Khecheophri Lake

So we hiked to the Khecheophri lake yesterday afternoon which is at 1800m
and involves crossing a few valleys to reach. I found it a real hard slog
but the frenchies were very patient with me and we had a dog for company who seemed to know the way.

Eventually we got there then headed up the hill for another 30 mins to a
homestay village on sort of a peninsula of a big hill. It was very basic but
authentic. It was an Israeli girls birthday so we had a few beers and games
of chess and yatzee before bed (the dog was still with us and slept outside
my door).

It was another beautiful morning today with fantastic views and a great
sikkimesse breakfast curry.

Malte, a german guy, and I headed down to the lake walked around it and up
to view point, briefly meeting my canine friend again.
Eventually we tried to get a jeep back to Yuksom but of the 20 or so jeeps
parked there they were all going the other way. We couldn't even persuade
any to take us to the main road as they all wanted full fair to their
destination. We began to walk and hitch. Eventually an Indian family in a
jeep stopped and offered us the roof of the jeep.

This was not like being on the roof of a big bus across the Terri (flat
lands) in Nepal. This was a small jeep on windy, rough roads with sheer
drops on one side. The worst was the breaking that almost threw us in front
of the jeep on occasions. Still we made it to the junction with the Yuksom road and soon hitched a lift back. Thankfully we weren't on the roof this time as we went under the waterfall again.
I got back only to find that the dog was here already asleep at the front of
the guest house.

I'm beginning to think I'm being stalked.

Sikkim

My first destination in Sikkim was Pelling but there were no direct jeeps
from Darjeeling so I hopped in one heading more or less the right direction
and waited until they had squeezed 16 of us and lots of goods into it. It
was a very slow bumpy steep journey. I can see why there aren't any busses.
At the border we needed to do the paperwork and show our Sikkim passes.
While we were doing this another jeep turned up heading for pelling
containing Josh and Radney who I had met in Darjeeling, so we switched jeeps
and had loads more space on better roads for the second half of the journey.
They seem to be building a hydro plant around every corner here.
Sikkim is stunning, but the visibility has been poor most the time, with
just occasional glimpses of the mountains through the clouds. Josh, Radney
and I walked up to a monastery on top of a hill near Pelling where a
cremation was taking place in one part and young monks where playing cricket
in the other.

Then we hopped in a jeep to Yuksom (one of 4 spellings I've seen here). It was an amazing road, even going behind/through a waterfall. In the
evening we drank the local beer, Tongba, where you are basically given a big
wooden mug of slightly moldy millet and a kettle of hot water to poor in.
You can refill it 7 or 8 times and it gets you quite drunk.

The next day we hiked towards Tashiding which was really cool. You can't go
anywhere around here without spectacular views.

After about 15km it started to rain again and as we'd hit a road we hitched
a lift in a jeep back. In the evening we drank more Tongba with some French
guys and an American we'd first met in Pelling. Yesterday Josh and Radney
headed off as they want to get around Sikkim in a few days less than me, so
I hiked up to the local monastery with the other guys and played a few games
of chess.

Today is the first real sunshine I've seen since Kathmandu and the plan is
too hike to a lake (about 4 hours away) but we've spent a long time waiting
for the community centre to open (the only internet in town), and I've been
being a bit ill again so we'll see what happens.

Darjeeling

Finally feeling better now after 10 days of illness. Darjeeling is lovely although everywhere is shut by 9.30. I have made a few friends, there are loads of people from Bristol here. I ended up on the roof of someone's guest house celebrating a Swedes birthday with Ben from the band bedmonster (who I vaguely knew before) and a girl called Georgia who is a friend of Dee's.
Small world huh.
The Mountain Railway is fully booked for weeks so I am going to head off to Sikkim for a while and then heading back here for that.
Will let you know how Sikkim is soon. In the meantime here's some photos from my shiny new camera:
Views of Darjeeling:

View from my room:

Ben in the centre square of upper Darjeeling:

 

Yippee i can take photos at night:

Party on the roof:

Kathmandu to Darjeeling

I wasn’t overly struck with Kathmandu the architecture and Stupas were amazing and the museum at Patan durbar square pretty good, but a few days is enough there. By a week the pollution was really getting to me and I was producing huge amounts of black snot. My stomach also wasn’t 100%. I booked my self a sleeper bus to the boarder in the west.

It was a bit disconcerting when I got to the bus park to discover the sleeper bus was a normal bus, with a chock stopping it rolling away and slick tires. Also I had one of the worst seats (the ones at the back don’t recline and get bounced around more being behind the rear wheels. Still it should only be 12 hours.

4 hours in the windscreen shattered. After a brief stop to clear the glass we continued slowly. It wasn’t too cold but a bit dusty. I lost my camera phone at a stop around 2 am. I suspect it is currently at the bottom of a roadside toilet ditch, so I’m not sure I want it back.

By morning we detoured to get a new windscreen and then eventually got to the border about 7 hours late. Being off my food I had lived on biscuits and bananas for the journey. I looked for a guest house and somewhere hygienic too eat. My order for fruit musli curd resulted in a portion of dahl bhat (which I tried and failed to eat). And a guest house owner advised me to cross the border as it was still early in the day and there was nothing to do in this town.

