Hello everyone!
Sorry I have been SO slack on the blog front! We have had a busy couple of weeks moving about from place to place and no time to catch up on the blog front!!
I will start where I left off and quickly explain about our relaxing trip to Pokhara. We had a long seven hour bus journey from Kathmandu to reach the sleepy town so when we arrived we were all desperate for food, a beer and a shower! We checked into our hotel and had a little explore noticing straight away how quiet it was compared to the busy city we had been used to! We got our bearings and found a place to eat and enjoy some mojito's! The rest of the week was pretty similar, we all took a chance to relax eat some good food and recover from the trek! We rented bikes one day and Daniel taught Chris and I how to ride a scooter! ( I looked SO good in my helmet haha) The hotel across from us had a great outdoor swimming pool so we took full advantage when the sun was shining! As you may have guessed we all really enjoyed our time in Pokhara and thought it was a great place to recover from walking up a mountain!
Arriving back in Kathmandu we spent our last day in Nepal eating at our favorite haunts where Steph and I had our first STEAK! (It was SOOOOO good!) We packed and prepared ourselves for flying the next day and had an early night. Chris and I had to be up early to get to the airport to check into our flight at 10.40. We arrived at the airport at 8.00 said our goodbyes to Binay (who had kindly come with us in the taxi!) and made our way into the terminal. Once we got inside we were pretty confused- there was NO sign of our flight- anywhere... After walking around asking about 5 people who all told us just to wait we got a bit stressed out (as by this time it was 9.30 and we hadn't checked in and our flight was leaving in just over an hour). Chris found a really helpful guy who told us that apparently our airline didn't fly in the morning and they had sent us a wrong conformation time, our flight was in fact the same flight as Dan and Steph's which was leaving at 4.00pm. Hungry, angry and sleepy we waited at the airport for D & S and gave them a small shock when they saw us still in the airport (slight payback for the shock they gave us!). Kathmandu airport is very small so to fly to Hong Kong we had to stop via Delhi. Once in Delhi Chris and I had to separate from D & S and find our flight to Hong Kong and once again there was no sign of our flight...very tired and grumpy from the previous problems I was about to throw my toys out of the pram until Chris found that our flight had just been delayed by two hours! Fortunately the plane was really comfy and we had loads of room - unfortunately due to lack of sleep, no food and all the emotions I didn't feel very well at all when we arrived in HK. Chris and I left the plane and in the next few minutes I had a lady tapping me on the shoulder, putting a thermometer in my ear and putting a surgical mask over my face! Chris and I were whisked off to a medical corner where they asked me loads of questions about my health - I actually thought they wouldn't let me in the country! After explaining I was probably just VERY VERY worn out due to flying for over 24 hours they let me go! A starbucks iced lemon tea and the amazingly clean and air conditioned airport made me feel instantly better and we got a taxi to Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon.
Hong Kong in general is amazing. It was refreshing to go somewhere that's clean, air conditioned and modern, however because of these things it is also very expensive! Our accommodation was pretty gross and we resented paying 20pounds a night for a room we all shared. (This was the cheapest and nicest place amazingly) It was a good way of keeping us out of the room though and we spent five days exploring the cool city. I ate some amazing dim sum, bucket loads of ice tea and we found this crazy vegetarian restaurant where they serve fake FISH! We checked out all the big museums (watched a great imax show called 'Cosmic Collisions!'), caught a ferry across the harbor and watched the light show. We must have walked for miles just taking in the sites and smells of the streets. I would 100% recommend anyone to go to Hong Kong but if you can take lots of money with you so you can do it in style!
That brings us to Vietnam! We love it here already and we have only been here for a few days. The accommodation is great and the beer is only 15p in some places! We made friends with a lovely Australian couple called Mike and Ellie who have shown us some of the best places to eat and drink. Tomorrow we are off on our Hal Long Bay tour which we are all SO excited about! Will update after then...I promise!! E xxxx
Tuesday 27 July 2010
Sunday 11 July 2010
Into the white blanket
Hello everyone! Its been a while since my last update so sorry about that! We've been in Nepal for 12 days now and are still having a great time. We've been busy bee's so we haven't been able to update so I will start from where I left off.....
