Leaving
Varanasi, India & on my way to beautiful Nepal!
Leaving Varanasi at around midnight is a
bit spooky I have to say. I was so glad when I finally arrived at the train
station and my rickshaw driver dropped me of. Not that the train station was
nice, no – not at all. Millions of people where sleeping already outside as
well as inside the station and on the platforms.
I saw my train listed on the board and
happiness filled my heart. All will be good, I just need to leave this city!
There was another Western girl waiting on
the platform - it turned out that she was from Canada and she had just arrived
in Varanasi from Nepal! Wow, what a coincidence. So we exchanged our
experiences in that short timeframe until my train came in and I had to go.
This time, the other 5 people, whom I shared a compartment with turned out to
be 5 Indian men; all of them really fat and none of them was very polite at
all:( They even took my bed, so I sleep on the top one, however they used all
the clean sheets in the prepared bags, even when they saw that I had non-left.
They acted so selfish; it was unreal!
After half and hour somebody, who was employed by the Indian Rail finally
brought me clean sheets and I was able to get up on my bed and I tried to
sleep. Unfortunately as the Indian men were all so fat, they started to snore!
Congrats I thought! I was even
happier to travel towards Nepal!
The train arrived 1 hour late in Gorakhpur, India.
I left the station and found the busses to the boarder just down the road. They
were public one’s, no AC and really packed, but I got a seat and it was
supposed to take around 2-3 hours. Before we were on our way to leave, a couple
from the UK entered the bus and got seats directly behind me as locals had to
move. Richard & Hazel from the UK near Oxford, who had sold or their
belongings and now travelling around the world for 18 months. Wow, how cool is
that?! I’m more then impressed!
The bus had glass windows and with all the
bumpy roads they made an awful noise while driving into millions of holes ;)
Finally we arrived at the boarder at 12
noon. We had to go through Indian Emigration and then walked over to the other
side toward Nepalese Immigration.
What a different welcome ;) You could straight away feel the warmth of Nepalese people! They were very friendly at the Immigration Office, gave you
the form to fill in for the Visa – you handed over the money and the passport + one picture
and 2 minutes later you got your Visa! Wow, very impressive and easy :)
The immigration officer said to me with a
big smile on his face: “Welcome Kerstin Rieger in Nepal. You are allowed to
stay until the 5th of May and if you want to extend your stay it is
not a problem. Enjoy your time in Nepal.”
Impressive!
The first thought which crossed
my mind was “You are in the right country Kerstin!”
That’s what I like ;)
I walked out to find a bus to Kathmandu and
to change some money into Nepalese rupees. In less than 5 min all was sorted
and I tried to find the UK couple as the bus was leaving in 20 min towards
Kathmandu. Oh, can you believe it? Nepal has 15min time difference to India ;)
That’s really funny – I first thought the guy from the bus was joking, but no –
it is true!
Leaving the boarder at 1pm, we were
supposed to arrive in Kathmandu around 8-9pm. It wasn’t an AC bus (non
available ;) and it turned out it stopped almost at any point where people were
waiting along the road! What an adventure really! The UK couple was with me,
which was nice.
The bus was packed, people where standing
everywhere. I met a lovely Nepalese guy, who actually travelled back from Goa
to Kathmandu! What a coincidence really :)
It was a bus ride I won’t forget – the
roads got bumpier and curvier, and it seemed like it would never end.
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| Our bus to Kathmandu |
We
arrived in Kathmandu finally at 11pm! Bikram, the Nepalese man, organized us a
taxi to our guesthouse and the UK couple joined me and I finally met Annette,
who was waiting for me in the guesthouse. I was on the road for 24 hours and
really exhausted by now. So good to have a bed to sleep for the night ;)
Kathmandu
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| Monkey Temple |
Two days in Kathmandu were really exciting.
