Nepal - 2 months later

Well I think I've left everyone who I haven't been in contact with waiting long enough for this post. I'm not even sure where I left you off but I know that the last 2 months have really gone by for me here. We have 2 more months left and a whole new adventure starts in just more than a week. We will be heading trekking to Everest Base Camp. This is a trek that many people follow through with simply to say "I have seen Everest Base Camp" and I suppose that is my motivation for embarking on this journey as well.. with of course the suggestion and pursuasion of my handsome travelling partner. Honestly, if he hadn't suggested it I would be content with doing just Annapurna but I'm glad he has because I'm looking forward now to a beginning off the beaten path and to see what my trekking shape is like. I think it will take my muscles a little while to get used to it though because I haven't really been training.. except maybe the 45 minute walk to and from volunteering nearly each day. I have realized that I need to stretch a lot more though after our week long vacation away from Kathmandu.

This vacation was delayed long enough as 2 weekends in a row we stayed in Kathmandu due to the declined health of one or both of us. So, we decided to do it all in a week and we definitely had a busy week. First, we headed to Royal Chitwan National Park which we had booked ahead of time in Thamel. The bus took us only 5 1/2 hours.. though I think it's just a little longer than 100km but in Nepal that's a relatively short bus trip (and it included a lunch break at an expensive restaraunt that of course gives some of its money to the buses that bring us there). There we stayed at hotel Shiva's dream which was fairly impressive. The staff were very accomodating and the food was very good but of course if we had higher standards for the room than that was the only slight downfall.. for Nepal though it was nice. The hot water was solar run though so it wasn't hot because of so many guests but the weather was much warmer than Kathmandu so I actually didn't mind a luke warm shower in the evening. So our first day we got fed lunch, then went on a short walk to the end of town to see a small museum (a room with a few artifacts and posters about the animals in Chitwan) and then to see a Rhino that they had clearly baited by burning the long grass so that fresh grass grew and the Rhino would come to eat the fresh grass. It was still neat though and the stray dogs dared to go near the Rhino and so we actually saw him charge too. That evening we saw a Tharu culture dance (Tharu is the people that live in that region of Nepal) and that was also a cool experience. All men (which surprised me) and the same ones for every dance! Then, at the end, they invited us (the audience) to come up on stage with them and we danced along with them which was also really fun! The next morning we had an early breakfast of 7:30 which consisted of corn flakes with hot milk and an omelette with toast and of course unlimited tea and coffee if we pleased. Then we did the traditional elephant safari ride where we saw a lot of deer (Nepali word: Merago) and a peacock, a wild boar, and a wild chicken. Unfortunately we didn't see any rhino nor the infamous tiger. We then came back for lunch - spagetti I think - and had a bit of relax time before heading off on our jungle walk. Our guide, Laxmi, then took us into the jungle so that we could try and see rhino and maybe even a tiger. We skipped the elephant breeding center to spend a longer time in the jungle and even spent 2 hours sitting at a lake and waiting for animals to come out but all we saw were many kind of birds, a few different species of deer, and crocodiles. We saw many crocodiles before our walk too as we took a canoe ride first. It was still nice to get out into nature though and try and see the animals. We got out of the jungle just as the sun was setting too and picked up some locals in our jeep to take back to town. The next morning I then woke up early to go bird watching while Charles slept in because he wasn't feeling so well and I saw another rhino. This one was much bigger and we got really close to it too. After breakfast we then headed to our next destination, Lumbini.

Lumbini, the birthplace of Buddha, was surprisingly small. It consisted of one street with a few hotels and restaurants, and a lot of construction. The actual temple area of Lumbini though was very large geographically. We rented a slightly uncomfortable bicycle for about $5 between the two of us, and rode around lumbini. First, to the temple that marks the birth of Buddha and then around to other buddhist temples representing countries all over the world. I was a little disappointed that people didn't respect the "silence please" signs in the main temple though, although I couldn't help but laugh when the group of chinese tourists came in with their guide who had a microphone and giant speaker and was telling the group about the temple. We also met a younger couple from Sweden on the bus to Lumbini and so we chatted with them our first night and chose our hotel together to get a good deal. They headed off the second day though and left us a note with thier contact information so if want to head to Switzerland we now know people willing to take us in! The next morning we then left on a mini-van to Manakamana - a non-tourist temple at the top of a mountain that we had to catch a cable car to get to.

