Chitwan National Park and Janakpur.

We head out of KTM just after new year having not been able to get to Bhaktapur for new year. So 9 hours on a tourist bus wasnt too shabby. but it was hot! And Ed got groped by a Nepali woman feigning sleep. But we got down to chitwan and were immediately set upon by touts and guides for the local hotels. We hopped in a jeep and went to chilax house, pretty basic, 250 a night. cheap as chips.
on the second day we got up and were taken to the ground where we were to get on the elephants. I was bubbling with excitement. even more so when i saw the huge creatures sidling up to the huge mounting block, which consisted of a stair case and a platform, as you can see! I have to say its not the most comfortable ride but it is awesome none the less! Our sightings for the day bought us Peacock, monkeys. deer, warthog AND RHINO! It was amazing. And because we where on an elephant we got right up close! Here are the wildlife photos! Got to love the long lens! best money i ever spent!
In the afternoon we went out on a jungle walk which was not so fruit full it has to be said. we were also a little bit worried because of the prewarning about attacks from animals, it involved a lot of climbing trees which i'm not very good at! Our guide did look like Morgan Freeman though.
Hot night and then round 2, BABY ELEPHANTS! we walked most of the way then hitched a lift off a passing jeep. The elephant breeding centre is home to mummys and babys, and the cutest were the twins who had just come back from gathering food with their mum. This picture reminds me of fluff doing her baby dragon impression.They were seriously squidgy as fluff might say. However they were very mischievous. At around 9 we went and had our breakfast right next to the river. What happened in the nest 3 hours was one of the best experiences in my life. Elephant bathtime. Nothing quite like sitting in the baking sun and then hoping on board an elephant and getting soaked. Our guy (who reminded us of rafiki) has it right "Good shower!". We then spent a lovely afternoon swimming in the river, which was pretty nice actually!
Janakpur wasn't so great. It was very strange and more like India than Nepal, they didnt even speak nepali down there which made life interesting. AND THE FAT MONKEY WAS DEAD. i will explain this when i get home. it made me sad. But the Janakpur womens development centre was really good, and we saw the women there making the mithila paintings. however overall i don't think it was worth the 12 hour bus journey back! HOWEVER, I LOVE ELEPHANTS!!!!!!!! i bought myself a wooden one.

AV HAS A FOOT IN RUMDOODLE!

We have officially cataloged our achievement, well majoritively by putting a foot up in Rumdoodle - a bar for trekkers where once you have completed a trek you can put up a foot. So i made an AV one and everyone signed it. Hope you guys in the office like it! Oh and Richard the bars moved!!! Gaurav's going to go back and check out where they put it.

The real trek

So having heard the end of the tail i suspect you'd like to hear the rest, perhaps with some pretty pictures added in too...? if not well i will anyway!

Day 1: Pokhara - Tikedhunga .We started off the trek in Pokhara, not walking but hoping on to a bus, with our luggage and the porters. We were driven approx. 40km out of PKR in a town called Nayapul and began what was to be the easiest day of trekking, only 4 hours! but this worked well and we actually reached our destination before we realised it was lunch time. Lunch of Dal Bhat (Ed's t-shirt reads "dal bhat 24hrs power" which the guides love!). then continued plodding behind/ then in front of our first Pony/donkey caravan. When we got to the spot we were to stop for the night we were told there was waterfall near by. So Sarah, Julia, Ed, Magnus, Kirsten and I went with Naba (our guide) to this water fall. Everyone apart from me decided it would be a good idea to have a shower in the freezing cold mountain water.Then Ed and Magnus got under the water fall..... don't ask.

Day 2: Tikedhunga - Ghorepani. The day started with Joe being send back with dysentery, not great and having been forewarned that today was epic, and up hill, and majority steps i can't say we were optimistic about the day ahead. Not much to say apart from a hard day, especially as it was just Mahendra (the other guide) for a good 3 hours. Gaurav and Anna had a break down in the forest and lunch was over shot meaning that we didn't know where we were stopping. We also got squished in a huge goat herd on the way up the hill to Ghorepani. Yes there were nice Rhododendron forests, but no i wasn't really paying attention! keeping morale up was the main thing, also plying them with polos and menthos got them there i think! But slowly, slowl;y catches the monkey! Hot showers were a wonderful sensation considering as it was bloody cold outside! In the morning the view was spectacular, the Everest Group (ones going to EBC) got up at 3.30 to go to Poon hill to watch the sun rise!

Day 3:Ghorepani - Chuile. Straight up hill for the start of this and the altitude got to me a bit because of my delightful cough. So i was told to suck on a clove of garlic. In Ed's words it was like following a bowl of really good Spag bol! This time Everest over shot lunch because they were in front of the guide, so we had to keep going for another 2 hours. At the time we wanted to hurt them, but they were so apologetic we forgave them and were quite pleased when the rest of the day was only and hour down hill. This is me at Chuile with the owners daughter. she stole Carmella's pen so i was trying to get it back! On this day it was announced that an extra day had been added to our itinerary, there was some unrest in the group. A fellow non trekker (no names) cried for 5 hours. We thought that was quite impressive.

