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Nepal

April 12 through May 1, 1997

Nepal is a world of mountains piercing the clouds, ancient cities and villages, green terraced mountainsides and even jungles. Nepal was a place we'd wanted to go for as long as we can remember. Once we got there, it was everything we had imagined.

The Long Trip to Nepal

Part of travel, probably by definition, involves transportation problems but so far we hadn't had any. In Thailand, we'd even arrive at a bus station to find that our bus was leaving in two minutes. So we knew we were due.

We were flying to Nepal on Royal Nepal Airlines, the national carrier of one of the world's poorest countries, and we headed to the airport wondering what the flight would be like. We got there, the flight was listed as on time, and we boarded a little after 2 PM for an on-time departure. Then we sat there, and sat there and sat there.

Finally, the pilot announced that Indian air traffic controllers had gone on strike, and to get to Nepal we had to fly over a tiny sliver of India. The strike was unexpected and had just happened and they were trying to figure out if we’d be able to go. A bit later, the word came to off-load the plane so that we could wait in the terminal. 

Off the plane, back in the terminal

As day turned into night, we were still waiting, when finally, at about 10 PM, they told us that the flight had been delayed until 8 AM the next morning. They also told us that we’d be put up overnight at a hotel in Bangkok, but that we had to wait for a bus to come from Bangkok to get us. The problem with that was that it was the beginning of the Thai New Year, which was a four-day weekend and Thailand's biggest holiday. With everyone was leaving the city for the long weekend, traffic was gridlocked, and it was taking people three and a half hours to get to the airport from downtown. It was going to be a long wait for the bus.

Rather than wait for the bus, we decided that we try to get back into the city on our own. But that was a problem because we’d already gone through immigration and so had “left” Thailand and didn’t have visas to get back in. After some pleading, Immigration surprisingly said that they’d let us back in if left our passports with them until we returned the next morning. We got out of the airport only to find massively long lines of people waiting for taxis. To avoid that we went to Arrivals and caught a taxi dropping some people off. We got to the hotel after midnight to catch some sleep before a bus was supposed to come fetch us at 5 AM for a flight that probably wasn’t really going to leave at 8 AM.

In the morning, we found that most of the flight hadn’t made it to the hotel – just a Thai tour group that was being very well cared for by their tour operator and four Aussies who had seen us talk our way out and had done the same. The bus never made it and everyone else had spent the night at the airport.

At 5 AM, we learned through the tour group that the flight wasn’t going to leave at 8 AM, but maybe later. The rest of the day was news of further delays and we spent the day alternatively sleeping, reading, and finally drinking beer in the lobby with the Aussies and one Thai guy. Finally, we received news that the flight was going to leave and a bus came and got us. At 7:40 PM, 29 hours late, we finally lifted off out of Bangkok.

Reading the news in the morning
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Our group at the hotel

We later found out that the Indian air traffic controllers had gone on strike because one had been suspended for directing a United Airlines plane toward an Indian Airlines plane. Apparently, Indian air traffic controllers don't think that near misses are a big deal because they hadn't had a mid-air collision in six months.

K-K-K-Kathmandu

We arrived at Kathmandu at about 9 pm and got through Immigration at about 10 PM, relieved to finally be there, but exhausted by the long waits and lack of sleep. We fought our way out of the airport through the ubiquitous Third World touts and got a taxi to Thamel, the major tourist district. We got there and everything was lit up like Christmas, many of the streets were closed, and there were people everywhere. Cool place, we thought, but we were so tired we thought we'd wait to explore until tomorrow. We found a hotel and went to bed. The next morning we found out that we'd missed Nepal's New Year’s Eve.

Kathmandu in the morning

Kathmandu is everything we had hoped it would be. It's an ancient, mystical, dusty maze of people, buildings, and streets sprawling in the middle of the Kathmandu Valley, and the city is ringed by mountains. By day there is movement and noise everywhere--cars, trucks, tuk-tuks (three wheeled mini taxis), rickshaws, and bicycles trying to make their way down streets that are too small and that are flooded with pedestrians because there's no room for sidewalks. The city is a huge bazaar. The "real" bazaar is a teeming mass of people selling and buying. Elsewhere, more and more stores selling trinkets to the tourists: carpets, sweaters, funny hats, posters of the mountains, tours to the mountains, rivers, and jungles, flutes, tiger balm, fake Swiss army knives. Everywhere you walk, there are whispers:

"Change money?"
"Buy marijuana (Good stuff, try first)"
"Buy hashish? (I have opium too.)"
"Buy carpets? (Special morning price.)"
"Need rickshaw?"