SO the day after we visited the Monkey Temple we decided to visit a few more tourist sites. Binay sorted us a driver for the day who turned up at 9.00 am blasting Akon and Justin Beiber from his stereo. We got in the sporty looking black car (with leather seats that are not great to sit on when its 35degrees!) and set off for Boudhanath. It really does take a while to get used to the way people drive in Nepal. There doesn't seem to be a particular system at all and its pretty scary especially when you come to a cross road and everyone seems to just drive and weave in and out of each other! I've taken a small video that I will upload at some point so you can see! After the crazy drive we got to Boudhanath to see a large 'Stupa' and beautiful temple. The sun was beaming down and we enjoyed walking around casually taking in the culture! Our driver picked us up after an hour and we made our way to Pashupatinath. Some of you may have seen or heard about this place as it is where family's hold funerals for their lost ones and burn the bodies at the side of the river (kind of like a cremation ceremony but out in the open). The deceased are bound with herbs and spices and are set on fire whilst the family's mourn and cry next to the large plynth's that the bodies are rested on. It's a very strange place to visit as you feel like you shouldn't be intruding into such a personal ceremony, we were a bit shocked to find some Chinese tourists filming the event as we thought it would be disrespectful even taking photos. We didn't have as much time here as we wished as we had another stop to go to - Durbar Square in Thamel. After wandering around the square we went for lunch at our favorite haunt 'Small Star' and spent the rest of the day relaxing.
We had a relaxed few days and our driver came back on the Sunday to take us to more tourist sites. We visited Patan Durbar square and looked round a lovely little museum. We sunbathed for the rest of the afternoon on our little open air rooftop terrace at our hostel and then went for dinner and 'Tungba Beer' (look it up its mad!).
We had a day to prepare ourselves for the trek- Binay came to see us at our hostel and told us all about what we would be doing which made us very excited and nervous! We packed and got an early night ready for the hard five days ahead! We woke up at 6.00am and met Binay downstairs in our hostel. We walked to the local bus station which was mad organized chaos. Its not anything like a UK bus station- there are literally hundreds of old buses with no signs on just people shouting random destinations and trying to get you to board their bus. We found our bus and managed to get a seat. I think we were probably the only tourists there and everyone who got onto the bus just stared at us the whole way. The bus journey was an experience in its self- there seems to be no regards for health and safety as we found out when a bus that was probably fit for 40 max had about 200 people squished in every possible space and hanging off the roof! The buses are not like UK buses either - they are pretty much little tin cans with windows! We saw so many different people get on the bus - school girls that giggled at the boys, small children hanging off their parents, two men with two HUGE baskets of tomatoes, the ticket collectors hanging out the windows, people as old as 80 climbing up the side of the bus to sit on the roof- it really was a memorable journey! To get to the village we were starting the trek from we had to drive on small mountain roads- sometimes so close to the edge I had to close my eyes. Once we had reached the village (a place near Dulikel) and my knuckles had turned back to a decent shade of pink (!) we sat relaxing in the sun whilst our crew sorted out some lunch for us. When we were called over for lunch we were sitting in what I can only describe as a cow's stable where they had laid out something for us to sit on- we all found it quite strange as our crew didn't eat with us and instead our dining guests included a dog, some chickens, a little trumping child and a very drunk Nepali man who had one of our cups of tea. We all turned to look at each other in a "what have we let ourselves in for" kind of way. After the strange lunch experience Binay and Raju (our second guide) took us on a great walk round the bottom of the mountains along the river. We jumped from dirt mounds and walked through rice fields waving and greeting all the workers. We stopped to rest at a small Hindu temple and met a very stoned holy man called Baba. We walked for about 3 hours in total and by the time we were walking back towards the village we were in desperate need of a cold drink! We found a lady selling pepsi (warm but still greatly appreciated!) and stopped to relax. We set off again and sadly realised our walk wasn't finished as we still had to climb a portion of the mountain to get to our camp! We finally made it and had a great evening getting to know our crew (10 people in total all there just for us!). We ate pizza for tea (yes pizza!?!) made by our amazing cook 'Basanta' and slept as well as we could sleep on a mountain in a really hot tent!
