing. I find it similar to talking to Scottish people about rain...our standards just arenb't the same) that I was not sure there could be anywhere flat long enough to buil a runway! But lo and behold we rose up the final peak to cross an impressively large plateau craddled on all sides by 'mountains' and full of Nepal's capital city, Kathmandu (1400m).

We were met (after a condiderable visa faff) by Purna, a friend of a friend I had met in England and who runs a trekking company here and so had organised our programme and he dropped us off at our guest house.



Here is a picture of me at said guest house for 2 reasons:
1) to prove to my Mum I wash clothes
2) because Lou has requested in the comments section more pictures of me*




*If you would like to make a comment (eg. please can we have less pictures of you washing clothes) then please do






The next we took a look around the sites of Kathmadu. I did not have very high expectations as I had never really heard of any but this left be open to being completely blown away! We started off witha trip to the temple, Pashupatinath. In Nepal hinduism and Buddhism mix freely and most temples are devoted to both, this one included although foreigners are not allowed inside the religious buildings they are welcome to takle a look around (for a price).

Here is a picture across the first bridge you come to in the enclosure:



On the left of the river is the main temple building, which was unfortunately shut because it was festival time. On the right is a line of mirror temples, looking in one end you see the same thing reflected over and over. There are litterally hundreds of these small shrines/ temples throughout the complex, each to a different God. On the left, just out of view stands the main temple building. The yellow blob that you can see on the steps of the river is a dead body covered in a golden cloth with insence burning around it. It will stay there for a few hours until all the relatives have come to pay repects and then be burnt on the platform just infront of it. This side of the bridge is reserved for important people and the other side (behind me as I take this picture) were aready burning the bodies of common folk.



As we made our way clockwise around the temple (as is apparently required of hindu custom) we came to a cluster of holy men (sadhus) who were more than happy to pose for a photo for a dew backsheesh. They live in houses partly made out of caves in the rock of the gorge just upstream of the temple and reply on donations and begging to survive.

No one knows exactly how old the templ is, with estimations from a thousand to a few hundred years. No one knows how many temples there are either because they keep being added to while others fall into disrepair and the complex is huge. At the top of the steps lived lots of monkeys who would stand up and snatch rice crispies out of your hand and shove them in their mouths like a messy two year old given the chance (which we did give them, because it was fun to watch).

After the temple we went outside to see the locals playing a very tall bamboo swing (or ping as it is/ sounded alot like to me, in Nepali), and Purna's wife managed to negotiate us a quick go, which was alot of fun! I have included a picture again mainly to keep my Mum and Lou in good blog-reading spirits.

After the temple we went back into the centre of Kathmandu to Darbur, again I didn't expect much and so was massively impressed! Because Darbur square is actually two squares packed full to the brim of temples whic themselves used to be covered to the top in gold (but the government sold for money because they were in a fix). I am going to put together a panorama which will astound your socks off too but I can''t from here so are going to have to come back in a month or so and look again :)

Finally Purna took us in to the courtyard of the Kumari house, an intricately decorated building on the edge of a square with a queue of people to prayer longer than you find in midummer in Thorpe Park. The Kumari is a girl chosen by the government aged 7 or 8 who then lives in the Kumari house until she starts menstraution (and so becomes impure). The Kumari is never allowed to leave the Kumari house apart from when she is taken on parades and spends most of her time on one seat giving tikas (the red spot hindus wear) to worshippers. Even when she leaves she will go to live ina special house paid for by the governmenta nd is never allowed to marry or have a boyfriend. A few years ago a kumari ran away bringing disgrace on herself and her family and cause a big scandal. Here is a picture of the courtyard of the kumari's house and a fraction of the queue waiting for her...

4 days in India...

Hello! Well, a week from that last post and now I am writing from an internet cafe in our budget hotel in New Delhi. It has been an intense few days trying to get even a glimps of such a huge and complex country as India! i've spent a day in Bombay, 2 in Delhi and 1 in Agra. So here's the low down, witha few select pictures from a mamouth collection!

Bombay:

As the line in the Bombay Dreams musical goes "contradiction, city of extremes (any thing is possible in Bombay dreams) this is a city where giant slums nestle next to 5 start hotels and the financial centre of India. Although Delhi is the capital Bombay became a busy port and as result has become a sprawling metropolis. With only a few hours in hand I took a tour from the "Gateway to India" around the centre of town, taking in Gandhiji (the extra ji at the end is a mark of respect), a hindu temple and the great laundry among other sites. The laundry is a maze of small concrete pools each with a ban scrubbing clothes and beating them against the concrete walls. There is a 3 price structure for the laundry...the most expensive service uses clean water, the next down uses slightly dirty water and by now you can guess that the third class service charges less than 10Rs to have your clothes washed in the left overs! Although the wealthy people in Delhi have washing machines most people feel that just doesn't invlolve enough elbow grease to really make something *clean*. My guide talked me into taking a a local train back to a place near the airport for equiv. 9p, it was a memorable trip through rail track slums in a carriage with no doors. I did get the luxury though of the 'ladoes only' carriage, less packed out than the rest. From the station on to the airport to Delhi...

