We’ve turned up on Diwali--off all days--so it’s very colourful and loud. plenty of lights everywhere, it’s like christmas and new years rolled into one.
Most of you will be familiar with Bonfire Night in Lewes and you know how loud that can be, well it’s much the same but it seems to never end. The two days we were in Varanasi, there was a banger or firework going off at any given time.
It’s a crazy place and very difficlut to describe, one of those that you have to see for yourself. It's very unique I would say.
The Ganges (Ganga locally) is the go to place for all, be it to bathe, brush your teeth, wash your clothes, wash your buffalo, wash your dead relatives (then burn them) or take a boat ride.
We took a rickshaw ride on our first day to see the temples and also saw to see how silk sarees/scarfs are made--they did try to make us buy something but we held firm.
Two days was enough for us we must admit, it’s an experience we’ll never forget, especially seeing the dead bodies on funeral pyres and also walking through the tight alleys trying to find a place to eat to dodging the endless cow crap that fills the streets and along the Ghats (steps leading to the river) on the riverside.
Don’t let this put you off however, the atmosphere is friendly and a boat trip at night and at dawn offers different sensations. You can also buy home made candles from the kids and float them on the Ganges for good luck for you and your family.
Well we spent our last couple of days in Nepal in Boudha, how lovely it was.
The Stupa was so impressive and vast, that it took 5 minutes to walk around it--in a clockwise direction as that is very auspicious--whilst turning each prayer wheels.
We stayed in a guest house which was run by Buddhist monks and surrounded by monasteries. We were concerned at first as they get up at 4am for prayers, but it was the noisy dogs in the streets that woke us up...
Lovely grounds, heard a few weird noises and wondered what it was until we saw little chipmunks running through the trees, cute.
Unfortunately whilst at the Stupa we witnessed a funeral for one of the sherpas that died in the snowstorm the week before, a poignant reminder.
And so we leave Nepal which we loved - here are our lasting impressions:-
Very friendly people
Fantastic momos
Jam that tastes like melted jelly tot sweets
Packs of dogs - harmless enough, just liked a good bark
Goats everywhere - even on top of buses
Black kites and cheeky myna birds
So many packed local buses - where is everyone going - there’s only one real road!
Teenagers wearing heavy metal t-shirts, even one of our taxis had an Iron Maiden sticker on the outside!
Colourfully decorated lorries
Freedom Cafe In Pakora - great
And of course the Himalayas are amazing!
oh - pointless pink napkins the size of playing cards that don’t actually absorb anything - a bit like the dodgy tracing paper loo roll we used to have at school!
We left Pokhara and got the bus back to Kathmandu and then straight on to Patan half an hour up the road. Stayed in Patan for a couple of nights and saw the sites such as the Durbar Square and the Golden Temple.
The traffic is not quite as mad as in Kathmandu, but still dusty and noisy.
One morning we spent about an hour or so watching a cat trying to entice her kittens down from a precariously high rooftop. Scary bananas, but they made it.
Then on to Bhaktapur which was a breath of fresh air, even though you had to pay to enter the city it was worth every penny.
Really beautiful temples and so much cleaner than Patan and Kathmandu, its a World Heritage Site and seems to be better looked after. Had some great street food - Buffalo momos - yuuuummmmy!
The Second day we were there though it rained torrentially all day, which was the first day we couldn’t really go out exploring, so we had a lovely time playing Uno, Sorry & Dice. But it turns out--as we read in the papers the following morning--this was the fateful snowstorm day in Annapurna when a lot of trekkers were caught in blizzards and lost their lives. We were very fortunate to have had the good weather for our trek with no problems.
So after a few days of culture, we thought we would venture up to Nagarkot in the mountains to see if we could spot Everest, which we did, just abou, although it looked like a small spec through our binoculars.
We found a beautiful little place to stay, very bucolic, it's an ornithologist’s dream.
We spent a lot of time watching the black kites soaring above and below us and the myna birds just being generally cheeky.
Really relaxing, had a few walks, but mainly reading, playing games, and chilling out--oh its such a hard life!
Weather up here is a bit mixed. Can be scorching one minute and very cold the next. We had an amazing hail storm a couple of days ago where the hail was the size of marbles.
As with everywhere in Nepal there always seems to be building works of some sort going on. Yesterday we saw two young men loading up an old lady’s basket with gravel so that she could then walk it across the road to be put in the concrete mixer, imagine your granny doing that!
So, off to see the Boudha Stupa tomorrow, which is the largest stupa in Asia.
Patan
Bhaktapur
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| Before and after! |
Nagarkot
The main reason to come to Pokhara, is to go hiking, and we did just that. Off into the Annapurna mountains for a six day trek we went.
We toyed with the idea of getting a guide and a porter, but after finding out the cost and talking to people who had just completed the trek decided we would go it alone. A wise decision that turned out to be.
This trek is possibly the hardest thing we’ve ever done. As we were in the Himalayas, we assumed we’d be going uphill which is hard enough, but it turned out that most of the trek included going up and down 2 or 3 kilometres, three or four times a day, at 45 degree angles, in very hot and humid conditions,with our backpacks (we left some of our gear behind, but even so our packs were heavy enough!).
Apparently the Nepalese have three different words for “flat”, which all include some degree of incline, there is obviously no such thing as “flat” in Nepal!
Anyway, this didn’t deter from the enjoyment, it was a great experience and it was with a great sense of achievement that we arrived at the trekkers lodges (teahouses) in the evenings after 6-8 hours of walking.
The porters have it worse, they’d go by us carrying 25 kilos wearing flip flops, although some of them did look pretty knackered. The locals get in on the act too, carrying supplies up to the teahouses - up to 80 kilos in a basket or two on their back some of them! Others cheated or had more sense or maybe more money in that they used mule trains.
During the first few days we didn’t see much wildlife as it was busy on the trails--it was a Chinese national holiday so there were quite a few of these guys about--but on the third night we stopped at a more basic (very basic) teahouse and were the only trekkers. This proved to be a good call as the next day we trekked on our own for a good 4 hours and saw plenty of fauna including a Langur Monkey and a family of Griffon Vultures.
We walked through many rhodeddendron forests, but unfortunately the wrong time of year for flowering--it would be awesome in April.
At the end of the 4th day we stopped at a teahouse which was quite close to a hot spring, so decided to hang out there the next day and enjoy relaxing in the water and kicking back at the teahouse.
The last day was a leisurely trek back and we walked some of it with a really nice couple we met on the way down--and ended up spending more time with when we had got back to Pokhara--Ollie and Erin.
All in all, this was a fantastic experience, probably one of our best.
