26th September
22:30 and we finally arrived in Kathmandu! It was chaos in the visa-on-arrival hall, three or four international flights had arrived around the same time and the two officials responsible for taking the money for visas were a little overwhelmed to say the least; once we had paid it was easy however, a dozen or so of their colleagues were quick to glue the visa sticker into our passports and appose the entry stamp. In the hour and a half the process took, Thierry, always a project manager at heart, already had a reorganisation of the department drawn up and a presentation ready in his mind to illustrate a considerably more efficient flux of arrivals, he just needs to get in touch with the Nepalese Minister for Immigration and get it approved! Maybe we could negotiate free visas for life in return. Anyway… With sterling patience acquired via four years experience of similar Indian cock-ups, whilst other westerners fumed, we eventually got out of the airport and on our way.
To be honest, we were extremely glad to have got to Kathmandu at all because as soon as we got to check in at Hangzhou airport, there seemed to be some doubt as to if we would be able to board the second stage of our Hangzhou-Guangzhou, Guangzhou-Kathmandu trip. It would appear there had been considerable overbooking on the part of China Southern Airlines and they were having trouble fitting us all in. After quite some parleying Hangzhou relieved themselves of the problem by checking our luggage right through to Kathmandu but only giving us boarding cards as far as Guangzhou, I must admit we were rather expecting to have to spend a night there waiting for the next plane so we were delighted when given slightly upgraded tickets for the second leg (don’t get too excited, only Premium Economy class, not Business, but still better than a poke in the eye).
And so to bed! I wish I could tell you more of my first impressions of Kathmandu but it was 11.30pm by this time, the streets were dark and deserted, not a mountain, Sherpa or Gurkha to be seen. Shanghai it was not, not a tall building in sight, just narrow, dusty, bumpy, shuttered-up streets once we left the main road from the airport. Ready for bed, our bodies were showing us 2.30am, even if Nepalese time said it was only midnight. The hotel was clean if basic (3rd floor, no lift, thank goodness the porter – possibly the first Sherpa of the trip? – carried the big rucksacks for the ascent). The room was clean and pretty modern though I am not sure how useful the electric kettle is – there were even candles in the bathroom along with the courtesy soap and shower cap which suggests regular power cuts!
27th September
The day started with a 6 hour drive from Kathmandu to Pokhara, luckily we had an extremely skilful driver who knew every inch of the road and managed to make the crazy driving conditions bearable. As you can imagine, there are some pretty steep climbs in Nepal, the roads are narrow and just about allow 2 Classic Indian Tata wagons to pass each other; now imagine kilometre long lines of dozens of slow moving Tata lorries, not always in great shape, interspersed with lots of local buses and the odd car now and then. Now imagine what happens when one of the not so well maintained ones gives up the ghost in the middle of a 15kms climb… All the others have to either wait or take it in turns to overtake or pass him. Our trip was only 150kms but it seemed never ending.
Pokhara was however worth the wait; a pretty lakeside spot with a very laid back atmosphere, we strolled along the lake banks taking photos and watching the locals fishing.
There was some nightlife due to a music festival to celebrate World Tourism Day, we admired the local dancers and musicians before tucking into a lovely dinner of fish from the lake and an outstanding lemon meringue pie, all very nicely accompanied by a pitcher of mojito; this is the life.
Before we went to bed however we had some serious business to sort out – separating our two big rucksacks into one to take with us on the next 4 days trek and the other one to leave at the hotel (one doesn’t need make-up or heels or the full bottle of Glenmorangie on a trek, a hip flask full will do…).
28th September
After a good breakfast we set off for a one and a half hour drive to the beginning of our trek at Nayapool. In the end it took rather longer because two days later in Nepal was the Hindu festival of Dasain, when families sacrifice live goats.Consequently all the poor condemned goats were being herded down from their carefree mountain pastures to be first sold then killed and feasted upon in town. Our car was halted and surrounded at least a dozen times by hundreds of goats working their way down the road to Pokhara, each flock was being shooed along by 3 or 4 shepherds each brandishing branches cut from trees and whistling directions to their flock, all the time trying to ensure they didn’t scratch any cars with their horns or try to avoid certain death and the cooking pot by running off into the trees along the verge.
Eventually we arrived at Nayapool, pulled on our boots and set off on our first 4 day hike. We were accompanied by a guide and a porter ( I am not sure we are allowed to confer on him the title of Sherpa below the snow line), the porter carried one of our bigger rucksacks so we just had to manage our small back packs with whatever we needed for the day’s hike. 
I have just looked up “Sherpa” and in fact it is an ethnic minority of Nepal rather than a job, as I had imagined; consequently one is either born a Sherpa or not. Gurkha, on the other hand, is a job, any Sherpa could in fact become a Gurkha but the reverse is not true! The Gurkhas are a regiment of the British Army; every year the army go to Nepal to recruit via, amongst other things, arduous physical tests, like running 5kms up a hill with 25kgs of rocks in a basket on your back. It’s a way for youngsters to get out of the country and have a great career in a highly respected job so places are fought over.
To begin with it was an easy pleasant walk up a track for a couple of hours just following a lovely mountain torrent. We met up with plenty more goats heading for market, mules returning from market, having taken goods up to Ghorepani – where we were heading ourselves, mothers taking their children to school (a little strange to see on Sunday); and we were overtaken by several jeep-fulls of Chinese trekkers driving as far as they possibly could up the potholed track before they had to start walking. of course there were plenty of Chinese around, all taking advantage, like ourselves, of the week long Golden Week festival holiday. 
We stopped for lunch (fried noodles with vegetables and egg) at one of the numerous establishments known as tea-houses here, in fact they are small inns offering meals, snacks and drinks along with a few rooms to rent, some are relatively sophisticated with ensuite rooms (ensuite being a loo and primitive shower, but yes, with hot water if you arrive early enough before it runs out) others are more like youth hostels with dormitory type arrangements. 