Our guesthouse was in Thamel, a touristy spot in the city, where you can find
millions of vendors and shops and you can buy millions of lovely items. From
presents to clothes, to praying wheels, peace flags, sandals, trekking gear, books and
bags – you name it! They had also lovely bakeries everywhere, interesting
buildings and lots to see.
The first day we explored the city, walked
miles and miles – went in lots of shops, had banana lassies and some nice
pastries.
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| What lassie will we get?! |
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| Little square in Kathmandu |
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| Lovely temple |
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| Beautiful old house |
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| That's how you can transport a sofa ;) |
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| Need a tailor?! |
The 2nd day we went up to the
Monkey temple called “Swayambhunath”! Gorgeous place, where you can overlook
the city from a hill!
You arrive at the bottom of a hill, looking up to a lot of steps leading to the temple.
To the left and right you have beautiful trees which create a stunning alley!
Peace flags are tightened everywhere and they are so colourful.
We saw a lot of monkeys, while walking up the steps and they are not reclusive at all.
The last steps up to the temple are pretty steep!
The temple is beautiful with so many peace flags
tightened from tree to tree – some wild monkeys and such a peaceful atmosphere!
I loved it!
One of the most interesting things up there
was the so-called praying wheels.
People were walking around the stupa, chanting
the mantra “Om Mani Padme Hum”, which was written on the praying wheels, even
around the temple and they were playing the music
up there as well. I loved
it!
How do you think I look like chanting "Om Mani Padme Hum ?!
There were a lot of shops on the top, which were selling a lot of different things including praying wheels!
I even bought a tiny little praying wheel
myself to take it everywhere with me in Nepal :)
We also saw some monks in a small little temple chanting different mantras while walking around meditating. I was really curious to see them and it reminded me about my Yoga Teacher Training in Goa.
In the evening we met Bikram for dinner
and ate some tasty Nepalese food incl. Vegetable Momos. We had a lovely time
and tomorrow we are leaving for Pokhara with the early morning bus! I will come
back to Kathmandu at a later stage as there is still so much to see and
explore!
What a gorgeous, really beautiful little
place. It feels like you are in Switzerland with the lake in the middle of town
surrounded by the impressive, in snow covered Himalaya’s.
The only challenge for the first day was to
find a cheap guesthouse. Some were fully booked, others didn't persuade us.
So we took one for one night and decided to go on a “guesthouse hunt” the next
morning. It was successful for sure, by the time we found “the one” we had at
least looked at 20 guesthouses or so. We decided to stay at the Peace Ganga
Guesthouse as it was cheap, a big room and a lovely balcony just for ourselves
with a view to the World Peace Pagoda.
This is the view from the rooftop terrasse :) You can see the Fishtail 6900m!
We found a few lovely coffee places
around town with tasty groceries - Apple Muffins, Apple Strudels, Chocolate Banana
Cakes and some fabulous coffee. Sooner or later we had two favourites: The
Himalaya Café with the tastiest Lemongrass tea and the AM/PM Organic Café with the
best latte ever in Nepal.
Unfortunately Annette and myself got a bit
sick, we struggled with diarrhea -
it seemed like we had a bad lassie somewhere. So we took it easy for a day.
The next day we rented some bikes to
explore the nearby countryside. The bikes you can rent here in Nepal are very
different to Vietnam. They are all driving bigger bikes (125cc), so I wasn’t
sure in the beginning how that would work out. The bikes also had real clutches
and so we ended up to rent a scooter for Annette and I had a red, really pretty
Yamaha Chopper – but a really big bike!
We had a lovely time driving through the
Nepalese countryside and after returning to Pokhara we decided to drive up to
Sarangkot to enjoy the view.
What a steep ride up there and lots of gravel on
the road! But it was more than worthwhile for sure :) On the way down it
started to rain and actually to lash down. We stopped and looked for shelter.
