Nepal

The bells started ringing again at 4am this morning. We had prepared ourselves as best as possible by turning in at 8am (along with most of the populace) but we hadn't counted on that damn black and white dog which lives under some huge overturned wheels in the corner of the square. At 2am, when all was quiet, this mangy mongrel leader decided it was time to gather together a few of his his local brethren into the middle of the square (well out of reach of my water bombs) and begin a barking competition with some other mongrels in a nearby district....he didn't stop until 630am and I vote, he won.

After 3 days sleeping in the nerve centre of Bhaktapur we are ready to fly to Manila Vanilla. Our "best room" in the Sunny Guesthouse has such a paucity of sound insulation that you can virtually hear somebody scratching themselves on the street two stories below.

Bhaktapur however has been a great diversion from Kathmandu, the medieval architectural heritage is still in reasonable shape and the people here take their daily religious prayer and offerings seriously. It reminds me of how Kathmandu felt 20 year ago.

From Pokhara we took a two day rafting trip on the lower Seti River which was pleasant. The most interesting event was watching the locals dynamite fishing the river not far from the launch point at Damauli (I thought I was going to have to wait for the Philippines to experience this). We paddled past quite a few stunned and dead fish which had escaped the eager nets and hands of the locals at the rocky race immediately downstream. After this, we didnt see our rescue support kayak guy until after we had beached ourselves at the river campsite at dusk - the lure of easy fishing was too tempting for him.

Reading of our "Rough Guide to Nepal" suggested we should avoid the tourist fleshpot of Sauraha so after the rafting finsihed we took a series of buses and walked into the quiet villiage of Ghatgain, which sits on the northern banks of the Rapti River just opposite the Royal Chitwan National Park. The flat countryside was full of rice paddies and small mud walled thatched houses, it was very scenic. The next day we left early with a French couple and their guide and stomped through a thick mist for 3.5hrs to watch a game of elephant polo at Meghauli. Watching these huge beasts being riden around in pursuit of a tiny white ball was a crazy almost surreal scene.

The next two days saw us hire our own guide to hike 20km through the jungle in search of wildlife and I must admit having an undercurrent of anxiety for the whole duration. I just couldn't shake the thought that somewhere out there behind that wall of green foliage there were real tigers and even with his big stick I didn't hold much hope that our 5ft 5" guide was going to be able to adequately fend off one of these ferocious maneaters. As it turned out we only caught glimpses of spotted deer, monkeys, wild boar and maybe a sloth bear. We did however see many footprints and even a tiger turd...

After the jungle walk we decided that we really couldn't leave without riding an oliphant - so we took a late afternoon ride on two females housed at the nearby luxury safari resort. Ambling across the river on these huge animals was awesome and their ability to push their way through the 8m high elephant grass gave us access to areas you can never see from hiking along the ground. Perched astride our sitting platform felt grand and the heightened vantage reminded me of how I used to feel when I climbed up into my old VW Kombi. After our trip was about half way thru we turned back towards the river and I was giving up hope of seeing anything when a large wild boar sprang out from the grass in front of the elephant Max and I were atop. Our excited rider quickly turned around and with a big smile barked "loook Deer!", which was an absolute crack-up. After this, we ended up seeing a couple of wild Rhinos and Victor was over the moon. Although the price was steep (2000NR or AU$40ea) I would thoroughly recommend any visitor to Chitwan to take an elephant ride - its not like riding a horse at all, which never really thrilled me.

We have spent the last two days in Kathmandu doing a little bit of shopping. The boys picked up some silver rings they had had made (embedded with gemstones we spent two days finding during our previous stay in Katty) and I got myself a set of brass singing bowls. After getting skinned a few times over the last six weeks I finally feel a little more skilled when bargaining with the locals and I have learnt to relax into the process.

Today we moved out to Bhaktapur where we have all nestled ourselves in the best and largest room offered at the Sunny Guesthouse which directly overlooks a square filled with temples and statues. Its our last three days in Nepal and I am already thinking about how I can get back again...umm

It's been hard keeping this blog going in Nepal. Our planned two week trek in Eastern Nepal turned into a 21day epic and upon return to Katty we scurried up to Pokhara to recover. This is easy to do in this lakeside tourist town nestled in the foothills of the Annapurnas, which in comparison to Katty is a relaxed haven. I wouldn't say its pretty anymore but there is a plethora of hotels, restaurants, shops and activities catering to western tastes making it easy to park and put on a bit of subcutanious fat. In this regard I lost 7kg on our trek and am back to my schoolboy weight of 66kg, which actually feels great. Lute and the boys didn't have any love handles to start with so they don't look much different, but I am sure they are also a kilo or two lighter.