Soon after lunch the guide announced we had already reached the tea house where he had been intending to stop, this was a bit of a surprise as he had told us it was a 6 hour walk but apparently we walk considerably faster than he had calculated for; so we voted to bash on for a while, especially as the trail had become considerably steeper once we had crossed he river at the head of the valley. We then had to climb a two hour long rough, uneven stone staircase, it was very hard going, steep and impossible to take your eyes off where you were putting your feet, for fear of tripping on the rocky steps. 
It was a relief when we finally stopped for the night at 4pm and had good hot showers and a hot pot of Masala tea on the terrace of our tea house. We relaxed until dinner time – just enough time to beat Thierry at Scrabble, then had momos and spring rolls for dinner. 
Momos are a Nepalese staple, a sort of steamed dumpling with various fillings: vegetables, chicken, fish…Nepalese food on the whole isn’t very varied or interesting, local menus always offer similar essentially noodle and rice based dishes enhanced with a few limited vegetables – carrots, cabbage, cucumber, tomato.. In the bigger towns there are plenty of foreign dishes and even the tea houses serve pasta, pizza and chips so it is possible to ring the changes
29th September
After a very cloudy evening the day before, by the time we had arrived at the lodge it had been shrouded in cloud with no view to speak of, we awoke to a beautiful blue sky and 2000m altitude view of the clouds stuck down in the valley and of the snow covered Anapurna 2 still way up above us at around 8000m! Despite being only 7am it was quite warm enough to enjoy breakfast (eggs, toast, fried potatoes) outside on the sunny terrace whilst making he most of the view.
Porters taking a well-earned rest
By 8am we were on our way again, firstly on up yet more stone steps (thank goodness we had made a good start up them the day before, otherwise the climb would have been a real killer). We were not alone to start with on the trail as everyone sets off at around the same time, however as we walk at quite a good rate, we soon out distanced most people and found it quieter. We walked for 5 hours, including two stops for cups of masala tea, no goats to be seen, I suppose they had all been dealt with… Quite a few caravans of mules again, one carrying potatoes down to the valley, the others carrying an assortment of goods from gas bottles to children too young to make the hike up.
There was also a constant to and fro of small planes shuttling serious climbers up to the Anapurna Base Camp – known as A.B.C. to the locals – way above and beyond us. 
By the time we got up three quarters of the way, it began raining steadily which made the trail slippery and muddy, we got soaked but we had arrived at our tea house for the night in time for a late lunch (Dal Bat – staple Nepali meal of rice, lentils and vegetables). After lunch a short siesta was called for, we hoped the rain might stop but the weather stayed very overcast, blocking all the views.
So we passed the rest of the afternoon playing Scrabble (2 more wins to me) and reading until dinner time (tomato soup, momos and apple pie). Then to bed early because the next morning we had a very early start.
30th September
We were up and about at 4.30am in order to climb the nearby mountain Poon Hill in order to watch the sunrise over Anapurna. Luckily the rain had stopped during the night – otherwise the climb would have been pointless in the clouds, the night sky was still full of stars when we set off along with most of the other people staying at the cluster of tea houses around ours. I always find climbs in he dark a little unnerving, we had headlamps but even with them on it’s impossible to see more than a couple of yards beyond the edge of the path or In front of yourself and you climb on in a sort of limbo, totally ignorant of your surroundings until they are better revealed during the descent, then you see all sorts of things you had never imagined! 
It took about 45 mins to reach the summit of the hill, it was pretty chilly up there as it was still dark, there was a stiff breeze and we had by this point reached over 3200m. rapidly though, as we sipped overpriced hot tea in tin mugs, sold in a little cabin at he summit, the sky began to lighten and we could pick out the silhouettes of the mountains still way above us. We took lots of photos and enjoyed the always amusing sight of dozens of Chinese people striking whacky poses for their souvenir pictures! The novelty of that soon wore off and we decided to go back down to the hotel for breakfast; on the way though we were very lucky and the clouds shrouding Anapurna lifted, giving us a lovely view of the mountain summit.
By the time we got back we were starving and are a well deserved breakfast (porridge, scrambled eggs, chapatis with jam), then got our belongings together and set off at 8am for another day’s walking.
The path climbed quite steeply to begin with until we we reached a ridge path which wound it’s way up and down through a Rhododendron forest. We had never seen Rhododendron trees (not bushes) before, these were as big as the pine trees that were dotted in amongst them and had quite hefty trunks rather like Plane trees, they must be quite a sight when they are flowering in the spring, the guide said they all bloomed different colours. We also saw several small planes flying up the main valley well below us which was a little weird!
At the end of the ridge the path followed a large stream, filled with the day before’s rain, down to the bottom of the next valley before climbing the other side of the valley. By this point we were feeling rather weary, the early start and clambering up and down hills was taking it’s toll, they were the sort of descents that are actually worse than climbing – big rocks, stones and roots littered he path made very slippy by the rain and the frequent passage of mules. We were relieved when we arrived at the tea house for a late lunch (macaroni with vegetables and cheese and fruit salad).
Once again it began to rain in the late afternoon so we resorted to sitting in the dining room and playing Scrabble (1 match to me, 1 draw… Thierry was improving!). It was surprisingly cold so all the guests were down there too, along with all the guides and porters, the landlord lit the wood stove in the centre of the room so it soon became much cosier; going back up to the cold bedroom after was hard though, luckily we had our hip flask of Glenmorangie to help us through.
1st October
By this time we were becoming used to getting up early – actually it was easy because the nightlife at tea houses is non-existent and by 9pm everyone is tucked up in bed! So at 6am we were awake and packing our bag before breakfast (porridge and chapatis with honey) at 7am. We took our time walking as the day before had been particularly difficult, the path was downhill 80% of the way with just a few slippery and muddy stretches. Again we followed a stream down, from time to time there were little waterfalls and beautiful views of the back drop of mountains.