There were some Nepalese people who waited there as well and we had a lovely
chat with that local man. When the rain slowed down, we continued with our
raincoats towards Pokhara, where we had to return the bikes. It was an
adventurous day and it was great to drive such a big bike! I loved it :)
The next day we hiked up to the World Peace Pagoda. To get there you can get a small little boat to cross the lake and from there you can start a one hour trek. We hired a boat with a Nepalese guy who was paddling us to the other side of the lake. It was a lovely trip and to look at the Himalaya's from the lake was beautiful!
The hike to the Pagoda wasn't too long, but pretty steep. The sun was already blazing down and I was sweating quiet a lot. However, I had just bought a new Nepalese handmade hat out of Hemp. Brilliant material, which feels like it is cooling your hat! I loved it :)
As the weather forecast for Pokhara looked
pretty rainy, we decided to change our plans and to visit the Chitwan National Park first. We tried
to decide which package tour to go for and ended up booking one, which promised
us to sleep in a lovely wooden tower for one night in the middle of the park.
Annette and myself were so excited that we booked that one – 3 nights, 4 days!
Chitwan, here we come!
We left on a Friday morning and the bus
ride took us at least 5.5hours. I got the seat in the last row and so therefore
I had an extremely bumpy ride.
We arrived at our hotel and it was in a
really peaceful surrounding with lovely flowers in a beautiful garden.
The
rooms were ok as well, so we were excited what we were off to today.
Unfortunately it was only a so-called orientation walk and watching the sunset
by the river. Not really exciting and pretty touristy. Oh well, it didn’t
matter as we were so looking forward to our Elephant ride in the morning.
I have to say looking back the Elephant
ride and the Elephant bathing were my personal highlights for sure :) I have
never been riding on an elephant before, but it was worth every minute.
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| How to step onto and elephant! |
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| Our elephant |
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| First seconds on our elephant ;) |
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| Even elephants need tickets ;) |
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| elephant ride |
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| elephant ride through the park |
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| We enjoyed every second! |
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| Our lovely elephant :) |
You sit
pretty high up, but a really good view to watch the animals and it feels secure
as well. The ride took a good hour and we saw monkeys, deers and the highlight of all were 2 Rhinos!
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| Rhino |
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| Rhino No.2 |
Yes, two Rhinos
and we were maybe 3 meters away from them as Rhinos are not scared of
elephants! What an adventure! I loved it :)
In the afternoon we went for a 4 hours Jeep
Safari in the National Park. I was actually really looking forward to it, but
as it turned out it was not so successful to spot any animals from the Jeep
really. The elephant was much better! We saw a lot of birds, monkeys and
deers – but so far no Rhinos.
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| Cute monkey! |
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| Deers |
We were all pretty disappointed. We stopped at
the Crocodile breeding farm and that was pretty scary. I know the Crocodiles
were behind fences, but still sooo scary!
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| First crocodile |
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| A really big one!!! |
Then we continued with our Jeep Safari and
we were all eager to spot a Rhino before we were leaving the park. If you
believe it or not, but we did! We all had to get of the Jeep and slowly
walk towards the Rhino, to see it, but of course not too close.
Suddenly the
Rhino moved towards us and we all got so scared that we all started running
like mad towards our Jeep! Scare situation for sure, but luckily enough the
Rhino didn’t follow us!
We came back to our hotel and we were off
to our tower night in the Park. Annette and myself were so excited, but wait
what’s coming ;) We drove into the park for maybe 10min and we saw an old Stone
Tower in the middle of a grass land. Annette said to me: ”No, that can’t be it
– that’s not the wooden tower we saw in the brochure!” Annette was right, it
wasn’t the tower we were promised, but it was the tower we were sleeping in ;)
Oh well, it turned out that there were 2 French girls staying in the tower as
well and they seemed to be good company. Unfortunately it was already dark when
we arrived, so we couldn’t see any animals before we went to bed. So we decided
to get up early to watch out for them. 5am we got up and looked out for them.
No Rhinos, but herds of deers and lots of monkeys – it was worthwhile for sure
even if the tower wasn’t really what we had expected.
