Dragon Pokhara

... to the Highway. School children, a sea of navy blue ties and skirts, giddily bound up the endless stone steps that have reduced even the fittest tourists to drooling sloths. This is the daily commute, five hundred metres straight up. The children laugh and play as they go, seemingly oblivious to the physical limitations imposed by the incline and the altitude. While their youthful energy may be excused, there is no comprehending the eighty year old ...

... in the middle of the night and there were even rumours 3 people had been killed. Everyone was stuck in Danaqyu until the bridge could be fixed and this wouldn't be fixed until the rain had stopped so we went into a tea house and were lucky to get a room and had to wait. This was when we started to get really cold and everything was wet. Spent the day and evening in the dining room with everyone as the rooms were freezing cold, met a really nice ...

... life. After I came back down, I met Sue and Raju (a very nice, cool, and surprisingly normal Nepali guy. Lol.) ;)

We enjoyed sitting in the garden overlooking the lake again, and then decided, for some bizarre reason, to go to Peace Pagoda on top of another small mountain to watch the sunset (or so we thought). Both Sue and I somehow didn't realize that after being dropped off by taxi in hopes of catching the sunset, we still had to climb for about 45 ...

... br>Trip Duration: 21 Nights/ 22 days

Country: Nepal (Annapurna region)

Trip Start from: Kathmandu

Trip Ends at: Kathmandu

Trip Grade: Easy- Moderate

Per day walking/Hiking: 4- 6 hrs

Service during Trip: Excellent- Deluxe

Minimum Group Size: from 1 Person & above

Activities: Trekking, Hiking & Cultural plus religious Tour

Maximum High Altitude: 5416 m at THORONG LA PASS (one of ...

... So very quiet and great. Get settled in and then it is time to order dinner and share a birthday drink with Ruth. I get the story about her lady guide not being friendly. Again, I realize how lucky I am with the guide that I have. He has invited me to visit his family and stay overnight there before ending the trek back in Pokara. After spending 7 days with him I think that I will be quite safe and accept the invitation.

... these cornfields and hillsides and then this woman yells out to us and tells us to keep going, turn left and then down. Well we got the first part ok and then the down part was like 3 hours of zig zagg-ing down this mountain side it was frikn crazy, slight underexaggeration from the locals but anyway, it got to 3pm and this old goat lady (who was herding goats up the path) who couldnt speak any english told us (atleast thats what we deciphered from her gesturing) it was ...

... Buddhism of Tibet and the Hinduism of India. Situated on a major, ancient trading route with Tibet that is still currently in use and is visited annually by thousands of pilgrims of both religions. The temple complex and supporting village sprawl across the hillside framed by the peaks of the Nilgiris in the west and centuries old, hilltop villages across the valley, and joy of joys we found the shower in our guest house was gas-fired - woo woo. With the exertions of the pass, and the ...

... along the road and constantly waiting for jeeps to pass. The hike was nice this day; good views along the riverbed. We all decided, though, to 'cheat' a little and take a bus to Tatopani where there are hot springs. The first leg of the cheat was ok, and we rode in a Toyota pickup whose truck bed had been fitted with seats. For the second leg, we had serious problems finding a bus. There hadn't been many all day, and a large group of locals were waiting for the one we ...

... flying, there were a few panic-stricken seconds as I processed the fact that a webbing harness, a few strings and a flimsy piece of fabric were all that stopped me from free-falling huindreds of feet to the rice terraces below. Then I looked around me at the view up high and relaxed into the sense of freedom. The mountains were playing hide and seek in the cloud again and they won: no ...

... pretty difficult to get in and out. The region we were in was the northern edge of the huge Gangetic plain which, as we had seen the day before, is almost entirely given over to rice cultivation these days. In times past, this southern part of Nepal was covered with malarial swamps and jungle and, together with the Himalaya to the north, aided the country in its isolation from international affairs. Now, apart from a few national parks, the area has been cleared for agriculture. It ...