We met quite a few children trekking on the way, some of them are with their family, some not more than 5 or 6 years old, the parents are very brave bringing them so far and so high, we were wondering how our two would have fared at that age… I suspect one would have loved it, but the other would have moaned all the way round, no prizes for guessing which is which… Only one family we saw, who had 3 smallish kids, had rented a mule and the kids took it in turns to ride up the steep bits, another family had an extra porter for a young boy, they ran down hills together hand-in-hand much to the boy’s delight, every time he stumbled, the porter caught him up before he hit the ground!
We stopped for tea as usual but even having idled by half an hour there, we had arrived at our final destination by 11.30am, only 3.5 hours walking, we were staying in the first real village we had seen for 3 days. Ghunruk is a hillside community consisting mainly of small tea houses and housing for he people employed in them. It is something of a centre though for the area, there is a secondary school – with boarding facilities I suppose, a small healthcare centre and a tea house which also serves as a post office.
We decided to test the postal facilities by sending postcards to the boys in Paris, apparently Ghunruk is not accessible by road, only mules and porters, we still had quite a way to go back down to get to the car next day, so we will let you know if the cards ever arrive in Paris – the café owner cum post office manager had to go and ask the next-door shop owner how much the stamp to Paris would be, then we had to push a chicken out of the way to get at the post box to post the cards, goodness knows how frequently, or more to the point infrequently, they have collections. I shall let you know if the cards arrive one day! 
There was also a pretty little monastery in the village, we disturbed the guardian lady, who had been busy checking her daughter’s hair for lice (the poor girls seem to have that inflicted on them very often as we often saw mothers doing it), she let us in to have a look around and then to walk round outside spinning the prayer wheels that adorn the walls, before going back to her task on the front porch.
We spent the evening much as was becoming our habit: a game of Scrabble (I lost for the first time), a beer, then dinner before retiring to bed early. We did sit outside and watch the sunset, there was a beautiful view from the terrace of the red reflection of the sunset on Fish Tail mountain opposite our room. Apparently Fish Tail mountain, despite being far from the highest peak at 6997m is a virgin summit, it has never been climbed. Around the same time as Edmund Hilary climbed Everest for the first time in 1953, a group of 30 or so Japanese mountaineers set out to climb Fish Tail but they were all swept away and killed by an avalanche. Consequently the Nepalese authorities have consistently refused to grant permits for any further attempts and Machhapuchhare remains a virgin to this day. The guide of the Iranian group in the room next to us said he had had the opportunity to fly over the summit by helicopter and saw some kind of lake right on the top.
2nd October
We awoke at 6am, once again to wonderful views of Fish Tail and Anapurna South but this time at sunrise. It is the sheer size of these peaks which is the most impressive, I am relatively used to seeing 3000-4000m peaks in the Alps, we have skied at 3000m or more on several occasions; 8000m however is a totally different ball game. The mountains are best seen at sunrise when the clouds seem to gather on their lower slopes, leaving a clear view of the summits. When you realise that you are standing at 3000m and the top is way, way above you still, even he snow line is way higher than you, you get some indication of the scale and size of the Himalayas.
By 8am we were on our way, the objective for the day was to be back down in Nayapul, at he spot where the driver had left us the previous Sunday, by early afternoon. Firstly we cut down through forest and fields for a couple of hours, it wasn’t difficult but the path was steep and rocky and mined with lots of donkey poo, making the the steps treacherous. We passed a couple of places too where the bridge or ford had been washed away by the recent monsoon, then a temporary solution had been set up in the form of stepping stones or a a few tree trunks laid across the river, fine for the sure-footed local kids who run down the slopes bare-foot, but a slightly trickier prospect for we urban middle-aged hikers.
The children in the villages we passed seemed to be living healthy, happy outdoor lives, enjoying the simple pleasures of life, we saw games we hadn’t seen for years like hoops or jacks, many an hour is spent too playing in the waterfalls and rocky pools to be found everywhere. Only one of the lodges we stayed in had a television but we didn’t see any in private houses, I suspect the electricity supply is dodgy at best and they probably suffer from power surges and other such plagues of very basic electric networks. There is however a good mobile phone network and even Internet in some places so I suppose this current generation will bypass conventional TV altogether and go straight to downloading and streaming, rather like they have gone from no phone straight to mobile phone but with no landline network.
In the first week’s walking we didn’t see any schools in action, they were all closed for the festival but we saw quite a few very basic primary school buildings – often just a shed type building with benches, several hamlets we walked through had organised a collection box for their school, asking trekkers to leave some money for school supplies, families took turns to man the box. Only 72% of men and 54% of women in Nepal can read so education has a long way to go, a third of people live in the towns where schooling is much better and most people can at least read so there must be a huge problem in the outlying areas. I suppose just getting to a school is a major challenge and finding people who are competent to teach even the most basic skills must be tricky too.
After about 3 hours walking down he mountain we finally got back to civilisation in the form of a track and the first motorbikes and cars we had seen since we left Nayapool, we didn’t take the road though, the trail down through the paddy fields which replaced the forest at his lower altitude, was much more pleasant. The rice grown on the high altitude terraces is interesting because it is much taller than the rice we have often seen growing elsewhere on our travels in Asia, it’s easily a metre high, we saw the second crop of the year, I expect they would be harvesting quite soon, the seeds were well formed but still small and very green. As all supplies have to be carried in by man or mule, most families and tea houses had their own vegetable garden with potatoes, onions, millet, corn, cabbages, beans… There was however very little fruit, just bananas and apples. 
Eventually we made it down the hill, had lunch (noodles) and walked the last few miles back to the car along the river. We handed in our hiking permits – there is a surprisingly well established system tracking who is where in case of accidents or incidents and then set off back for Pokhara.
