All good things must come to an end

I guess it's been a while since I've updated everyone on my trip and now we are winding down, counting the days until we are in the air again. We're spending our last few days in the tourist district of Kathmandu, Thamel. Staying at a fairly nice hotel with WIFI (currently listening to the canucks Nashville game, oh how I miss hockey) for a little more money than I hoped but still under $10. We are just outside of Thamel too so it's at least a little quieter, plus we have a TV in our room! (a very rare thing for Nepal..even if it is a fuzzy tv with only 2 channels in English). Being close to the tourist district has it's advantages though, like live music every night, convenience shopping, and a wide variety of restaraunts to choose from. We will still go to Shanti today, tomorrow, and Wednesday but then commute via tuk-tuk back to tourist central. Today, apparantly, is a holy day (there are so many all the time I'm never surprised) so we will probably only spend a few hours but it's still nice to say hello to our disabled friends, especially because there is nobody actually working today. Tommorow and the next day then we will get ready to say our farewells and spend Wednesday getting organized for our flight the following day.

As an update on the past month (or two) we have now done a total of 33 days of trekking, 3 days of rafting and another week or so of sight-seeing. The trekking was definitely an experience and I am proud of myself for doing it. I can definitely feel the difference in my health from day 1 at Lukla, as I panted my way up hundreds of steps, to the remote east of Nepal (Tumlingtar) as we went down over 1000m and up over 1000m in a single day, and then starting the Annapurna Sanctuary (to Macchapuchre and Annapurna base camp) and going up 2070 steps with relative ease and down another 3000 to the end of our trekking in Nepal. The scenery of all 3 treks was all amazing but I have to say that the view from Annapurna base camp was the most amazing site I've ever seen in my life. Picture standing in a bowl, surrounded by the snow-capped Himalayas with a crystal clear sky.. under moonlight with billions of stars also lighting up the sky! Seeing that in the middle of the night can be blamed by my bladder and though it was cold and snowy and I tried my best not to get out of my warm sleeping bag but boy was I glad when I did! The views in sunrise were also magnificent and we were blessed with weather as 3 days before it had been cloudy and storm, but nothing compared to the vision at night. As for the trek I liked the best, Everest was the most social and the biggest challenge (largely due to altitude.. not nearly as up and down as the other 2), Tumlingtar was the most physically challenging but the most amazing overall due to the lack of tourists, the places we were lucky enough to see and the heat and palm trees (we were at less than 200m elevation by the end). We then ended our trip with a 3 day rafting trip that we returned from yesterday on the Kaligandaki river. We met more people on this trip, had a laugh, and even though we were disappointed by the height and frequency of the rapids still had a good time.

Now we get ready to say farewell to everyone we have met in Nepal, get some last minute shopping down, and plan our 12 hr layover in Seoul Korea. We leave Thursday at 1pm and arrive in Vancouver 2 days later It has been a good trip and I have mixed feelings about going home, but I will be happy to see my family and friends again, tell my stories, show my pictures, and start making back some of the money I spent on this trip. I don't suppose I'll update this again until after I"m home, so this is it for my trip in Nepal. What a wonderful journey it has been.