Day two was the hardest of days. The heat was almost unbearable and we had to climb a mountain...halfway up Chris's shoes that Binay had given him broke and the soles fell off completely! We all found it SO hard and all had a little moan to ourselves- the worst thing was that our crew (who were carrying all our equipment) didn't even break a sweat and considered the walk "easy". We trekked through corn fields, climbed up rocks, walked on thin edges on the side of the mountain and covered miles and miles of ground. We passed through loads of little villages on the way up and met loads of friendly smiley villagers (i don't know how they stay so happy having to walk up a mountain every day!). We finally reached our camp which was outside an old house and a pond and were greeted by loads of children who found us all fascinating. Our crew loved to sing and dance (Raju is the greatest dancer I have ever seen) and provided great entertainment for us all!
I am running out of time on my Internet so I will just keep the rest of the trek story short! The next few days were good apart from Steph being very poorly. An old medicine man performed a mad ritual on her that seemed to work!! (well that or the water, rest and juice?!). We camped at some more interesting places and at one point were actually inside a cloud (Binay called it the 'White Blanket'). We encountered LEECHES as well as some other HUGE horrible bugs that decided to sometimes land on my head (eeeeerrrruuuggggghhhhhhhhh), we danced on top of the mountain in the rain, visited a local cheese factory, went to Binay's village and met his whole family (who were AMAZING), were given loads of Malia (flower necklaces) by the villagers, encountered sunburn (mostly poor Chris), drank Mustang Coffee, ate with local people, joked and laughed with children, chatted to our lovely crew and probably all lost about 1/2 a stone in weight!
All in all it was a great experience! SUCH hard work and boy are our legs paying for it today! Sorry I've had to cut it short but I'm sure if any of you want to hear more we can chat about it over a coffee on an afternoon in England! That brings us up to date too! Tomorrow we are off to Pokhura for 5 days so will update after then!
LOVE YOU ALL
xxxx
SO the day after we visited the Monkey Temple we decided to visit a few more tourist sites. Binay sorted us a driver for the day who turned up at 9.00 am blasting Akon and Justin Beiber from his stereo. We got in the sporty looking black car (with leather seats that are not great to sit on when its 35degrees!) and set off for Boudhanath. It really does take a while to get used to the way people drive in Nepal. There doesn't seem to be a particular system at all and its pretty scary especially when you come to a cross road and everyone seems to just drive and weave in and out of each other! I've taken a small video that I will upload at some point so you can see! After the crazy drive we got to Boudhanath to see a large 'Stupa' and beautiful temple. The sun was beaming down and we enjoyed walking around casually taking in the culture! Our driver picked us up after an hour and we made our way to Pashupatinath. Some of you may have seen or heard about this place as it is where family's hold funerals for their lost ones and burn the bodies at the side of the river (kind of like a cremation ceremony but out in the open). The deceased are bound with herbs and spices and are set on fire whilst the family's mourn and cry next to the large plynth's that the bodies are rested on. It's a very strange place to visit as you feel like you shouldn't be intruding into such a personal ceremony, we were a bit shocked to find some Chinese tourists filming the event as we thought it would be disrespectful even taking photos. We didn't have as much time here as we wished as we had another stop to go to - Durbar Square in Thamel. After wandering around the square we went for lunch at our favorite haunt 'Small Star' and spent the rest of the day relaxing.