I am busy writing up a summary of our trek to the East but my diary is so heavy with entries it might be a few weeks before I get around to publishing it online. Needless to say we survived, but it did push everybody to their limits at one stage or another, the result being that I was recently unable to convince the rest of the family that a short 6day trek from Pokhara up to Poon Hill to view the mountains would be worthwhile. We also decided that the tailend of our journey should be easy and pleasurable, so the concept of visiting India was shelved in favour of searching for a tropical paradise in the Philippines...considering the subsequent developments in Mumbai this looks like being a good decision.

"Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground."
Jelaluddin Rumi

We are on a plane to Tumlingtar tomorrow morning. If all goes well I won't be logging another entry for another three weeks, during which time we will be hiking up the Arun River valley. Its a remote region that sees few trekkers and supposeldy has a fairly pristine environment. We have a guide and a porter from the original company we talked to (Shiva Outdoors) after they shaved $700 off the price. Our guide comes from the area where we are going which I hope will ensure everything goes smoothly.

Today Nepal was busy and all the dogs had garlands of flowers around their necks. This turns out to be only one of the many activites that are occuring in the five days of celebration going on here. Right now I can hear fireworks going off everywhere.

Day 1 - as we stepped off the plane one of the first things that caught my eye was that the soldiers at Kathmandu airport carry rifles that look like they're from WW2, a sharp contrast to the splinter new light weight automatics on routine display throughout Amman.

Following a time consuming visa acquisition process we headed into town and I soon saw that the last twenty years hasn't been kind to this city. Choked with cars, motorbikes, rickshaws, bikes and pedestrians the chaos reaches an almighty stinking, ear piercing crescendo in Thamel and thats were we now find ourselves based. The pollution is excacerbated by the regular power blackouts which necessitate many of the shops turning on and running generators. Its such a pity that nobody has grasped traffic managment by the horn and pedestrianised vast slabs of Thamel, because I like whats on offer.

We are now in the process of sorting out guides, porters and a trekking itinery and have liaised with a couple of companies. I am finding this process challenging, partly because of the almost overwhelming compulsion i have to get out into some clean air.. This compulsion caused some conflict with Lute and me today after I gave the go ahead to a trekking agent who she thought was too expensive, the fact the she didn't say so until we came back to our hotel annoyed me. Anyway I ended up agreed with her and quickly went back and put things on hold.

Day 3 - We still haven't decided on a trekking agency but Thamel is too much and I have voted out. Today we took a taxi, which wasn't nearly as challenging as in Amman and had a squizz at Patan, which is about 5km South of Kathmandu centre. With our trusty guidebook in my hand we proceeded to walk from the backdoor of Patan into its heart and it really is much less scarred than Thamel. The first guidebook recommended place in the low/med budget range was full and after reviewing a couple of scruffy places we found the calm oasis of the upmarket Summit hotel hidden near the Norwegian and Dutch embassies. I drank the relative sweetness of the clean air and wandered past the grassy poolside stewn with relaxed people reading books in the sun in their swimmers! Shit I thought, they're having a real holiday! I checked out the prices and was about to walk away when Lute noticed that they offered some budget rooms (20Euro/double), which turned out to be very simple (no TV, no Aircon etc) and very clean with hot water - Purrfect. Our room was reserved within 5min and we are moving over in the morning.

Both the boys and Lute said tonight that today had been heavy for them. We saw a dead dog lying on the side of the road, some dead rats and beggars were commonplace including one young boy with only one leg and no hands. The fetid stench of rotten things and raw sewerage wafted past us regularly and the smell that engulfed us as we crossed the Bagmati River has cemented my newfound no fish/no meat diet.

I learnt today that 500 people/day fly in and hike up towards Everest basecamp and there is no way we want to be on such a treadmill. We have purchased some maps for Eastern Nepal and are talking about a 16 day trek in the remote restricted region between Makalu and Kanchenjunga. I am getting excited!