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