We had a relaxed few days and our driver came back on the Sunday to take us to more tourist sites. We visited Patan Durbar square and looked round a lovely little museum. We sunbathed for the rest of the afternoon on our little open air rooftop terrace at our hostel and then went for dinner and 'Tungba Beer' (look it up its mad!).
We had a day to prepare ourselves for the trek- Binay came to see us at our hostel and told us all about what we would be doing which made us very excited and nervous! We packed and got an early night ready for the hard five days ahead! We woke up at 6.00am and met Binay downstairs in our hostel. We walked to the local bus station which was mad organized chaos. Its not anything like a UK bus station- there are literally hundreds of old buses with no signs on just people shouting random destinations and trying to get you to board their bus. We found our bus and managed to get a seat. I think we were probably the only tourists there and everyone who got onto the bus just stared at us the whole way. The bus journey was an experience in its self- there seems to be no regards for health and safety as we found out when a bus that was probably fit for 40 max had about 200 people squished in every possible space and hanging off the roof! The buses are not like UK buses either - they are pretty much little tin cans with windows! We saw so many different people get on the bus - school girls that giggled at the boys, small children hanging off their parents, two men with two HUGE baskets of tomatoes, the ticket collectors hanging out the windows, people as old as 80 climbing up the side of the bus to sit on the roof- it really was a memorable journey! To get to the village we were starting the trek from we had to drive on small mountain roads- sometimes so close to the edge I had to close my eyes. Once we had reached the village (a place near Dulikel) and my knuckles had turned back to a decent shade of pink (!) we sat relaxing in the sun whilst our crew sorted out some lunch for us. When we were called over for lunch we were sitting in what I can only describe as a cow's stable where they had laid out something for us to sit on- we all found it quite strange as our crew didn't eat with us and instead our dining guests included a dog, some chickens, a little trumping child and a very drunk Nepali man who had one of our cups of tea. We all turned to look at each other in a "what have we let ourselves in for" kind of way. After the strange lunch experience Binay and Raju (our second guide) took us on a great walk round the bottom of the mountains along the river. We jumped from dirt mounds and walked through rice fields waving and greeting all the workers. We stopped to rest at a small Hindu temple and met a very stoned holy man called Baba. We walked for about 3 hours in total and by the time we were walking back towards the village we were in desperate need of a cold drink! We found a lady selling pepsi (warm but still greatly appreciated!) and stopped to relax. We set off again and sadly realised our walk wasn't finished as we still had to climb a portion of the mountain to get to our camp! We finally made it and had a great evening getting to know our crew (10 people in total all there just for us!). We ate pizza for tea (yes pizza!?!) made by our amazing cook 'Basanta' and slept as well as we could sleep on a mountain in a really hot tent!
Day two was the hardest of days. The heat was almost unbearable and we had to climb a mountain...halfway up Chris's shoes that Binay had given him broke and the soles fell off completely! We all found it SO hard and all had a little moan to ourselves- the worst thing was that our crew (who were carrying all our equipment) didn't even break a sweat and considered the walk "easy". We trekked through corn fields, climbed up rocks, walked on thin edges on the side of the mountain and covered miles and miles of ground. We passed through loads of little villages on the way up and met loads of friendly smiley villagers (i don't know how they stay so happy having to walk up a mountain every day!). We finally reached our camp which was outside an old house and a pond and were greeted by loads of children who found us all fascinating. Our crew loved to sing and dance (Raju is the greatest dancer I have ever seen) and provided great entertainment for us all!
