Pampering at the Plaza

After a great night's sleep and a welcome lie-in bed Sarah took me to the Health Spa for a spot of relaxation and a pampering session. We lay by the pool side sunbathing after a while I tested the water (with my toe) however, it was freezing so I resumed the sunbathing! After a couple of hours we had a manicure and pedicure. Unusually, this was done by men. They were very thorough, ending the session with a arm and lower leg massage. Afterwards I felt relaxed and very clean!

Back to Delhi!

Arrived in Delhi around 7pm on Friday evening. Our plane was delayed. It was great to see Sarah and mark again and we spent a great evening eating a fantastic home cooked Indian meal and looking at our photos on their television.

Bhaktapur

We rounded off our time in Kathmandu with a trip to the Aincient town of Bhaktapur. It was like stepping back 200 years through time. We watched women and children drawing water fron wells in the middle of the town square, washing clothes outside their doors, feeding goats and geece by their front door and women knitting, spinning wool and hanging wool out to dry in the sunshine after it had been dyed.
Our plane leaves for Delhi today.

Kathmandu

Returned to Kathmandu to view some of the surrouding sights. This included the biggest Tibetan stupa outside Tibet, where hundreds of worshippers walk clockwise around its base. More and more Buddists join the procession as sunset approaches, chanting and spinning prayer
wheels as they do so.
It was a welcome relief to sit in a rooftop cafe and observe this as moments earlier we had visited a very important and sacred Hindu site where we were to witness the cremation of those dead whose families could afford such an elaborate ceremonial send-off!

Pokhara to Bandipur

After almost a week in quiet, peaceful Pokhera we decided it was time to move on. We were hoping to visit Royal Safari park at Chitwan, however, this did not seem possible due to a political situation in the area. So, we decided to visit a small village called Bandipur which is situated way up in the hills on our way back to Kathmandu.
Bandipur was small, very local and rather strange. We stayed overnight in a unique guest house which was furnished with a wealth of Buddha artifacts. Unfortunately, the spectacular views we were hoping to see were obscured by dust (apparently from the Rhajistan desert) which seems to be hanging like a mist over the majority of Nepal at the moment.

Paragliding over Mt Sarangkot

Today Rob gave me my belated valentine present ' A paragliding session!!!!
We were collected by minibus early in the morning. There was a feeling of great excitement as everybody was celebrating the colour festival of Holi. The paragliding pilots all had their faces painted with brightly coloured powder paint. Many of them rode on the roof of the mini-bus throwing coloured powder paint and water filled balloons at the passers by (many of them retaliated in a similar way)!! We were taken to the very top of mt Sarangkot, a beautiful spot which overlooks the whole of Pokhara. I was given my pilot Armand (a wiry little french man) He seemed very pleasant and explained the rules to me; 'when we take off, you must keep on running even when we leave the top of the mountain' (EEK)!! He told me how to lean to the left and the right when we were in the air and showed me a picture of the birds we might see while we were in the air; Vultures and Eagles!!
I was strapped into my harness, the parachute was unfurled and Armand had his harness on and, before I had time to be too worried, we were running towards the edge of the mountain!! The parachute dragged us back but we still ran then all of a sudden, we were flying way above the top of the mountain, looking down on the paddy fields below us!! Ahmand told me the weather conditions were perfect (the previous day there had been strong winds and many people had vomited!!) We soared way above the mountain and spiralled up into the thermals with an enormous vulture! Luckily Armand did not have another flight so we were able to stay in the air for longer than usual. All too soon, we were heading towards the lake side where we were to land. I did feel slightly dizzy as we spiralled down towards the lake, I did not fancy the idea of a wet landing!! The landing was good. However, I forgot to keep running and flopped down onto my knees. We quickly packed away the parachute and walked a few yards back to the office. A fantastic day!! What a great Valentine present!!!

The following morning, we continued our trek towards the beautiful, hilltop village of Chomrung. Our ultimate aim was to enter the Annapurna Sanctuary and hopefully, reach ABC (Annapurna Base Camp). It took nearly all day to reach Chomrung. It was a very steep asent followed by a swift decent followed by yet another steep asent. However, the views along the way were well worth the effort. We stopped for a welcome drink of tea and hot lemon pancake at a tea house just outside Chomrung. The view of the Fish Tail mountain and Annapurna South were stunning. Above us there were Griffins circling in the sky. We reached Chomrung around dusk. We had walked for around six hours!