 

The streets are mazes, narrow and twisting, with buildings closing in overhead. Everything and everyone is on the streets – porters carrying huge, crippling loads on their backs: bricks, sofas, grains, office furniture, beer, anything. Cows roaming the streets and laying down in them with cars veering around them. Car and truck horns sound constantly, mixed with bicycle bells and whistles from rickshaw drivers. Not so much out of anger or frustration, but just to let everyone know that they are coming. It's chaotic, but in a slow motion sort of a way.

Kathmandu street scenes

Everything is old, much of it is ancient. The buildings go back centuries, and a lack of maintenance makes everything seem older. Even the new things are old. There are no new cars or trucks or buses, as they come into the country used. Carlsberg Beer was even having a promotion in which the grand prize was a 1990 Toyota billed as reconditioned. 

There are thousands of western tourists, and businesses to serve them. Almost any cuisine in the world is available here, although it doesn’t always taste like it’s supposed to. Everything's cheap and there's too much to buy. You bargain for everything and almost always pay too much, but it's still cheap. You walk down the streets and there's always more to buy and even better deals to be had: "Happy New Year price," or "special price for you," or "special morning price," or something else equally special. All done in a way that puts you at ease and makes you want to laugh. But the vendors won't take no for any answer. One guy followed Diane for five blocks until she broke down and bought two flutes. Another chased her until she bought necklaces. A carpet merchant talked her into his shop. "OK," she said, "but I'm not buying anything." Then she bought two rugs. Later, she commented on how persistent the salesman were, but didn’t think why. 

Exploring Kathmandu and buying rugs

At the same time, you can't escape how poor Kathmandu is. It's ancient because there's little money to change it. It's a city full of poor people struggling to make money where there's little to be had. At best, Nepal is the world's 20th poorest country, and it shows. But unlike elsewhere in the Third World, few people just hang around. Instead, everyone is in constant motion trying to take advantage of what little is there.

Kathmandu is more different and exotic than anywhere else we’d been, while at the same time being comfortable and easy to be part of. It was hard to leave.

The Bus to Pokhara and the Nepal Countryside

We were headed to Pokhara to begin our trek to Annapurna Sanctuary, which was a seven hour bus ride away over twisting Nepal roads. You hear stories about bus rides in Nepal, mostly about buses plunging over cliffs. Shortly after departure, we had to put our names and passport numbers on a manifest "for the TV and newspapers in case of an accident," we were told. Our ride was uneventful, but we did see evidence that the stories were true. We saw a truck being winched up a hillside, a bus that had rolled, and a jeep that had been in a head-on collision.

We left the outskirts of Kathmandu and then slowly climbed out of the Kathmandu Valley. From the top, we then headed down more steeply than we had come up, with nothing but hairpin curves and near vertical drops. It was a road definitely befitting the Himalayas. We eventually reached the bottom, and we got our first glimpse of Nepal outside of Kathmandu Valley. Except for the south of the country, it's a vertical world with no flat places, only steep hillsides, mountains, and deep gorges.

To an amazing extent, the Nepalese have tamed this landscape. Houses dot the mountainsides, and the mountains have been terraced into fields. The soil is as rocky as in New England, but instead of building stone walls, the rocks are used to build the retaining walls that support the terraces. The terraced fields represent centuries of labor to create small flat spaces carved into steep mountain slopes to grow mostly rice, wheat, and all the other things that make life possible here.

Mountain terraces

Touts with Ties

Everywhere in the Third World, touts try to sell you just about everything. They're usually in bus stations, airports, and tourist districts and there's little that you can do to avoid them completely. They're often pretty sleazy, and when it come to hotels, they usually tell you things like the place you really want to go is "closed," "full," or "not good anymore," and that they “know a much better place."

 

In Pokhara, there are about a hundred guesthouses, and in April, not enough tourists to fill them. This guaranteed that we’d be surrounded by touts as soon as we arrived. When we pulled into Pokhara, they were there, but different. They all had white shirts and ties on – in a country where ties are rare. This may have been the largest collection of ties in the whole country, and they all looked like Mormon missionaries. They were also holding up signs with our names on them.

