Three weeks in Nepal
Trip Start
Sep 16, 2004
1
Trip End
Oct 06, 2004
Kathmandu,
Nepal
Saturday, July 29, 2006
We flew from Frankfurt to Quatar and from there to Kathmandu. First impression: What a chaos. A dirty, unorganized city, but absolut lovable. Groups of dogs are crossing the streets together, cows are laying on the street. We lived in Thamel, a part of the city with many restaurants and shops (oh my god, I do not know how many Euro I spent for souveniers...). The first day in Nepal we visited some parts of Kathmandu and of course the "temple of monkeys" (sorry, I am sure that this is the wrong translation). The atmosphere was amazing: we went there early in the morning; it was end of September and the end of the rainy season, so there were nearly no tourists, only monks and many animals
Bon appetit
. Some monkeys were hunting cats, some dogs were hunting the cats and some goats were hunting the dogs...!On the second day our trekking tour started. We went by bus to Pokhara, saw beautiful landscapes. After six hours we arrived where we started our trip. Bad luck, after ten minutes of trekking there was such a bad cloudburst that we had to stop soon, so the second day we had to walk from 8 am to 11 pm, that was really exhausting. In the following seven days we passed by Landruk, Ghandruk, Beni and many other villages, I can not remember the names. It was raining nearly all the time, but we were rewarded for our efforts. On the sixth day we went to POON HILL, a observation deck on a mountain (3201 m) to see the sunrise. It was the only day we had good weather and it was amazing to see some mountains higher than 8000 m (Anapurna I, Dhaulagiri) and the sunrise...WOW WOW WOW!!! My biggest problem in the mountains were the leeches, they are sooooo disgusting. When they bite you the bleeding does not stop. And of course I collected most leeches in the seven days in the mountains....! Once we came in a dangerous situation...when we climbed Poon Hill there were some Maoists (rebells) who had guns. But after paying 12 $ each person we could continue walking. Our guide told us not to speak english because Maoists hate Americans, so we got no problems.
After that exhausting trip we rested for two days in Pokhara and visited some sights.
Then we flew back to Kathmandu from where we flew to east Nepal to see some other mountains higher than 8000 m. It was amazing to see the top of the world, Mt. Everest...!Two days of resting in Kathmandu followed, they were nice, but quite dangerous because of the curfew which we disobeyed accidentaly
Child in Nepal
. On that day - we rented a minibus - 16 minibusses in Kathmandu were bombed, we saw them completely burned out the next day. We had luck, fortunately nothing happened.One day later we started our Rafting tour on Trisuli river which was really funny. There was Raju, our guide and three assistents. It was more relaxing than exhausting, we had a great time. It was amazing to take a shower under a waterfall. The best thing was the food: Raju was the perfect cook. With a camping stove he conjured a six course meal....! In the morning he woke us up with fresh pancakes, I think I gained more than one kilo in three days..!
Our last station in Nepal was Royal Chitwan Park in the south of the country. By then I thought that there are only mountains in Nepal, I was wrong. In the National Park we saw two types of crocodiles, rhinos, parrots, ice-birds and many many other animals, it was amazing.
Nepal was one of my best trips ever, only South Africa was better...!
Everything is sooooo cheap for one from Europe, the landscape is amazing, the people are sooooooooooo kind and beautiful and there is so much to see, not only mountains as I thought before....! Food in Nepal is amazing. In the mountains you stop in small villages and the people prepare all the food fresh for you. When you eat a chicken soup you can be sure that the chicken walked around until five minutes ago. Try MOMOS, they are like tortellini, but better...! I preferred the vegetarian alternative.