The following morning was bright and clear. We headed towards our destination with the fish tail mountain in our view. The decent was steep! We climbed down over 3,000 (so I was informed)stone steps, then up a winding footpath then more even steeper stone steps. All the time the landscape around us was changing from green fields to rhododendron trees and Bamboo forest. We spent the night at Buddha Lodge in a small village named Bamboo (after the surrounding vegetation). During the evening, several other parites arrived at the lodge. They had all reached ABC and had some great experiences to tell us. The evening was cold and a Cerosene heater was put under the table to warm us. It also dried and warmed our boots and clothes.

The following day we set off towards Hymalayan Hotel. The landscape was beautiful, like an enchanted forest. We saw black faced, grey Lemur monkeys watching us from the ruins of a disused lodge. We reached the Hymalayan Lodge around lunchtime. It had snowed heavily. We decided to spend the rest of the day and the night there. It was at a higher altitude than we had previously been so it would help us to acclimatise to the higher altitude of our next destination. The night was very cold so we borrowed several thick quilts to keep us warm.

The next morning we set off for Derali, from there, we hoped to reach the ABC (Annapurna Base Camp) the following day. However, as we approached Derali, we had to cross an avalanche which we were told had happened the previous evening. When we reached Derali, the news was not good, nobody had set off for ABC on account of the heavy snow and more avalanches. Towards the afternoon, more trekkers arrived at the Derali lodge, hoping, like us, to make it to the ABC. We stayed the night, hoping the snow would clear.

The following morning, the snow was still too deep to attempt to reach ABC. We were less than five hours away from our goal!!!! We decided to decend along with the other groups of trekkers who had stayed at the lodge.

It was much easier to decend!! The snow was powdery and fun to walk on (I fell down a few times but was ok once I got used to it!!!) It took only 2 days to return to Chomrung. From there we decended steeeply to a tiny village called Jhinu.

Jhinu is famous for it's hot springs. We spent a very relaxing two days there. The hot springs were wonderful! Were were watched by several families of brown Rhesus monkeys. Apparantly, they wait until people have left the springs then they go in for a bath!!

After Jhinu, we continued our journey towards Tadopanni. The landscape changed again to Paddy fields and farmland. Again we climbed and decended steeply. The following day was bright and clear, the landscape changed yet again to tall Rhodedendron, birch and Magnolia forest. The Annapurna Massif was continually prominant in between the trees. It was much easier to walk as we were following a ridge. We spent the night at a small hamlet named Derali (yes! Another Derali). From here we ascended 200m to a viewpoint with observation tower to take in sunrise over the mountain panorama. We were the only people there, unlike the famous poon hill which affords similar views but is crammed with over 100 tourists each morning. After breakfast we began the long descent, via Ghorenpani to Nayapul. Although downhill virtually all the way it was tough on the knees with over 5000 steep stone steps. We did not envy those coming up. It took another over-night stop in a local village (where for those who were really struggling could hire a pony to reach their destination) before finally reaching NayaPul late the next afternoon.

Back in Pokhara!

Wow! What a fantastic experience!! I have never done anything so rewarding or physically challenging!
We began our trek after an hour's taxi journey which took us up and around the foothills to the start of our trek at a village called NayaPul. We took our trekking pass and reported in to the office to let them know how long we were going to be in the concervation area for and where we intended to go. Then we treked for 7 hours (with a few stops at tea houses along the way for a refreshing drink of black tea- with lots of sugar in for energy!!) We arrived in a beautiful village set into the hillside called Gandruk. Strangly enough, we were asked by a Napalise guy where we lived in the UK. When we replied Derby , we were told the owner lived near Derby in a town called Belper!!! Imagine that!!!
The following day we hoped to walk to a village called Chomrung however, I think we had overdone it the previous day, without a porter or guide to help us, we found it very hard going up and down hills some of the steepest hills I had ever climbed so we stayed the night in a small local hamlet at the bottom of a very steep hill. We were so tired we could hardly eat our dinner!!