Day 4 (my last day of trekking with the group): Chuile - Sinuwa (upper). From chuile it was down hill all the way to the river... and in Nepal its not what goes up must come down, it's what goes down must come up! so down the valley, over the river and back up to the same height again all before lunch. At Chhomrong Naba left us due to a calf injury. From chhomrong we descended the steps (hundreds of them) to the river on the other side. Little did i know i was to come back up these stairs sooner than i had anticipated. All the way past (lower) Sinuwa, very deceptive, to (upper) Sinuwa. Just before the storm broke over our heads! We had a nice evening with some traditional Gurung dancing which we were invited to join in. At this point i wanted to go to bed, so i declined!

Day 5: Sinuwa- Sinuwa(on foot) Sinuwa - Kymli (by pony) I do have some pictures from the rest of the trip but i have to say this was where my journey ended with the group. But i did have a nice time clinging to a pony, going back up the Chhomrong steps on a horse, no reigns! Ed walked 8 hours behind this thing, and then the next day back to nayapul. So we did the same root just a bit missed out! Ps. I love my long lense! this was taken on it before i was ill at around 6 am, thats snow being blown off! Sadly the battery didn't last till ABC but julia got some awesome photos before that! one of which is this one.

The others kept going for 5 days, during which Ed, joe and i had a lovely time in the Kiwi Guest house, pokhara!

Roaming in the wilderness - the tale of ABC part one

ABC - or Annapurna base camp. Now those of you that know me well might reel back and laugh at the thought of me trekking for 9 days solid, but i have to say when i decided to do it i was pretty damn set on getting there. It was tough walking for 8 hours a day and as you may have heard i had to come down 2 days short of getting to the top. I was devastated to say the least, but when you're ill you're ill and Ed came down with me. I've got to say that without sounding too over emotional and soppy that i am so grateful that i have a boyfriend like him. Actually it's testament to what great friends i have out here as well. Because not only did Ed come down, Julia also offered. I'm trying to find you a map of our route but i can't find one at the moment. But yeah. So day 5 the other continued up, Ed got me a pony as i was just too weak and it took us 2 days to get down. I'd like to say now thank you to Ed, the porter Krishna, the pony man and nelly the pony (we joined a donkey caravan so it looked like we were going to the circus) who got me down the mountain in time to see a doctor. It turns out i had acute gastroenteritis so i'm glad i got down when i did.

I will do another post on ABC, a long one with pictures but i sent my camera up to base camp so i don't have any pictures, and i don't have enough money on me to stay on here much longer! So love to everyone and don't worry I'm alright now the pills are kicking in. I just rattle when i walk there are so many!

Lumbini, bandipur and Besisahar

After we were dismissed from our schools, we decided not to kill time in the house, and instead head out on part one of our adventure to the unknown. Round 1: Lumbini-birth place of Buddha. After 9 hours on a series of 3 hot hot hot Nepali buses we got down to the terai (flat part of Nepal) and boy they aren't lying. One thing i have learnt out there is that things aren't done by halves. When they say hills, they mean mountains, when they say flat, they mean that on a clear day you can see a good 30 km! We hopped off the bus and wandered over to The Lumbini village lodge, a nice place, although hundreds of mosquitoes (thank god for malaria tablets and executive mosquito net) and in Sarah's case..... bed bugs. Lumbini was nice enough within the walls of the sacred garden and Monastic zones. Really chilled and to be honest i could have sat under the bodhi trees all day next to the monks and various other repeating the mantras continuously. On the first day we went to the Mayadevi temple, which enshrines the exact spot of Lord Buddhas birth, pinpointed by a marker stone housed in bullet proof glass. the wall next to it is covered in gold leaf left by pilgrims. We spent a long time just sitting doing not very much. Apart from anything else it was just too hot. A good 40degrees in the midday sun. On the second day we hired bikes to cycle around the monasteries that are dispersed pretty few and far between. Most of them are still in the process of being built and Lumbini as a sight is pretty shabby, just every now and then with these great beautiful structures rising out of the ground. On the most beautiful was the Chinese Monastery, which apart from the Nepalese one looked to be the only completed one in the West monastic zone. Opposite however was being built the most enormous Korean Monastery, whcih at the moment is still a concrete monstrosity. I think i'm going to have to come back in 10 years and see how it looks! Other than them the Nepalese and Royal Thai Monasteries were the most impressive, the royal thai being made completely white marble. (I dont have a picture of it as my camera is currently up the mountain and Ed went back early so has no pictures on his camera card.)

Our next stop on the magical mystery tour was Bandipur, a defection free zone by it's own admission. The town is a typical traditional Nepali town, however Unicef have stepped in to save it from becoming over ridden by pollution and litter and so now it is remarkably clean! And absolutely beautiful. We had a nice time there visiting the cave, an old haunt for tigers apparently! A bit of a tour around the temples, playing giant chess whilst drinking mugs of black tea, and going on adventure to a random tree in a skirt and flip flops. This happened because magnus and sarah had gone on an adventure once we had got back from the cave and had discovered a huge rock that if you stand on it you get a 360 degree panorama of the surrounding valley (on a clear day). Just down from this rock was a large tree. We were told flip flops were suitable attire. Lets just say the flip flops came off and the inner 7 year old tomboy was released once again when a spot of rock climbing (yes in a skirt) took place. I enjoyed it a little more that i let on at the time!