Late afternoon we decide we deserved a massage and went to try a place we had heard about called Seeing Hands. Only the receptionist can see, the masseurs are all blind. The young man I had was 27 and had been doing the job for 6 years, he was excellent and really ironed out a lot of the aches and knots caused by the 5 days of hard walking. There is a similar place in Hangzhou, I must give it a try.
3rd October
Transition day, the driver got us back from Pokhara to Kathmandu in record time – 5 hours! This was due to it being one of the main days of the Dasain festival, hence it was rather like doing the trip on Christmas Day, no lorries, only a few buses and very few bikes and cars. Most of the businesses in the villages and towns we drove through were shuttered up for the day too so there was also much less traffic and pedestrians to watch out for.
Dasain is Nepal’s biggest festival and it lasts for two weeks, the main days were the 3rd and 4th October. The festival celebrates the victory of the goddess Durga over the forces of evil. As well as the sacrifice of animals, there are ceremonies in every temple and village. Swings are also erected in villages and homes, we saw big bamboo swings on village squares and in the mountains and lots in private homes, some just strung up in a doorway, others were more elaborate, hung from trees or specially constructed frames in the gardens. I wonder why they don’t leave the swings up all the time; it seems a bit like giving a child a swing for Christmas and then taking it down on he 2nd of January!
Our guide tries a swing in the mountains
There is also a lot of kite flying both by children and by adults, even on the rooftops in towns there are battles for who can get the highest without getting his string cut by his neighbour’s kite (they soak the strings in shards of glass to make this possible), in theory you win any kite you manage to cut down but in town a lot of them end up draped over electricity or phone wires or stuck in trees or on roofs and terraces. The kites make for a very pretty sight in the sky and it becomes a reflex to look up as you hear a cheer going up when someone brings a kite down.
Kite flying from the roof
We were back in Khatmandu by lunchtime and said goodbye to our driver and guide who left us for other jobs. We had a free day in which to have a look round Khatmandu before meeting up with our Malaysian Hash friends for part 2 of our Nepalese adventure! In fact we were rather lucky to be in town at the festival time because once again a lot of businesses and shops were closed, making the streets much quieter and traffic free, this is highly appreciable in a place like Kathmandu where the streets are narrow with virtually no pavements and the traffic obeys rules known only to itself. We decided to do a walk of the old city as suggested in our trusty Lonely Planet Guide to Nepal. We had great fun trying to follow he instructions, given that there are no street names on the street corners, you have to count junctions and crossroads, or resort to asking passerby the name of the street you are on.
Crazy wiring
The old city is very varied but universally run down, it seems to have been a victim to chaotic development with no real scheme or planning, we saw beautifully paved streets at one point but then when we turned a corner we found ourselves back on a dirt road with no covering whatsoever… Likewise the ground floor of the streets consisted very often of the most mundane and ordinary shop fronts but if you lifted your eyes to the upper stories of the building, there were the most wonderful old carved windows and balconies hiding behind neon lights and spider’s webs of crazy electric wire installations.
We spent several happy hours just wandering around the rabbit warren of streets and alleyways, hunting out the points of interest mentioned in our guide.
For dinner we headed for he more touristy area and an Israeli run restaurant (thanks again Lonely Planet). It was a very cool laid back place and we lounged on rugs and cushions while we ate our dinner of mezze type food, a welcome change from he rather repetitive diet of he previous few days. We were reflecting over dinner that although travellers are going to many exotic places nowadays, there are always touristy areas to cater for their needs wherever you go. There wasn’t a single Nepali in the restaurant, partly because of the price I am sure, but also because it was way out of their comfort zone, rather like if we went to a Nepali restaurant in London or Paris where nothing was written in a language we could read and where we were obliged to eat with our fingers… Was it the same I wonder in the heyday of Khatmandu? Did the Hippies just hang out amongst themselves or were they really integrated into Khatmandu society? Furthermore, why did they choose Khatmandu? It’s not a particularly pretty place, maybe it was just that the dope was cheap and the locals were tolerant. I must look more into this when I get home.
P.S. Apparently there used to be a hippie trail from Europe right through to Bangkok and Kathmandu happened to be more or less on this hippie tourist route, the city was attractive because of its mystical connections, hippies were intrigued by the alternative culture, it fitted in well with their rejection of traditional lifestyle and values. The trend ended with the political problems that sprang up along the route in the 70s – it became impossible to enter and cross such countries as iran or Afganistan.
4th October
We tried to lie in but we had got so used to getting up early that we were awake at 6am as had become usual. We had intended to have a good look at Durber Square but I had earache and decided I had better go and see a doctor before going off trekking again for 4 days, far away from any medical assistance. We found the “International Travellers’ Clinic” without too much trouble and were easily there, first in line, at 9am, opening time. The resident American trained and accented Nepali doctor soon diagnosed a mild ear infection and sent me away with drops and antibiotics to be taken only if it got worse while we were trekking.
Khatmandu isn’t actually very big, it’s quite easy to walk from one point to another as long as you are not afraid of the traffic, or the beggars, or the stray dogs, or of walking in offerings left out in the street, sometimes for no apparent reason. It’s pretty busy, 1 million of the 30 million Nepalese population live there. We headed over to Durbar Square, the main heart of the town and site of some of the most sacred temples. 
On the way however, we stopped at the Garden of dreams, a once private garden which had been created in Edwardian times by Kaiser Sumsher Rana, who had seen similar gardens in Europe, it fell into neglect before being recently renovated by a group of Austrians. They have created a wonderful little oasis of calm and green in the very centre of Khatmandu.
What a contrast when we arrived at Durbar Square! Not a blade of grass to be seen, just a chaotic mix of traffic (it is one of the main crossroads in the town), locals heading for one of the numerous temples on the square for their daily prayers and offerings, tourists vainly trying to decide from their guidebooks which temple is which whilst constantly being accosted by trinket vendors and sadhus! It took us a good 4 hours to work our way around the square looking at he temples and statues, we had a rest for lunch at a rooftop restaurant overlooking the square (food nothing special, service sooooo slow but all made up for by the view and a bit of peace and quiet). 