We later learned that Pokhara had decided to try to civilize its touts and that they are required to wear the white shirts and ties. They are also required to speak English reasonably well. In spite of Pokhara’s efforts, though, they were still touts, and their pseudo uniforms didn’t their behavior. We also figured out that someone on the bus had sent them our names from the bus’s manifest, which is how they got our names for the signs. They were cleverer than most other touts.

Trekking to Annapurna Sanctuary

Like everyone else, the main reason we'd gone to Nepal was to go trekking in the Himalayas. We were going to Annapurna Sanctuary, where we would be surrounded by mountains over 20,000 feet tall. We started with a 60 minute taxi ride to Birethanti. Mary and Diane had hired a porter/guide named Prem to carry their stuff, so there were five of us and all our stuff, plus the driver, crammed into a 1970s vintage Toyota.

 

All the way, the driver honked his horn whenever he passed another vehicle, there was an oncoming vehicle, or there was a pedestrian. He had to do this, he said, "to let everyone know he was coming and if he didn't, and he got in an accident, then it would be his fault." And he wasn't alone as every other vehicle did the same. Because of this, one of the predominant sounds in Nepal is honking horns. (At night, like everywhere else in the Third World, this gives way to the sound of barking dogs.)

Day One, Birethanti to Ghandruk

At Birethanti, the real trek began. At first, the trail was a veritable "Himalayan Highway." It was about eight feet wide and paved with stone and the steep parts were stone stairs. The trail was heavily traveled by Nepalese and donkeys carrying goods. Many of he Nepalis were also carrying huge loads on their backs: long timbers, three or more backpacks, beer, food, soda, empty bottles, produce, windows and other building materials, even other people who were too old or frail to walk by themselves.

Starting out
Donkey train

As we started, we had a view of the 23,000 foot high Machhapuchhre, or Fishtail Mountain, which is considered the Matterhorn of the Himalayas, far off in the distance. This is where we would be in four or five days. On either side of us were terraced fields and houses reaching high up the mountainsides. We started at about 3,500 feet, and the fields went to well over 6,000 feet. It's a world that is more vertical than horizontal.

For two hours the trek was relatively flat. Then the climb began nearly four hours up to over 6000 feet to the village of Ghandruk. Most of the climb was a steep, almost never-ending stone staircase. Around us were still houses and terraced fields, and ahead of us were the 20,000-foot-plus peaks around the Annapurna Sanctuary, and the narrow, deep canyon that would take us there.

Machhapuchhre, the Fishtail mountain
Starting to climb
Up some more
Taking a break
Taking a break

In Ghandruk, Prem led us to the Hotel Milan which has a gorgeous stone patio surrounded by potted plants and with an amazing view of Machhapuchhre. The rooms were better than we'd expected, the bathrooms had hot showers and flush toilets, and we were a bunch of happy trekkers. The owner informed us that the hotel's name had nothing to do with Italy. Instead, it meant "harmony" in Nepalese and it was also the name of his son.

After enjoying the view from the patio for a little while, we wandered around town. Ghandruk is one of the larger mountain villages in the area, with a population of about 600 people. It's also one of the more affluent towns. Many of the villagers were or had been Ghurka Soldiers in the British and Indian armies, and their salaries and pensions come back to the village. Ghandruk is almost all stone--stone buildings, stone roofs, and a maze of stone walkways which eventually led us in a big loop back to the Hotel Milan. Then, in what would become a daily pattern, the sky clouded up and it began to rain.

Entering Ghandruk
Ghandruk

Day Two, Ghandruk to Chhomrong

This was the only day where we wouldn't be gaining or losing significant elevation, but that didn't make the trail flat. From Ghandruk, we quickly descended 1,200 feet to cross a river, then immediately climbed steeply back the same amount. There was a brief flat section as we traversed the terraces towards Chhomrong, but trekking in an up-and-down country means walking up and down a lot.

The trail continued to be a Himalayan Highway. It wasn't quite as heavily traveled as the day before, but we encountered many pack trains of donkeys as well as grazing water buffalos on the trail. With the pack trains, we'd stand aside to let them go by, though sometimes the donkeys would take the trail three abreast and we'd have to push them aside or get run over. With the buffalo, we'd thread our way through them, hoping they wouldn't mind (or kick). Fortunately, the buffalo were placid, and we even saw kids climbing on them and jumping off as if they were playground equipment. We also saw our first group of monkeys along this section, which was the first time any of us had seen monkeys outside of a zoo!

