Hotel Lovely Mount Pokhara

... but it was nice to be out and about and everything is just so different you could wander around the little villages for ages without getting bored. I even had a skipping session in shigatse (a stop en route to old tingri). It was quite amusing doing it at the high altitude. In England i could go for perhaps 30 mins without stopping. Here 3 minutes later i felt like i was gonna die, but i figured it was all good for acclimatisation so i battled on. 3 minutes turned into 30 ...

... du Funky Buddha, ou j'ai bu deux rhums coke. Un dj de Suede, a premiere vue connu, mixait de la grosse trance, pas mal, et une trentaine de personnes dansaient et fumaient, sauf moi qui ne me trimballe rien sur moi....<br>Lever 6 h ce matin, ai pris le bus pour 7h30, bien confortable compare au Sri Lanka, mais en meme temps j'ai paye 18 $... Et on etait que des touristes! Une bouteille d'eau offerte, arret pipi, arret petit dejeuner, arret lunch avec repas inclus ...

... Gompa (monastery) and we watched a Buddhist service and spoke with many of the young monks who live and practice there. Our guesthouse was memorable as well. It faced the dramatic Northface of Annapurna II and they served a particularly excellent dal bhaat (the Nepali standard food of lentils and rice ...

... Imagine a teahouse with uncomfortable wooden benches with matresses as thick as a wooden board, about 40 cm wide. Now imagine laying there for 11 hours while it is -15 degrees Celsius in the teahouse... (I don't even want to know the outside temperature) The worst thing however was that at 4.45 I had to get up to pee (does that come as a surprise...), trust me when I say that wasn't funny. When I came back Moritz said he had a bad headache, which is a ...

... Sadly, there is a threat coming from the locals as well. I had a chance to talk to a Canadian trekker, who was nastily assaulted by two local youngsters hitting her with a metal bar.<br>Overall, this one of the finest and most spectacular treks on earth provides a profound experience and whatever you're after, you'll surely find it along the way...<br><br>In a nutshell:<br>- saw two 8-thousanders &#8211; Dhaulagiri (world's #7 ...

... buy. I think I mentioned before how enterprising these people are! I know that so far on my trip I have had some wonderful experiences but this tops them all to date. So much so that I am going out on the river again tomorrow for a short but intense rafting trip which is only about 2 hours but pretty much all rapids&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;bring it on!! Oh and I hope to be able to add a few extra pictures later so look out for those....some action shots with luck!<br>

... while admitting that I was lucky that it stopped raining so the road to Kathmandu is open again. The driver answers, "Yes, dhe weadher somedimes bad, bud look dhere!" pointing left with his hand. &#8220;MEIN GOTT!&#8221; I exclaim in awe, when I see the breathtaking view on the 7000 and 8000 metres tall Himalayan peaks towering behind the city.<br><br>Even though I had seen even taller mountains before this in Tibet (as well as in Nepal though from distance), but this ...

... sun in my comfy chair by the lake by 10am! Matt arrived later and we spend a very easy day reading and chilling.<br><br>Krishna had mentioned after our last trek that he might be in Pokhara and sure enough he called so we had dinner in a little local place where Matt also joined us. It appears that Krishna is available to take me on another trek around the Pokhara valley where he has promised spectacular views!! However, I did voice my concerns to them both after my recent experience ...

... 11am I thought we should head back before it started to rain. I was tempted by an interesting looking ridge walk but decided this was probably far enough for today, especially as we had yet to get down!<br><br>We made it back to the peace stupa without incident but then as we took a shortcut down through the forest the heavens opened. Fortunately there was a shelter quite close so we stumbled down the increasingly slippery path to the shelter. As we sat there ...

... to turn around an hour or so because of the weather. As we hiked back down to Gorak Shep we saw the most surreal scene. A man on his horse was galloping at full speed on the Gorak Shep plateau. He galloped from one end of the sandy plateau to the other, turned around and went for another one, and another one... I don't know where they came from, I don't know how the horse could gallop at this altitude and survive such a tremendous physical effort. It was so poetic and so amazing to ...