One of the palaces, the Kumari Bahal, on Durbar square is the official residence of the Kumari Devi; hundreds of statues and temples representing gods litter the streets of Kathmandu but they also have a living god. A young girl between four years old and puberty who fulfils 32 requirements (physical characteristics, horoscope, sound of her voice…) is chosen, once she has been selected, she moves into the palace with her family and then only goes out for a few festivals a year, the rest of the time she remains in the palace and Nepalis can go and see her there. Occasionally she appears at a window for tourists but we didn’t get to see her, as it was a festival she was on tour. Once the girl reaches puberty, she reverts to being a common mortal and reverts to a normal life. Apparently they all have problems at that point because they have no real idea of what a normal life is; work, friends, shopping… and find it difficult to reinsert and find a husband and so on. The current one is about 9 years old.
When we got back to the hotel we found our Malaysian hash friends had all arrived and had a couple of beers and dinner with them before redistributing our luggage again in order to be able to leave some bags at the hotel and just take as little as possible on the second trek.
5th October
Ready to set off!
We all had breakfast together at 7am then boarded a bus to Sundarijal. It took us about an hour to reach our starting point and then about another half hour to organise porters once we reached our destination; we were now a group of 15 walkers, there was one porter for each 2 walkers, a chief guide and an assistant guide.
Farm houses along the way
This time we were setting off to trek the upper Khatmandu valley, north-east of the town of Khatmandu. We all set off together but as the first stretch of the walk was very steep indeed, it was selective and our line of walkers was soon strung out over more than a kilometre. We stopped for lunch at a mountainside tea house, there were 20 of us and they hadn’t been warned so the food took ages to arrive, we sat around for about an hour and some of the Hashers even went to help in the kitchen to hurry things along a bit.
Restaurant kitchen!
Finally we had a simple but good meal of eggs – omelette and hard-boiled, dal, vegetable curry and chapatis. This first part of the walk was still quite well inhabited, we went through numerous little clusters of houses clinging to the side of the hill along the path, some have set up little stall type shops selling drinks and snacks, others are obviously poor subsistence farmers, scraping a living out of a few chickens and goats and such vegetables as can be farmed on such difficult terrain. Once we got higher up, the slopes became less steep and terracing more easy so the fields became larger and somewhat easier to manage, the houses also seemed larger and life a little more prosperous. On the whole the children look healthy enough, if a little scruffy and grubby, again we didn’t see any evidence of school but it was still festival time so I suppose they were still on holiday. That was a shame because I quite like having a look round a school and seeing what is going on.
The trail we walked this time was also noticeably dirtier than the one of the previous week, there was lots more litter along the path, despite the odd waste bin, I get the impression though that it was more the locals who were littering the path than hikers; we seemed to often see them snacking on potato crisps or other salty biscuit products and then for a while after each stall you would get a trail of discarded wrappers; there weren’t many empty water bottles – the usual litter produced by hikers and trekkers. Actually along the Anapurna trail we followed in the first week, selling water in bottles is forbidden in order to avoid this problem, water sellers are provided with small scale water purifiers which fill 20 litre recyclable bottles, these are in turn used to fill the hikers own bottles at a charge of 5rps a litre – compared to a plastic bottle of mineral water, which causes a recycling problem and costs 60rps. We didn’t have any problems at all with this water although we did see some other, more wary hikers, adding water purifying drops to their bottles.
Walking in the afternoon was just as difficult as the morning, largely uphill via big stone steps; we didn’t suffer too much because we had already had a few days of hiking this sort of trail the previous week, however some of the newcomers found it hard going. Just to make things even more tough, it began to rain towards the end of the walk, Thierry and I just made it back to shelter before he heavens opened but the majority of the group were still out on the trail. It was a good hour before the last of our group arrived
We spent the night in a little hamlet called Chisapani at the most basic of the tea houses we had been in, we did actually have an “ensuite” squat toilet and basic shower but the hot water was only a little less cold then the cold and the loo was smelly so, needless to say, we didn’t spend much time in the bathroom!
The evening was good fun, it began with tea to warm us up after the hike then moved on to beer, whisky and Armagnac. We had a good dinner, sang a couple of songs and reviewed he day’s trekking before heading to bed around 9.30pm.
6th October
A day that will be remembered for a very long walk and lots of leeches! After a few group photos at the summit of the trail, we set off for the 4 hour trek to the village of Nagarkot. It was a pretty walk along a ridge with lovely views of fields in he foreground and the mountain range behind. The track however was narrow and we were brushing constantly against long grass, everything was wet after after he previous night’s rain and I think all the leeches in Nepal had climbed up the grass and plants, and were ready and waiting to jump out onto unsuspecting passing hikers – especially those foolhardy enough to wear shorts like me, though quite a few people even managed to get them on their stomach and arms too. The problem with leech bites is that they bleed for a long time, even after they drop off or you get them off, this is because they inject some anti coagulant into their victim when they bite so that the blood flows more easily; the bite itself is very small and totally painless but they can bleed quite profusely for a couple of hours.
We stopped for a good rest and lunch in a village along the way, there was a bus service through the village, I think there must have been a good hundred people on each small bus that went past, there were as many hanging on the doors and sitting on the roof as there were actually inside the vehicles. 
Another 3 hour walk after lunch to reach our final destination of Nagarkot. It was largely uphill but nothing like as difficult as the day before’s climb, this was up a track that motorbikes could use too although car went round a different, better surfaced route ( 3 of our group had had enough by lunchtime and preferred to get a drive in a van to Nagarkot with a willing vegetable seller in the village where we had lunch – for obvious reasons, they didn’t fancy the precarious ride on the bus). We did walk quite a distance over the day – 24kms by the time we arrived at our hotel. About an hour before the end of the walk thunder started rumbling round the mountains and it was raining by the time we arrived.