Kids and a kid
Terraces near Chhomrong

Day Three, Chhomrong to Dovan

This day started in a similar fashion as the previous day--down, down, down. Chhomrong is a village strung along a long, steep stairway down to the river. We descended about 1000 feet, crossed the river, and then up, up, up again, mostly on yet another stone stairway. Chhomrong is the last permanent village on the trail to the Sanctuary, and we were slowly leaving civilization behind. Now we walked along fewer terraced fields, and a few isolated farmhouses, with the terrain becoming more wooded and the trail becoming less of a road and more like a hiking trail. The donkey trains and buffalo were behind us--virtually all of the people on the trail were trekkers or porters hauling trekking supplies to the upper lodges. Everyone greets you on the trail: "Namaste!"

We arrived at Dovan, which is a collection of three small, identical lodges at about 8600 feet. At our lodge, we spent the afternoon and evening in the dining hall, mostly because it was raining again. The table had a kerosene heater under it, which was good because it had gotten cold outside. Fortunately, all lodges from here into the Sanctuary would have these heaters.

Nights in the dining halls were falling into a pattern. We'd meet the other guests (usually between six and ten guests per lodge), talk about where we'd been and where we were going, eat dinner, and then play card games or Bhaak Chaal. Bhaak Chaal, or "Tiger Moving Game," is the national game of Nepal. We bought a set in Kathmandu and brought it trekking, and it was a big hit with the porters and innkeepers all along the way. The game involves a lot of strategy, and we learned from watching the Nepalese playing it.

Along the trail to Dovan
Playing Donkey Moving game

Day Four, Dovan to Deurali

This was our easiest day, as we only had about three hours of hiking to do and were only gaining about 1,000 feet in elevation. We chose Deurali as our destination for the day because it is the last place to stop before entering Annapurna Sanctuary and you need to enter early in the morning. That’s because the trail crosses several avalanche chutes that become active in the late morning and early afternoon after the sun warms the snow. By spending the night in Deurali and then leaving at 7 AM, we'd be beyond the avalanche zone by 9 AM.

We arrived at Deurali at about 11:30 AM, and it was already beginning to cloud up. Throughout our trek, the weather pattern had been brilliant blue skies in the morning, then building clouds, and then rain. As we got higher the clouds and rain came earlier and earlier. This day, we arrived in Deurali by 11:30 AM and the clouds were already building. They obscured the sky by noon, and the rain started shortly thereafter and then changed to hail. By evening it had become a downpour of hair that banged noisily off the steel roof. As we'd done the day before, we hung around in the dining hall with other trekkers, talking, playing games, eating, and hoping for better weather in the morning.

Along the trail to Deurali
Deurali before the ice storm

Day Five, Icebound in Deurali

As planned, we woke at 6:00 AM to get an early start through avalanche country. Then we looked outside and everything was covered with about two inches of solid ice. One trekker at our lodge did start out at 6:30 but then quickly returned because it was too slippery. Some others started up and and also came back. A whole bunch of us milled around trying to figure out what to do. The theme of the morning became The Clash song, "Should I Stay or Should I Go?:"

"Should I stay or should I go now?
If I stay it will be trouble,
If I go it will be double,
So you gotta let me know,
Should I stay or should I go?"

Everybody had a different opinion of what to do, including the porters. Prem wanted to stay, Geoff and Mary wanted to go, Lauren wanted to stay, and Diane said she wouldn't go. In the end, the five of us stayed, although some people did go.

Deurali after the ice storm
Doing laundry on our off day in Deurali

Day Six, Annapurna Sanctuary at Last

Monday morning dawned bright and cold. Most of the ice had melted the day before and the trail was now clear. We put on our layers and headed out. In the beginning, the trail was free of snow, but after an hour, it became snow-covered. The springtime weather that we had started out in was now far behind us and we were now in a winter wonderland. The canyon we were hiking up kept narrowing, but the mountains towered above the canyon walls, and so we could see what was to come. We crossed a number of avalanche fields, but only one was recent.

Sooner than we expected, we reached Machhapuchhre Base Camp (MBC). We'd finally entered Annapurna Sanctuary, which is a huge bowl surrounded by huge mountains. We were at 12,000 feet, and the peaks around us were over 10,000 feet higher. Except for the narrow canyon that we had entered through, we were completely surrounded by some of the most dramatic mountains in the world –  three of the Annapurnas, Machhapuchhre, and others that are even harder to pronounce. To be here is why we'd come to Nepal and it was as spectacular as he had hoped.