After breakfast in our hotel we were off
bird watching ;) I have never been bird watching in my life and on top of that
a father and son from the UK joined us, which were serious bird watchers with
pinocolous and telescope! Wow! During the next few hours Annette and myself got
some lessons in ornithology.
I finally learned what my favourite bird
was called I saw in India every morning while running on the beach: Kingfisher
:) What a beautiful bird really! Sorry, wasn't able to take a picture. They are too quick.
It was nice just to walk through the
unspoiled nature, watching the locals cutting and carrying grass and just to be
outside.
A really enjoyable walk as it turned out.
Our guide called Buddha was also a serious
bird watcher!
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| Annette, Buddha and myself :) |
He was a very kind man and really tried to
engage us.
Back in the hotel, we changed clothes and
put on our swimsuits to go Elephant Bathing. We were so excited as a lot of
people told us that this is one of the highlights in Chitwan. We found out that
our hotel had their own elephant and it actually lived behind the hotel! Wow,
we didn’t know beforehand.
So we walked all down to the river and there were
already other people bathing elephants in full swing. We were waiting for our
own elephant to come and here it was. She was very cute and not as tall as some
of the others, where I was grateful for :)
So Annette and myself got on the elephant
and we rode down to the river!
That’s a brilliant feeling to sit on the
elephant without anything on it, just on the back of the elephant :) I loved
it!
The question was, did we bath the elephant
or did the elephant bath us ;) But it was enjoyful either way, so it didn’t
matter at all.
The UK family came with us as well and they
also joined in. We had a great time before returning to our hotel for a lovely
shower.
In the afternoon there was Canoieng, Jungle
walk and the Elephant Breeding centre on the program. We did the canoing with at
least 15 other people in a small banana boot apparently made out of one tree trunk.
It was tiny and very unstable with 15 people on it, but there we
were floating on the river, passing crocodiles – Yes, real crocodiles!
We were
assured they don’t attack people. Well, I felt better when we were on dry land
again!
We stopped somewhere along the river and
headed off for our jungle walk.
Passing this lovely lake was a real excitement as we were wondering what animals we actually would see.
But after
walking for around 45 minutes the fun started. I walked directly behind our
guide and he suddenly stopped and showed me the puhh of a Rhino – it was 2 days
old he said. Ok, I thought, two days old means the Rhino is far gone by now. We
continued walking and the guide stopped again, this time he showed me a
footprint which was pretty fresh! It was a footprint of a Rhino!
OMG, I thought
we were on a relaxed Jungle walk on the way to the elephant breeding center.
Instead we were on a Rhino hunt – but who was hunting whom there?! Our guide
good really concerned and nervous. That doesn’t really help to calm me and the
other people down. There we were in the middle of the jungle expecting to see a
Rhino every minute! I was looking around seeing what was close to climb onto
maybe. Some trees, but nothing which looked too save to be honest. Oh well, we
continued walking very slowly and carefully and after 20 minutes or so we
reached finally the Breeding Center. I was pretty relieved we didn’t see a
Rhino this time.
Elephant Breeding center
The Elephant breeding center was
brialliant. They just had a new born baby elephant which was 2 days old!
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| 2 days old baby elephant! |
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| 2 days old elephant with her mother ;) |
Wow,
how lucky were we! We watched the baby with her mother quiet for a while and
saw a lot of other young and really cute elephants.
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| Sleeping baby elephant 20 days old with his parents ;) |
Lovely spot and it was nice
to watch them eating as well. Did you know that an elephant needs to eat at
least 220kg of grass every day?!
What an adventures day it was! I loved
every minute of it :)
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| Bye Bye Chitwan |
The next morning we made our way back to Pokhara on the
bus and arrived in the early afternoon.
Pokhara & 3 days Trek
Back in Pokhara we first went back to our
lovely guesthouse and I was so looking forward to eat an Apple Muffin. I think
I was dreaming about it for 2 nights ;)
Guess who we bumped into in the streets of
Pokhara – the lovely UK couple Richard & Hazel! What a coincidence! We hat
a quick chat and we told them that we were planning to go trekking for 3 days.