Nagarkot is a hill station up above Kathmandu, it’s a popular weekend and honeymoon destination and quite a large community has built up around the hotels up there. In the morning all the guests get up early to watch sunrise from the roof of the hotel where they have been staying, consequently we were all up at 5.45am, ready and waiting. 
7th October
After watching the sunrise we had a good breakfast and set off on the last leg of our trek back down towards Kathmandu. Spirits were high, the weather was perfect and the walk was a very pleasant largely downhill stroll through farmed terraces; we saw corn, potatoes, rice, onions, chillies… By the time we got back down to the bottom of the valley the rice was looking yellower, ready to harvest and families were out working hard in the fields. The weather in Kathmandu is really very pleasant, it’s similar to California, according to our guide, so they manage to grow 2 crops of rice a year and lots of fruit and vegetables, at altitude we only had apples and bananas but in the valley there is much more choice: papaya, melon, pineapple, grapefruit and oranges…
The porters were also in high spirits on the last day and kept us amused with Bollywood songs in Hindi. They seem to have an inexhaustible stock of these songs and sang their way happily down the mountain and all the way home on the bus. Amongst themselves the Nepalese speak Nepali (or some of the dialects that exist within the 36 ethnic groups in the country), Nepali is quite similar to Hindi, and us written with the same Devangari script, however there are a lot less of the English words which seem to creep into Hindi in India. A lot of people speak Nepali, Hindi (thanks to Bollywood films) and in general there is a pretty good level of basic English.
By lunchtime we were back in Kathmandu and had the rest of the day free. We managed to get some clothes washed, ironed and back to us in a few hours while we ate, had a snooze and did a bit of souvenir shopping. There are lots of shops, we picked up, in no particular order: some masala tea, a prayer wheel, some pashmina shawls, a coffee pot and some rather original Christmas cards (how organised is that? Christmas cards bought by the end of the first week in October).
Once again we reorganised our luggage, this time one bag containing things we didn’t need any more was filled with sleeping bags, anoraks, souvenirs…
8th October
First day of the Chennai Hash anniversary weekend, this was originally the main objective of our trip to Nepal but as the Chinese Golden Week fell just before, we had a week’s bank holiday and by adding on a few days, we managed to extend our holiday to 2 weeks. So after 10 days of walking, it was now time to head down to Chitwan, one of Nepal’s national parks, for a long weekend of Hashng, partying and spotting wild animals.
The first day’s programme however consisted of sightseeing in Kathmandu; we made another lightening tour of Durbar Square, and then went to one of the main Buddhist temples Swoyambhunath, also known as the monkey temple, to the second largest Buddhist stupa in the world and to a cremation site and temple on the banks of the river.
All the rivers in Nepal are tributaries of the Ganges and as such are considered sacred, this explains why we saw so many rivers, pools and streams adorned with flags as we were travelling round. So bodies are cremated next to rivers all over the country and the remaining ashes are just swept directly into the water which takes them down to the Ganges. In Kathmandu the site is regulated because of numbers, the fires burn 24 hours a day and there is actually an electric furnace too (less popular than a real fire). Both Hindus and Buddhists are cremated, the only difference being that Hindus are laid out with their heads to the North and Buddhists with their head to the South. 
The only fun aspect of this rather gruesome, smoky spot was the presence of several Sadhus whose bright yellow and orange robes and garish make up contrasted with the grey smoke billowing from the fires (a fire last about 3 hours). Real Sadhus are Hindu hermits who give up everything and spend their life wandering round, oftern half naked, with just a begging bowl and covered in ashes. It’s difficult to know how genuine the ones we saw were; they certainly looked the part, some were more or less naked, some had 40 year beards and dreadlocks. They were much more happy and ready to chat and be photographed than I expected; they didn’t actually ask for money but a few Nepalese rupees were very welcome!
The second Buddhist temple was interesting too, Boudhanath is only 4 minutes from the Hindu site above but they atmosphere is completely different, Hindu temples always seem chaotic, noisy and elaborate with lots of statues and regalia; Buddhist ones are much quieter and the procedure seems calmer; the devotees walk round the stupa, in a clockwise direction, sometimes alone, sometimes in family groups or with friends, some spin the prayer wheels from time to time or finger rosary type beads, there are stops to pray in front of alters or make offerings but it’s all fairly quiet (well except for the groups of ladies… same everywhere in he world…). 
It was amazing how different the people looked, this part of Kathmandu is populated by a completely different ethnic group with much more Chinese/Tibetan type features, their clothes were different too, no more saris but more long pinafore style dresses. In fact thousands of Tibetans arrived in this part of he city after fleeing their country when China invaded in 1959.
As we walked around the sites we caught up with Hasher friends from all over the world and met a few new ones, by the evening everyone had arrived, around a hundred participants in all and we had a good dinner and party in the courtyard of the Manaslu Hotel. It felt quite different and rather pleasant to be more formally dressed again after 10 days of outdoor gear!
All dressed up!
9th October
Our day began with a long, long, 160kms, 7 hour bus drive to Chitwan National Park (this time only one small backpack each was allowed – another luggage reorganisation was required but we were given 3 great Hash tee-shirts, one for each day so not much else was needed…). We followed the same route out of Kathmandu as when we drove to Pokhara but turned off at a fork half the way along. From the fork onwards, the quality of the road diminished rapidly and we were soon only crawling along, the AC gave up the ghost, so we had the choice between sitting in an oven or opening the windows and getting covered in dust. The welcome when we arrived was worth the discomfort, two elephants were waiting at the entrance holding a “Welcome Hashers” banner! 
They were so cute and very friendly – only too happy to finish off my packet of biscuits from the bus! Needless to say I signed up quickly for the next day’s elephant expedition.