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Into the snow
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Lauren crossing avalanche chute
Entering Annapurna Sanctuary
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Looking back from where we came

From MBC, we headed further up the Sanctuary to the end of the trail at Annapurna Base Camp (ABC), which took another two and a half hours and was at an elevation of over 14,000 feet. The hike to ABC was steadily uphill over slushy snow. The altitude made it hard for all of us, but especially for Diane and Lauren. Mary was hurting too, but plowed ahead and was the first one up. We finally made it to ABC at about 1:30 PM and were relieved to have made it. We checked into a guesthouse, marveled at how deep the snow was (up to the rooftops) and once again stared at the mountains in awe. That night there was a full moon and the snow-covered mountains of Annapurna Sanctuary glowed white in the moonlight.

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We made it
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Annapurna Sanctuary
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Annapurna Sanctuary
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Annapurna Sanctuary

Day Seven, Fleeing from Annapurna Sanctuary

In the morning, Lauren and Mary were suffering from the altitude. Neither had slept, both were nauseous. The only thing that would help them would be to get to a lower altitude, so we headed down right after breakfast. The descent from ABC to MBC was fast. The snow was still firm and we were able to walk on top of it, and what took two and a half hours to come up took only 50 minutes to get down. Still, Lauren kept feeling as if she were going to throw up. Mary looked worse.​

 

The hike from MBC to Deurali was slower as we had to cross avalanche fields and the snow got slushier. Finally, we were out of the snow and back to Deurali. We kept going to Dovan, which was about 8,600 feet, or almost 5,500 feet lower than where we had started. Mary and Lauren had hiked seven hours to get there, feeling horrible the whole time.

Day Eight, Dovan to Chhomrong

Wednesday morning, Mary was OK, and Lauren was better but still getting stomach cramps (we later found out that she’d picked up Giardia somewhere along the way. We retraced our steps to Chhomrong--another long day, but now winter was far behind and we were back into the springtime.

This day was Diane's day for problems, and one of her knees was hurting. Between this and Mary's problems the day before, they'd reached their limits and had decided to head back by the most direct route, which would mean two more days instead of four. We spent our last night together at "Captain Lodge," which was one of the best lodges we stayed at on the trek. The Captain was a retired Captain from the British Ghurkas. He was very proud of his 24 hour hot shower and electricity from 6:30 to 9:00 in the evening. We were happy he had both.

On the way to Chhomrong
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On the way to Chhomrong
All of us at Captain Lodge

Day Nine, Chhomrong to Tadepani

The Captain's Lodge was at the bottom of Chhomrong, and so we started the day with a 25 minute climb to the top, almost all on stairs. At the top we parted ways with Diane and Mary and headed to Tadepani. In the beginning, it a long traverse along the side of a ridge and was the easiest trekking we had done. However, in front of us was a gorge and a river to cross.

Crossing a river is the low point of a trek in Nepal, both emotionally and physically. The rivers are almost all in steep, deep gorges, and crossing means a knee crunching descent to the river. Usually the drop is over 1,000 feet. Then, when you finally get to the bottom, you have to go all the way back up as much as you came down. This day was the worst with a steep unrelenting climb down, and then an even steeper longer climb up.

Starting out of Chhomrong
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Women working in the fields

Day Ten, Tadepani to Ghorepani

We started as we often did, which was climbing either straight up or straight down. Today, it was steeply down to cross a stream and then back up further than we'd gone down. Finally, the trail leveled out and then went only gradually up and down. Such a luxury!

From Tadepani to Ghorepani, the trail was mostly through forest, and there was only one small village. After a while, we entered a Rhododendron forest, which is a forest of trees that are like the bushes at home, except that they are big, gnarly trees up to 50 or 60 feet tall. This time of year, they also bloom like the bushes at home. Most were red, some were pink, and a few were white. At one point, we looked down on Ghorepani, and from above, you could imagine that it was Vermont in early fall when most trees were still green but many of the maples were starting to turn red. Except here, it was spring, and the trees had just turned green, and the color was from the red flowers covering the trees. After New England, this may be nature's second-best foliage display. It was all a great surprise to us and we just happened to hit it during one of the few weeks of full bloom.