So we spontaneously arranged to meet for breakfast the next day to discuss the
route.
Annette & myself went into a few
agencies to find out about the route and a guide we could hire. Finally after
talking to a lot of agencies we found one, where the guide was actually there –
his name is Ray. So we discussed the route with him and it sounded like a solid
plan.
So Tuesday morning we met Hazel &
Richard for breakfast, talked about the route and we agreed that we would all
hike together – starting Wednesday morning. I love spontaneous people and the
UK couple are one of them. There were a few things we still had to arrange:
Trekking permit, TIM Cards, Sleeping bags for rent and I had to buy hiking
boots. So I was running around Pokhara, in almost every single shop who offered
trekking boots in my size. Finally I found some, which were comfortable enough
for 50US$. I was indeed pleased with myself and so we were all excited to go.
Wednesday morning we met for breakfast at
6.20am and started of with the Jeep at 7am. Arriving in Kande at 8.15am we
started our trek :)
It went quiet steep uphill straight after
we started!
Wow, well if that continues I was thinking, then we need to stop at
lunchtime to rest for sure and call it a day ;) But everybody pulled himself
together and bravely hiked up the steep trail.
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| Eating Apple Muffin - mmhhh! |
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| Lovely Himalaya's in the background! |
Finally it got better :) We
stopped a few times for tea to rest and had a lovely lunch at one of the tea
houses.
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| Lunch at the teahouse |
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| Nepalese kitchen - Wow, could be German ;) |
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| Lovely map, isn't it? |
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| Nepalese kids, which we met on our way. |
Around 3pm we actually reached our tea house where we stopped for the
night.
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| Our teahouse |
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| Our neighbourhood |
It turned out the lady of the house was even baking :)
So we ordered
some apple pie for the four of us and she started to bake for us :) What a
treatment, we got spoiled on the first day!
The tea house was in Landruk, on a
beautiful spot with a hot shower. Well you had to pay extra for the shower, but
I didn’t care – none of us actually cared and we all had a hot shower :) I felt
like a new person for sure.
Then we ate apple pie with some hot coffee
and just chatted away. Later on some other hikers arrived – 2 French girls and
an American guy. The French girls were on a 7 days Trek up to Poonhill, but
they didn’t seem to be too happy so. You should have seen how much luggage they
had, that would last for a 4 weeks vacation for sure. The poor porter, who had
to carry all of that.
The American guy was on his way down as he
had just finished the Annapurna Circuit and was trekking for 20 days already.
It was nice to hear about his adventures and just to chat away. He was on a
Leave of absence from Intel – another IT guy I thought ;)
The next morning we got up at 6am and when
we stepped outside and saw the stunning view we had to the Annapurna South,
Annapurna 1 and Hiunchuli it made it all worthwhile!
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| Richard and myself taking pictures at 6am ;) |
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| Annapurna 1 8091m! |
The Himalaya range is
beautiful, isn't it?!
After breakfast we started to trek towards
the Hot Springs. We were all excited as every trekker we had met before what
going on about it how brilliant it is.
But first we reached an enormous
“hanging bridge” which we had to cross.
Unfortunately a group of
around 15 Japanese people just came down the other side of the mountain and so we had to wait for a long
time until we were able to cross as it seemed like that this Japanese group had
never heard of the principle to let on go from one side and then swap! We made
it over the bridge finally, but it was swaying and swinging and crossing a
river! Pretty adventures for sure – it is the longest bridge in the Annapurna
Conservation Area! I’m not surprised.
Now we were all looking forward to reach
the hot springs, but we had some work to do, there was a pretty steep part with
lots of steps in front of us!!!
Have a look at a porter we met on the way - it is unreal what some Nepalese porters have to carry. You are asking yourself what stuff some tourist bring along!