Chitwan means “Heart of the Jungle”, it’s a Unesco site of 932km2, renown for rhinoceros,Royal Bengal Tigers and Gharial crocodiles (sounded like we might be missing a few Hashers by dinner time…). We stayed at a lodge called the Bahari Jungle Lodge in beautifully fitted out cabins. They were raised from the ground to ensure a fantastic view through big bay windows out over the river and grass plains home to wildlife.
In the afternoon it was late by the time we set off Hashing so the walk was kept short to avoid losing any participants once night had fallen. The land around the resort was flat as far the eye could see so that was completely different to our hikes of the first two weeks; we skirted paddy fields and crossed wooded areas, frequently passing through farms and villages. The area seemed fairly prosperous with largish fields and at least some motorised machinery was feasible with the easier lay of he land and large plots, we saw tractors and ploughs and a threshing machine whereas in the mountains everything was still being done by hand.
It rained soon after we returned from the walk so the circle was indoors, we kept it short and sweet but here were some very good and appropriate songs courtesy of Wild Boar of the KL Hash; after dinner was served and DJ Vivek had an early night again as the music had to stop by 10.30pm, We had totally adopted the Nepali early to bed, early to rise lifestyle by this time so it was actually quite a late night for us!
10th October
A quiet day until the run at 4pm, we had a leisurely breakfast and Thierry went off with three Chennai Hashers to set the afternoon’s run. I went for a great elephant walk through the jungle with Aussie friends Lofty, Adrain and George, it’s a lovely way to get around, so quiet, you can still hear the jungle noises and the other animals are not disturbed by a passing elephant in the same way as they are by a jeep or walkers; we saw two or three sorts of deer, a rhinoceros and loads of birds down by the river and water holes; firstly we walked through tall trees with quite hick undergrowth and then out into tall elephant grass- the grass was still higher than us on the elephant’s back!
The lodge has four elephants which go out on walks in pairs, they took us back for lunch but quickly lured us out again for their daily bath in he river at 2pm, we splashed around, had great fun and got very wet for another hour with them until it was time to dry off for the day’s run. I walked the longer runners’ trail with a few other fast walkers, no rhinos to be seen this time though, just buffalo, cows and goats as we walked throughout the farmland. The local village people were by this time becoming familiar with the flashy tshirted Hashers going past their houses and the children rushed to point out the trail with yells of “namaste” then “on on…”!
After a good circle, half of us standing round the edge of the pool, beer can in hand, the other half on dry land, there was another delicious dinner and more music until bedtime, the weather was more clement and it was lovely to just lounge about and dine outside. Probably the last few evenings outside for us in 2014.
11th October
We all got up early again to make the long bus ride back in the other direction to Kathmandu. It was just as long, boring and bumpy as two days previously but the guide did allow us a couple more breaks when we could stretch our legs. Once we had finished a quick lunch the local Kathmandu Hash club took us out on a run, this necessitated another 30 minutes by bus and the vast majority of our group had had enough bus for one day and preferred to stay back at the hotel. 
We went along ( mainly out of politeness I must admit, and also to get a bit of exercise after the long sit). In the end the run was great, we ran up a hillside to get a view over Kathmandu from a temple at the top, I was walking with the hares at the front and we had just started to come down when I stopped to wait for a couple of other people who were just on the way up, they decided to come down too because the sun had gone down and it was starting to get dark. However by the time hey had made their decision the local hares had disappeared, never to be seen again, neither could we find a paper trail so we just followed the road down rather than cutting through fields and climbing over walls in the dark. 
The road went down a much longer way though so by the time we got back all, the others (who had given up half way or short-cutted back) had finished their beer and the circle and were already sitting on the bus ready to go back to the hotel. More importantly, when we counted up, after our tardy arrival, there were still two Hashers out on he hillside somewhere. Two local Hashers went off to find them in a jeep and eventually brought them back to the hotel a good hour after the rest of us.
In he evening there was a last party at the hotel with a live band from Chennai who were very good. Spirits were high and we all made plans for future meetings in Australia, India or Bali.
12th October
At the minute, on our last day, we decided to make a mountain flight with one of the small operators that fly out of Kathmandu airport and fly you along the mountain range to Everest and back in an hour. The hotel pick up was at 6am so, once again, we were up with the larks. It was a small plane that could have sat a hundred passengers but only the window seats were sold so there were only 25 people on board. The views were absolutely marvellous and everyone got to go up to he flight deck to have Everest and a a couple of other peaks pointed out by one of the two female pilots.
Everest
The hour passed very quickly though and all too soon we were on our way back to the hotel for breakfast.
The rest of the morning was occupied by repacking our bags for the umpteenth time and saying goodbye to friends, I managed to find a clean teeshirt and presentable pair of trousers for the trip back, then we checked out and went to have a look around the old kitsch Royal Palace of Kathmandu.
Until 2001 Nepal was an absolute monarchy then, on June 1st, the young heir to the King shot and killed 10 members of his immediate family, including his father the King. The official story is that his parents wouldn’t allow him to marry the Indian girl of his choice and/or that he didn’t agree with his father’s intention to rule in a more democratic manner. There appears to be a great deal of mystery about the whole event (the bodies were disposed of very quickly, the next in line after the prince just happened to be out of town that day whereas all the rest of the family were home), all sorts of conspirations have been put forward…. To cut a long story short, following the “Massacre” as it became known, the monarchy was replaced by a democratically elected parliament; however it is a system riddled with corruption and, according our guides, the country is in a very bad way because a lot of the money intended for improving infrastructures like schools, roads, electric power… ends up in the politicians pockets.
Our overnight flight home left late at night but we had one last memorable moment at the airport when they announced we had outstayed our visas, we had pointed out when we arrived that this would be a problem but the officials on the visa on arrival desk had assured us a 15 day visa was enough for 16 days (the last day being the day you leave so it doesn’t count), his colleague at the departure desk didn’t agree though so we had to fill in a load of forms and pay a 30$ fine each on top of the 3$ for an extra day. No comment.. at least we had arrived well in advance and had time to sort it out before we left!