Delhi:

Delhi is India's capital city and has been for many centuries. The current parliament sits in Lutyens New Delhi (I'm guessing the same architect of Magdalene Lutyens fame!!) which is built on a massive scale at the end of the 'Raj Path' (Kings Way) an Indian equivalent of the Champs-Elisees with India Gate marking the other end.

In old Delhi stands a giant mosque, the bigges in India where we were allowed to climb the 65m minaret (for a small fee) with fantastic views out over the city and the Red Fort, its other main monument. However apart from these two the two most famous places the city is packed with too many breath taking sites to see, a Hindu temple built to honour Gandhi, several Muhgal Emperor tombs and gardens. But the things that really strike me here that you can't read in a guide book is the sheer density of people, taxis, rickshaws, animals, street sellars and beggars all in one small place. The streets of Delhi are alive, they are where people live, work, relax, travel, eat, shop and party. Added to this try to imagine thousands of rickshaws, took-tooks, cars, buses, cows, taxis and even elephants (as in the photo!!) all with single minded and determined aim to not stop and you would still need to see to believe the clamour of the streets here. Our taxi driver today told us that to drive in India you need only 3 things: good brakes, good horn, good luck. Most make do with just a horn.

A few other things I've notived are that the women, even the poorest and beggars still look stunning in their flowing saris whereas the men seem to have adopted the shirt and trousers look of western dress. They squeeze side-saddle on the back of mororbikes, babe in arms and the beautifully patterned silk billowing behind. Another thing is that there are metal detectors everywhere here, gaurding against the threat of terrorism from pakistan, even to go on the metro or into a park you have to be screened and searched. Occasionaly the detectors crop up in the middle of a busy street, though most people walk round those keen to queuse can take a turn at walking through.

Agra:

I'll try to wrap up briefly with mention for India's most iconic monument (and a picture to prove I went!). Unfortunately the train was full with 100 people on the waiting list (apparently the system is to book 90 days in advance!!) so we were forced to hire a taxi for the day to make the 5 hour drive to Agra, we left at 5am and I'm writing this having just got back at 10.30pm!

I was a worried that such a famous monument could only be a let down, but this time it absolutely was not. The Taj Mahal is much bigger than I had imagined and the water course leading up to it much shorter. Being a saturday it was busy with Indian visitors and we were rare to be white (as we have been all week) and many people stopped us to ask for our photograph...a popular request that seems to only be explained as a joke we don't seem to be in on! We took a stroll around the tomb and the muhgal gardens with a brief look inside, before heading over to the Agra Fort which stands just along the river Ganges from it. The Agra Fort was built before the Taj Mahal but was made into a palace by Shah Jahan, the same that built the Taj. He was also imprisoned in the Fort in a marble obelisk at one corner overlooking the Taj for 8 years by his son after he seized power. When he died he was taken by boat down the river to join her and they are now burried together deep beneath the monument where so many thousands of visitors walk.

It has been an incredible stay here, although hard work at times. Tomorrow we're off to Kathmandu and hopefully I'll find some internet again soon :)

The plan...

It has been a good 8 months now thinking about and planning this trip so it is surreal to think that it has finally come around. Tonight I have just about cleared enough space in the tip on my desk to reach my keyboard and type this post. This time next week I will hopefully be holed up in a neon-lit Delhi budget hotel before breaking for the Taj Mahal at dawn.

I thought I would fill you in on my rough plan at least for the first few months because it seems like the right thing to do at a time like this. In a nut shell...I should arrive in Delhi on Wednesday on the 23rd September and meet Dave, a friend from college who has been in Thailand up until now. We will then spend 3 days in India followed by one month in Nepal before parting company again; Dave will return to England while I follow the yellow brick road south to Oz. In Sydney I hopeto work as a sailing instructor, living the dream for a few months before traveling up the east coast and then on to to New Zealand around Easter. My plans for New Zealand are a hazy combination of seeng and doing as much as possible before I turn homeward-bound back towards a second dose of Asia and then England.

Welcome to my blog...

Well since you're here...welcome to my blog, sorry about the cheesy title & please leave me a comment! :)