I am running out of time on my Internet so I will just keep the rest of the trek story short! The next few days were good apart from Steph being very poorly. An old medicine man performed a mad ritual on her that seemed to work!! (well that or the water, rest and juice?!). We camped at some more interesting places and at one point were actually inside a cloud (Binay called it the 'White Blanket'). We encountered LEECHES as well as some other HUGE horrible bugs that decided to sometimes land on my head (eeeeerrrruuuggggghhhhhhhhh), we danced on top of the mountain in the rain, visited a local cheese factory, went to Binay's village and met his whole family (who were AMAZING), were given loads of Malia (flower necklaces) by the villagers, encountered sunburn (mostly poor Chris), drank Mustang Coffee, ate with local people, joked and laughed with children, chatted to our lovely crew and probably all lost about 1/2 a stone in weight!
All in all it was a great experience! SUCH hard work and boy are our legs paying for it today! Sorry I've had to cut it short but I'm sure if any of you want to hear more we can chat about it over a coffee on an afternoon in England! That brings us up to date too! Tomorrow we are off to Pokhura for 5 days so will update after then!
LOVE YOU ALL
xxxx
Thursday 1 July 2010
Namaste!!
Greetings from Nepal!! It is amazing here- we are in love already!
Just a little update to let you all know how we are doing! Firstly what an amazing last few weeks we have had in England. Seeing all our friends and family has been so great and we have been totally spoilt by everyone! Thank you to you all for making it AWESOME!
SO the flight from Heathrow to Delhi was pretty good! Had two curry's on board the plane (one for dinner one for breakfast (!?!?) ) Was pretty relaxed and managed to get some zzz's! Once we got to Delhi we had to wait for 6 hours till our next flight to Nepal. We came out of the arrivals area to go to the departures lounge and automatically the heat just took over! It really was like walking into a huge oven. After waiting in the nice air conditioned lounge we boarded our next flight. It was only an hour and a half and we were given another curry on board....this three curry's in 24 hours beats the 2 fish and chips in one day (thanks Ellie Higgins ;-) )
We got off the plane, bought our visas, collected our bags and then had a MASSIVE shock! Walking to the taxi area where our driver was meeting us, looking out for a Mosley sign I spot someone very familiar holding the sign with my name on it.....DAN AND STEPH! The cheeky buggers had kept it a suprise that they were going to Nepal the whole time and meeting us there. After shouting for Chris's attention (who had the best shocked face i've ever seen) we ran as fast as we could (suprisinigly fast considering our huge backpacks!) and gave them the biggest hugs ever! Along with Dan and Steph was their Nepali friend Binay..he welcomed us with huge flower necklaces and is one of the nicest people I have ever met!
We met our driver who was taking us back to the hostel we are staying in and it was probably the most interesting car journey of my life. Everyone drives like nutters in Nepal and people (and cows and dogs etc) just walk into the road, there are constantly horns tooting and complete chaos. It is so much fun though- as there is so much traffic and people no one drives fast so its pretty safe! The journey was amazing- I can't describe how colourful it is here, there really is so much to take in. Kids try and sell you stuff through the car windows and it really is complete hussle and bussle. The whole place smells of incense and there is so much to see and take in.
Our hostel is in the middle of Themal in Kathmandu. Once at our hostel we dropped everything off in the room and went outside for a beer! The weather is gorgeous - really hot, it is monsoon season but so far it has only rained at night...I'm slowly working on a tan! We went out for some dinner to a nice place called New Orleans where we feasted on veggie burgers and coke. Yum yum.
Today we have been up since 7.30. The amazing Binay came to meet us at 8.30 to show us round a bit of Nepal. In total we walked about 6 miles (and a million steps!) and visited this amazing place called 'The Monkey Temple". It was up the steepest set of stairs I have ever seen and I don't think I have ever sweated as much in my life but it was totally worth it! There are monkeys all the way up and when you reach the top you can see over the whole of Kathmandu. There are beautiful statues and prayer flags and it is just an incredible experience. I will put photos on facebook soon! After our hefty walk we went to Binays favorite place for some traditional Nepali food called 'Small star'. We ate thupka and momo's which are YUUUUUUUMMMMMMMMYYYY. Thupka is a spicy noodle based soup with egg on top which costs 35rs for a HUGE bowl (35rs is about 30p!) and momos are these amazing steamed dumplings which are also 30p for about 10! For five of us to eat with two drinks it came to under a fiver....thats a Max Mosley bargain there!