In conclusion, Nepal is a great place to visit, I’d love to go again and go to one of the base camps, there is a huge potential there for tourism which is only just beginning to be developed. There is however a huge contrast between the obvious lethargy and corruption of the government and the desire of the more dynamic private sector to move on and up; the Nepali people are lovely, we were made extremely welcome wherever we went; if infrastructures could just be a little be better, everyone would profit from it, tourists and locals alike.
Hello everyone,
We made several interesting trips during 2014, in fact we saw in the new year with the first one to Tenerife, we had never been there before and had a great week with my sister Susie visiting the island, walking a lot and sampling the culinary delights. Susie’s suitcase only turned up a couple of days before we had to come home, but apart from that, it was a super winter break in the sun.
fires and eaten sitting cross-legged round low tables. In the monasteries we slept on the floor in the main prayer hall and rather than paying, our guide made food for the monks daily meal. We spent many of the evenings playing Scrabble by torchlight on the ipad (thank you whoever invented power packs) and had more than one night time excursion up the garden, also by torchlight, to reach the outside loo. Rest assured though if you fancy going… there is more comfortable accommodation available in the touristy destinations.
Once Thierry got back, we took the ferry over to Macau and had a long weekend there; it’s a rather interesting island too – a sort of latter day Las Vegas cum Portuguese outpost. The old town is quite interesting (the prize winning museum is great and well worth a visit); the town was absolutely teeming with Chinese mainlanders because it was a Chinese holiday weekend but they always travel in groups, the red cap group, the green bag group, the blue tracksuit group… and obediently follow their guides, down well used routes; by taking the bus out of town or visiting the casinos at off peak times, we managed to avoid the crowds to a certain extent. 
Crowd management in China never ceases to amaze me, they have it all off to a fine art, you just have to go with the flow and love thy neighbour (burps, farts, spitting and all). The food in Macau deserves a special mention, it was superb, a couple of places had been recommended to us and we had some great Portuguese style meals; I love Chinese food but it is so nice to have a break from time to time.
In March I made my now usual pilgrimage to Hyderabad to catch up with old friends (and get my annual spice fix) and by the time I got back from there, it was almost time to set off to Europe for the summer. 
The summer began very early for me at the end of May (I managed to escape the Hangzhou end of May/June rainy season!); we had a big family week-long reunion in Mallorca to celebrate several big birthdays and anniversaries (I’ll refrain from citing them all out of respect for the ladies…). A friend of Susie’s rented us his superb villa in the centre of the island (do contact me if you are interested in a holiday there for a group, it’s wonderful), we all knew the island pretty well but had fun revisiting favourite spots and partying most evenings on the terrace or at local restaurants. One evening my sister had a big bash with plenty of her friends and a great caterer, a wonderful time was had by all.
After Mallorca Thierry headed back to work in Hangzhou but I opted to stay in Europe until August and the BIG main event of 2014 – Xavier and Annabelle’s wedding on August 2nd. I shuttled between Chessy and York for quite a few weeks before the wedding, enjoying nice cooler but sunny weather at both ends (Hangzhou is 35-40 degC in summer with high humidity). Yorkshire was hosting the Tour de France and I spent a few days following that, then visiting family and friends and catching up with Nese and Evelyne in Paris.
We also attended a couple of international events: the world Interhash in Hainan China in March,
another world get together in Brussels in July attended by more than 3 thousand people and finally another weekend anniversary in Nepal organised by old friends from Chennai in India. 
Nepal was also a wonderful trip, we spent a few days trekking, just the two of us with a guide and porter on the Anapurna trail, then we met up with a group of Malaysian Hasher friends and hiked another few days with them before going on to the Chennai weekend. We had perfect weather for our stay, contrary to the people who followed the week after us and were caught in freak snow.
Thierry has now finished his first 3 year contract in China (doesn’t time fly?), for the moment it has been renewed and we are staying here; we do now however also have a very small flat in Shanghai, as well as the big one in Hangzhou, this has changed my life completely; instead of just going to Shanghai for a day or two each week, I can now stay there for a few days each week or all the time if Thierry is very busy or away, I spend time with my friends from the British expat club or the Shanghai Hash and now I can participate more easily in activities that finish after the last 9pm train home! Thierry’s still enjoying his job and it is certainly keeping him very busy; at the moment he has a big new project in Australia (I am hoping to get there soon… watch out Lofty, Adrian and Digby, I may be on my way!).
Jamie is busy in France with his group “Salut c’est Cool”, they are making quite a name for themselves with concerts all over France in clubs and festivals, they have also had trips abroad this year to other French speaking countries. He’s still living in Paris near the Gare du Nord, his best friend Louis now lives just up the road from him too which is very handy for both of them.
Xavier’s big news this year was his wedding to Annabelle in the summer; we all had a marvellous weekend celebrating that, he finally managed to get his 1973 VW Beetle on the road just in time to drive her to the ceremony in Croissy Beaubourg (20kms from Chessy)! The weather was glorious for the obligatory French civil service at the town hall with a slightly quirky deputy mayoress and then a wonderful church service led by Laurence the pastor from their church in Noisiel, she was accompanied by some marvellous music and songs provided by the group of young people that Annabelle usually sings with at church and of course all the congregation (standing room only) joined in with gusto and love. 
Afterwards there was a reception and dinner at a farm in the Brie countryside, it was so good that nobody wanted to go home so we stayed and had a barbecue on the Sunday too. 
. We don’t seem to have had any visitors this year (I admit it was quite difficult to catch me at home), but if you feel the urge or inclination to come and see us in Shanghai or Hangzhou, we would love to show you the West Lake and tea plantations of Hangzhou or the crazy buzz of Shanghai; feel free…
Bev and Thierry in India 