On the way to Manakamana (the bus was actually headed to Kathmandu so we could decide where to get off) we met 4 people from Holland who had travelled together 32 years ago, all in Geology, after thier bachelors degree. Then, as we were driving along the smoothest road in Nepal we suddenly heard a large "BANG!" and the bus pulled to the side of the road to discover that the entire front suspension had collapsed! We were in no rush so we just laughed because they seem to stuff much more than the weight capacity in these vehicles so it was doomed to snap at some point, while another tourist, a girl from Korea was panicking slightly because she was headed back to catch a plane in Kathmandu home that evening! While we were waiting to be rescued from another bus we decided to go on a walk with our new Holland friends and explore the middle of nowhere Nepal. The other bus surprisingly didn't take that long to get there though, which pleased the korean girl, and we were again on our way. We then decided to get off at the city outside of Chitwan with the group from Holland to get more money incase Manakamana had no ATM or money changers. We got to the town with the cable car, however, and it turns out it's quite the town. They then charged us $15 US each to ride the cable car to Manakamana and when we arrived we were also surprised to find rows of shops and hotels leading up the road directly to the temple. we got a very cheap room from a desperate hotel owner who had no business and ate at his restaraunt because apparantly nothing else was open at 6pm! The temple was very smelly as they do many animal sacrifices to pray to the goddess of good luck and make many wishes that things will go their way. So, we decided one night was enough in Manakamana and headed "trekking" to Gorkha the following morning.

Unfortunately the trek outlined in the lonely planet (from 2006) either no longer existed or we took a wrong turn because it was just a walk along a dirt road, similar to our logging roads at home, where a few trucks and buses and motorcycles passed us by. We walked down on side of the valley and up the other and around through small communities before finally arriving at a main paved road where I thought we were close to Gorkha. Well, unfortunately we still had 15km to go, along a noisy, small, paved road.. not my idea of trekking. It was definitely an adventure though and I'm glad we did it because after a few km we got picked up by a deliver truck driver and the driver was very friendly, though he almost immediately asked us to try and get him into Canada. He then took us to his home 8km away and invited us in for tea while he gathered his information for us to get him the papers for a visa. From there, we walked another few km before we arrived at another small town where some girls from England spotted us from their home up on a ridge and called down to us to ask if we wanted to come up for tea. Apparantly it's not a common place to see two other white people walking with backpacks and hiking shoes. We then met all 4 of the girls that were staying there on thier gap year for the same amount of time as us (and almost here the exact same days as us too) teaching english. After that, it had started to rain so we decided to continue our journey to Gorkha where we caught a local bus just outside of town for 10 rupees each that took us to our final destination.

Gorkha had amazing mountain views! We got a decent hotel, ate at a different restaurant, and enjoyed the atmosphere, despite the cold wind and rainy weather. The next morning we decided to delay our trip to the famous temple that was a 1500 stair journey just up from the town because it was still raining and I had discovered that a lack of stretching on a 6-7 hour walk was definitely not a good thing! We went in the afternoon still, when the rain had stopped, but shortly after starting to walk it rained again and continued as we reached the top and headed back down so we didn't get a view of the mountains we were told were amazing from there. We then spent the rest of our afternoon in our hotel because the weather was much colder there. The next morning, however, Charles pursuaded me to get out of bed early enough to climb to the temple again and even though I didn't think I would make it to the top I did eventually catch up to him where I was very grateful he had pushed me to go. The view of the Annapurna range was unlike any view of the mountains I have seen thus far! If we had stayed even a few more minutes for the sun to rise completely it would have been even better and our photos would have been like those from a magazine! unfortunately, we had a bus to catch and didn't want it to leave without us. It was a good way to end the trip though, and the local bus we caught back to Kathmandu was decently comfortable.

We have now spent one week in Kathmandu since returning from our little vacation and the weather here has been off and on cloudy and rainy. I have also learned a lot about myself and maybe about my future and have had the time to reflect since we've returned. Our house now is also much more lively and full of people! Also, Tika (our "father" of the house) adopted a little street puppy while we were gone so we have a new family member too! They washed him with lice shampoo and we took him to the vet, who told us he probably wasn't even 1 month old! So, he hasn't had injections yet because he's too young but he got deworming medication and we have been feeding him milk and porridge as the dogfood we bought him is too hard for his little teeth. He is quickly getting fat and spoiled though and I think will be one of the best treated dogs in all of Nepal! So now we have living with us a german family with a 6 year old boy, another german couple who are leaving in a few days, and today 2 more girls arrived who we haven't yet met. We will be leaving for Everest in 1 week and this week we will be able to witness one of the biggest festivals of Nepal called Shivarattri, and the main site is right next to the center we volunteer at!

I apologize for this long long post, but I suppose if you were truly interested you could read one piece one day, another the next, and so on. I'm sure there are many many more stories I can tell each of you when I get home though and I still have much more travelling to do so I look forward to all of the things I have to reflect on come May! For now, Subarattri (good night in Nepali)!