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Rhododendron Forest
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Rhododendron Forest
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Rhododendron Forest
Lodge at Ghorepani

At the lodge, we met a British couple who had a really impressive medical kit and thought that Lauren's stomach problems and nausea sounded like the Giardia and their kit had pills that would cure it. And since they were British they had the British ones that work in 24 hours or so and not the American ones that take a few days. She took their pills and about 24 hours she was better.

Day Eleven, Poon Hill and Back to Civilization

We'd come to Ghorepani to climb Poon Hill, which has is reputed to have one of the best views in the world – a long unbroken stretch of the Annapurna Range. When we arrived in Ghorepani the afternoon before, we couldn't see it because the clouds had already arrived. The thing to do is to wake up before 5 AM, and then climb the 45 minutes up Poon Hill to watch the sun rise over the Himalayas. I did do the early wake up and met some other people to do the climb, but Lauren stayed behind still recovering from the Giardia.

On this day, some thin clouds had already arrived by sunrise and so it was not as spectacular as it often is. Even so, there were still a great view of huge snow-covered peaks from one end of the horizon to the other.

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Sunrise from Poon Hill
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View from Poon Hill

After I returned from Poon Hill, we decided to try to make it all the way out instead of via some hot springs as we’d previously planned. With Lauren still recovering, she thought lounging around back in Pokhara sounded better. The trek out was long, about seven hours including a stretch down 3,700 steps, and we made it to Birethanti about 5 PM. There was only 30 minutes left to the road, and we stopped to say goodbye to Andy and Stephanie, who we'd be trekking with and who were going to spend the night there.

Before we left, they told us they were going to check out the Lakshmi Lodge, which was written up in Andy's guidebook as a luxury lodge for organized treks that was open to anyone when groups weren't there. It turned out we were standing right in front of it and Lauren looked at it and decided that maybe it wasn't so important to get back to Pokhara. She went with Andy and Stephanie to see if rooms were available. The guy said, "yes, but..." They said, "but, what?" He said, "but the rooms are 550 rupees." That was about $9.50 US, which was much higher than the $1 to $3 that most places we had been staying in charged. He was used to people coming to look at the rooms and then leaving when they heard how expensive it was. But the place looked great, like really, really, great, and it was our last night so we splurged and paid the $9.50. It was the best place we stayed in Nepal.

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In front of the Lakshmi Lodge
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The best room we had in Nepal

Day Twelve, The End

Because we had spent the night in Birethanti, we technically hadn't finished our trek and still had 30 minutes to go. Given the extent of the grueling day in front of us, we slept late, ate a leisurely breakfast, and hung around the garden reading until almost noon. Then we finally made our way back to Pokhara.

Final Days in Nepal

We split our last four days in Nepal between Pokhara and Kathmandu. In both places, it was like Old Home Week. We'd walk around, go into a store, or go out to eat and run into all the people we'd seen on the trail and been cooped up with in dining rooms during the late afternoons and evenings when it was raining, hailing, and/or snowing. We hung out with them a lot, and when it was finally time to leave, wished we didn't have to.

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Floating on the lake in Pokhara

Quotable Quotes


Diane to Geoff on the bus ride to Pokhara: "I can't believe you're reading on this bus ride".
  --Diane to Geoff on the bus ride to Pokhara.
"It's not going well."
  --Geoff

"A 10 rating for bumps on the bus is when we hit our heads on the ceiling".
  --Geoff, later on the same bus ride.

"I'm sooooo tired, but I can still eat."  

   --Diane  & Mary on the 10th day of the trek

 

"In this country good food is food that doesn't make you sick".
  --Diane

"I think it's reasonable to assume that over a week you might be happy to have an upright toilet at least once."
  --Diane during a lengthy dinner conversation about bathrooms around the world.

"The party's over."
  --Diane, after seeing the bathroom at the lodge on the third night of the trek.

"Some.... Not much...I don't know..."
  --Lauren's standard reply when Geoff asked her if she has any money.

"I'm going to have to clean up my act."
  --Lauren, after Mary and Diane commented on the above.

"As long as I can order pizza, I'm not getting dahl baht."
  --Geoff.  (Dahl baht is rice and lentils.  We had been told that this was all we'd be able to order on the trek, but
        it wasn't true!)

Nepal Map

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Nepal Links

For more information on traveling to Nepal, the following are particularly good links:

Lonely Planet The best online source about Nepal for general information for independent travelers.


Nepal Home Page A very good site written by Nepalis with all kinds of information on Nepal.


The Katmandu Post Daily news about Nepal.

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