Finally we reached the tea house and they
told us it is another 20min hike, but this time downhill :) So we were able to
leave our backpacks in the teahouse and just took our towel and swim wear with
us! We didn’t get disappointed I can tell you!!!
The water was really warm, it
was brilliant and it felt so good on our legs, which were pretty exhausted by
now!
So freshly energized we hiked back up to the teahouse were we had lunch.
It is unreal what they are selling even up on 1800m! Scarfs, blankets, hats, jewellery, Pringles, Mars bars, beer and so on!
Then we continued our afternoon trek passing beautiful scenery. Waterfalls, amazing countryside, lovely views and reached our teahouse by 4pm.
A little teahouse, which is run by a really cute Nepalese woman. It turned out that
she was a fabulous cook and we all really enjoyed our dinner. We had a hot solar
showers, which was even better than the day before ;) Lovely!
The next morning we got up at 6am again,
breakfast and then we started hiking.
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| Group picture before we were leaving the teahouse |
We had known, that we only had a half day
really, as we hiked a bit more on the previous day. Annette and myself were
definitely sad to leave the mountain area, especially Annette as she had to fly
back to London, but she would have loved to stay to hike a bit more. I had
decided to do the Annapurna Circuit, also it might be a big challenge for sure.
Hazel & Richard did really well! They never complaint or were mouning about the millions of steps we all had to go up or that the trek was to difficult or the hike was a "stupid idea". They were so brave and impressed me a lot! I loved to trek with them and it is a pity they not come with me to do the Annapurna Circuit. I will miss all 3 of them for sure
On the way down, where to caught the bus to Pokhara we passed by local people in small huts and children playing outside. I was a lovely feeling to be closer to the Nepalese culture.
Thanks Annette, Hazel & Richard for such a lovely hike!
I decided to rest in Pokhara for a week and
just enjoy life. Finally I had time to answer mails, go for a walk around the
lake and drinking Lemongrass tea or coffee latte in my two favourite coffee
places.
One day I rented a bicycle, which almost
fell apart. But I made it to the Immigration Office and the Post Office, but
both were closed as the government apparently had a day off. Everybody else was
working in Pokhara ;)
Anyway I started a 2nd attempt
the next day with a different bicycle and this trip was much more pleasant ;)
It took me just 5min to extend my Visa at the Immigration Office! That was
impressive I have to say!!! Amazing!
After that I had an interesting experience
at the little Post Office in Pokhara.
I needed stamps for postcards to
different countries (Vietnam, Germany, US, Ireland), but it seemed like this
was difficult, as they didn’t had any 30Rp or 35Rp stamps. As they had 20Rp and
5Rp stamps I suggested I could glue 1x20Rp and 2x5Rp or 3x5p on the postcard.
The post officer looked at me as if I had just arrived from the moon and what
weird ideas I would bring with me. But I convinced him, that this would work so
he sold the stamps to me ;) Lucky me!
I also met up with Hazel and Richard almost every day for coffee or dinner and once we did a day hike to the World Peace Pagoda and even further up to the highest view point close to Pokhara. We didn't get disappointed when we arrived at the top. Amazing views again!
Thanks Hazel & Richard for your company! I will miss you on my trek, but I will see you in Vietnam :)
Preparing
for the Annapurna Circuit
I have decided to trek the Annapurna
Circuit – 16 days trek! I hired a female Nepalese guide and we will start on
Saturday, 28th! I am excited and a bit scared as well. But I am sure
it will be an experience of a lifetime and I am so looking forward to it :)
Himalaya’s I am coming… ;)
Before I leave, I had to do some shopping:
Fleece jacket, Goretex jacket, 2nd pair of trekking socks, headlamp,
2nd memory card for my camera, Haribo’s, Mars bars, Twix, Bounty’s and
renting a sleeping bag for -20 degrees & sunglasses!
All is done and I’m ready to go tomorrow
morning 6am on my next adventure!
Please keep your fingers crossed that all
goes well :)