So that is pretty much us up to date now! I apologise for my spelling and grammer! I hope you are all well and I am missing you all loads but having the BEST time. I LOVE NEPAL!!
LOVE TO YOU ALL!!!!! XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Just a little update to let you all know how we are doing! Firstly what an amazing last few weeks we have had in England. Seeing all our friends and family has been so great and we have been totally spoilt by everyone! Thank you to you all for making it AWESOME!
SO the flight from Heathrow to Delhi was pretty good! Had two curry's on board the plane (one for dinner one for breakfast (!?!?) ) Was pretty relaxed and managed to get some zzz's! Once we got to Delhi we had to wait for 6 hours till our next flight to Nepal. We came out of the arrivals area to go to the departures lounge and automatically the heat just took over! It really was like walking into a huge oven. After waiting in the nice air conditioned lounge we boarded our next flight. It was only an hour and a half and we were given another curry on board....this three curry's in 24 hours beats the 2 fish and chips in one day (thanks Ellie Higgins ;-) )
We got off the plane, bought our visas, collected our bags and then had a MASSIVE shock! Walking to the taxi area where our driver was meeting us, looking out for a Mosley sign I spot someone very familiar holding the sign with my name on it.....DAN AND STEPH! The cheeky buggers had kept it a suprise that they were going to Nepal the whole time and meeting us there. After shouting for Chris's attention (who had the best shocked face i've ever seen) we ran as fast as we could (suprisinigly fast considering our huge backpacks!) and gave them the biggest hugs ever! Along with Dan and Steph was their Nepali friend Binay..he welcomed us with huge flower necklaces and is one of the nicest people I have ever met!
We met our driver who was taking us back to the hostel we are staying in and it was probably the most interesting car journey of my life. Everyone drives like nutters in Nepal and people (and cows and dogs etc) just walk into the road, there are constantly horns tooting and complete chaos. It is so much fun though- as there is so much traffic and people no one drives fast so its pretty safe! The journey was amazing- I can't describe how colourful it is here, there really is so much to take in. Kids try and sell you stuff through the car windows and it really is complete hussle and bussle. The whole place smells of incense and there is so much to see and take in.
Our hostel is in the middle of Themal in Kathmandu. Once at our hostel we dropped everything off in the room and went outside for a beer! The weather is gorgeous - really hot, it is monsoon season but so far it has only rained at night...I'm slowly working on a tan! We went out for some dinner to a nice place called New Orleans where we feasted on veggie burgers and coke. Yum yum.
Today we have been up since 7.30. The amazing Binay came to meet us at 8.30 to show us round a bit of Nepal. In total we walked about 6 miles (and a million steps!) and visited this amazing place called 'The Monkey Temple". It was up the steepest set of stairs I have ever seen and I don't think I have ever sweated as much in my life but it was totally worth it! There are monkeys all the way up and when you reach the top you can see over the whole of Kathmandu. There are beautiful statues and prayer flags and it is just an incredible experience. I will put photos on facebook soon! After our hefty walk we went to Binays favorite place for some traditional Nepali food called 'Small star'. We ate thupka and momo's which are YUUUUUUUMMMMMMMMYYYY. Thupka is a spicy noodle based soup with egg on top which costs 35rs for a HUGE bowl (35rs is about 30p!) and momos are these amazing steamed dumplings which are also 30p for about 10! For five of us to eat with two drinks it came to under a fiver....thats a Max Mosley bargain there!
So that is pretty much us up to date now! I apologise for my spelling and grammer! I hope you are all well and I am missing you all loads but having the BEST time. I LOVE NEPAL!!
LOVE TO YOU ALL!!!!! XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
