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