Back down the hill to Dumre and a trip to Besi to see Pip, Will and Fe. It was nice to spend some time with them, see where they lived and go chill down next to the river. Again i have some photos, but Ed doesn't so hold on 2 days!

And that took up pretty much 1 week, back to Gorkha for the last couple of days before we set off to Pokhara for our next adventure.......!

The Final Curtain

It seems a bit backwards to be writing about the end before ive written about the begging i guess. But its sad to say the concrete walls and dusty playground of Mahendra Jyoti have bid me farewell for the last time. We've entered exam season now and so Magus and i have fallen redundant. Saying that typing the english papers and finding spelling mistakes, ie. ' ansewer any of the following qeeshicoms' (!?- oh my god) i wonder if its the teachers that need some lessons, or a crash course at least!
Our farewell from the kids was short and sweet if a little manic. I entered class for the lasttime brandishing the well loved star chart, a bag of sweets, przes forthe two best in clas (1 boy 1 girl) and all the stickers i possessed- which is not as many as Ed. Mummy Barrie got excited in the sticker aisle we think! So i marched in - Sari obviously on in the correct fashion, I was tweeked and redressed several times each morning by varying members of staff!- handed over the prizes. Then we played pin the post-it on the donkey. That lasted a little while, then the postits went on their heads! i then headed out to the play ground where the free for all began, Magnus had to come save my camera. The stickers went left right and centre, suddenly i see the (new)naughtiest boy in class (the old one is a reformed character) running through the playground, over the rubble, carrying my bag, book and star chart looking so pleased! he got an extra sticker. I dont know where my sticker went they just got rippedout of my hands. Then magnus and i headed up to the staff room brandishing a good bye cake - Nrs 700 well spent! I was then beckoned out of the class room and told that some of my class 4 students were asking for me. Considering they had all disappeared half an hour ago i was rather suprised. Then low and behold there was Sapana, Parbati, Nardavi and Fuisree brandishing flowers and small pieces of papers depicting gods an flowers at me. I then got lots of photos.
What i haven't explainded about my school is that it is the only school in the district to cater for those with severe learning difficulties - or as they say here mentally retarded. We have come to grow and love these children and their snotty ways. In particular 2 of them, the only boys. One of them cannot talk, he is 11 but appears to be a hunched 8 year old withthe eyes of a tired old man. He only communicates through 'uhs' and pointing. So we call him 'uh'. Its very unpolitically correct but here,those things don't exist, getting used to them again will be strange. The other is more coherant but a ittle creepy. You will turn around whilst teaching lessons and he'll just be standing in the door way, with a toothy grin and say 'hellooooo' in a manner many may relate to a deranged axe murder. We've had many funny incidences with him. you can probably guess his name.
The point f this is they interupted my good bye, by they are so funny i didnt mind! you have to love them!

HOLI!

one word colourful. which is fitting as it is the festival of colour i guess! there doesn't seem to be any meaning behind it other than embracing spring. First of all we welcomed in to the bosom of Gorkhathe tribes from Laxmi bazaar (the regulars), Besi Sahar and Bhoti woda, who bravely took the buses here. That eveing Anna, Carmella and i set out in search of powder paint and water balloons, to arm ourselves against the forwarned onslaught. we came back with, green, yellow and green - which turned out to be vibrant pink when mixed with water. i was itching to get the production started! But alas i had to wait a night, spent chilling on our roof and listening to the prison guards screaming. when we woke up production commenced almost immediately- 2 to each colour and magnus on water filling. Then anna and i took over water, more colour on us than in the ballons. The floor was full of burst balloon carcasses! But we did end up with a bucket of ballons and a plastic bag full too. They were our ammo. We were worried that we might be the most prepared people in the town and that holi might not actually be such a big thing! Suddenly Sarah, Caitin and Will appeared smothered in red paint and t-shirt dappled all sorts of different colours. It was on. But before we set out in to town, our first target was those who had yet to arrive at the house ie. Kirsten, amy, Fiona and pippa. Then each other of course, our washing was tinged a little yellow. We then set out, armed with make shift water pistols made out of water bottles filled with dye and water with a hole in the top. As soon as we were out the door the neighbouring boys came at us with handfuls of powder paint and smothered our faces. we were still relatively unscathed until we reached the junction in town, and it just continued from there. Water rained down from the roof tops, as did water balloons. Purple, red, green, yellow, pink and even gold paint was thrown around, usually on to the foreigners. there were a lot of us! i think the community had planned this! When we finally retreated back to our house, and the others dispersed on to buses in various directions we attemped to wash. I mean, we did look like oompa loompas, but the paint was stubborn old stuff. I still have pink hair, magnus has purple hair, julia is multi colour and ed, well he's ginger. Hope you like the before and after shots - My clothes were white!