I was a little concerned as I wasn’t supposed to re enter India till the following day but I crossed over no problem, and took the 2 hour bus ride to the next (quite large town) where the toy train (a proper working mountain train with only a 60-70cm gauge) to Darjeeling was meant to run from. It looked as if there were no good hotels and restaurants’ here either and I was craving somewhere clean that understood English to try to eat. So I went to the train station only to find the toy train wasn’t running. But I couldn’t find out why or whether this was permanent ect. I was told taxi or bus was the only way there so off to the bus station I go, only to find that there are no busses this season and a taxi driver offered to take me for £50 but after asking around I found the Indians made the journey in shared jeeps for about £2 each.

So eventually I arrived in Darjeeling booked into a pretty good hotel (Slightly run down Victorian place, a bit Scooby doo if you know what I mean) and attempted to eat.

The 30+ hour journey has taken its toll on my poor stomach. I’ve been here 4 days now and have barely left my room apart from trips for water/loo roll and to the chemists. I really can’t eat much but I think I’m slowly recovering. If I could get a few good meals down me I think I’d be fine.

From what I’ve seen Darjeeling is beautiful and I’m dying to get out and explore but the weathers been bad anyway, I have a good view from my room and loads of good channels on my telly.

Auld Lang Syne

Happy 2068 everyone, yup I seem to of gong back in time 60 odd years since last months Tibeten new year. So last night it was Nepali new year at this rate I’ll be back in 2011 in about 4 weeks. I’ve been in Kathmandu for a few days now and spent last night seeing the new year in in a bar, unfortunately the bars shut at 11 (and many police roam the streets enforcing this) so we didn’t quite see it in.

I don’t really fit in Kathmandu. A lot of the buildings are medieval and even modern Nepali’s are quite short so most the ceilings are below my normal shoulder height. I’m staying in Freak Street at the moment, affectionately renamed when the first hippies arrived here in the 60’s. tho its quite a small area and most the tourists are now about 2km away in Thamel. Freak Street is right on the fantastic Durbar Square full of monuments.

I've visited Swayambhu the most opulent Buddhist stupa in Nepal. It’s on top of a one of the few hills in the Kathmandu basin which is about 25km across and surrounded by mountains you can’t see most the time due to the pollution.

I also visited the national museum, split into 3 buildings it’s a pretty run down place except the Buddhist art/history section that is funded by the Japanese. This seems pretty common that Buddhist interests here do well from overseas money and are well looked after where as the Hindu stuff (by far the majority religion) is left to look after it self. I suppose this is understandable as it is such a large and displaced religion.

I was struck by the more blood thirsty nature of Tantric Hinduism (I’ve walked passed a few animal sacrifices here) compared to the more life respecting practices in India. I guess this comes from the Hinduist skill of accepting and absorbing any other faith it comes across. Also the deity worship of the tantric Buddhists seems to go against what little I know of Buddhism, often incorporating Hindu gods. The Hindus see Buddha as an incarnation of Krishna, but everything seems to boil down to Brahma in the end. The two religions seem very intertwined here.

Today I went to Thamel, to find an English bookshop and a place to move too tomorrow. I meandered back randomly and came across a load of guys playing Bagh chal in a bandstand/roundabout, I guess from the blankets ect at least some for them were homeless. I watched for a few mins, then sat and got my converted chess/bagh chal set out. I ended up playing the winner of the previous game. I found my self in the rare position of speaking more Nepali than they did English. I splashed a few cigarettes around and eventually won a very long game. They were had already lined up a guy I had to play next but I decided to head back home as night was falling and I was hungry. I may go back tomorrow.*

Oh I also had a couple of good games of chess against a 2200 rated coach of the nepali youth team over breakfast, I even felt I was winning for a while in the first game. Astley, a Malaysian chess player I met in pokhara has been here a few weeks and found the good chess players, but there is not real café playing scene here in the same way as Varannassi and Pokhara.

Anyways my foods arrived, catch ya all soon.

-Dan
PS kathmandu can be pretty dirty but some times the half hearted attempts to do something about it seem ironic.

see writing on wall

Chitwan National Park

Hi Again

I spent 2 days in Chitwan national park. 900 sq Km of Rhino and Tiger sanctury. It’s quite expensive there so I didn’t stick around too long. On the first day we crossed the river into the park proper with a guide and did a 3 hour walk through the forest. One of the first things we found was some tiger prints we followed to the river and where there was some blood and obviously some thing had been dragged into the undergrowth. We went in to investigate and found a huge deer (the biggest I’ve ever seen) half eaten. The tiger will likely come back for more in the evening. We saw a few other small spotted deer (like Bambi*) and lots of insects and interesting plants, but not a lot else.

In the afternoon we did a 5 hour jeep ride when you get deep into the jungle where there are lots of vines and things you half expect to see Tarzan swing across the road. Sadly we saw nothing bigger than a kingfisher early on, but there are some really pretty birds there, over 500 species in total, including the wild jungle foul, or chicken to you and I. Was stopped at a Gharial crocodile conservation center. They’re pretty awesome beasts. On the way back we saw a few troops of monkeys, a peacock doing a dance and finally, with in site of the river to cross back a huge stag. It was much bigger than anything we have in the uk, it was almost as tall as me standing up in the jeep and not at all bothered by us being there.

We crossed back, it’d been a nice day in the park but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed not to see a Rhino (Tiger sightings are really rare). We sat outside a bar on some loungers on the river bank chatted about the day and watched the sun set, and then with no warning a rhino just trotted passed on the other side of the river. It was still a long way away but pretty cool to see one in wild. It had a stand off with a man riding an elephant for a minute and then ran along the beach/shore and into the long grass.

(the photos of the Rhino didn't really come out)

The next day I had a long overdue lie in and got up in time to join in with the park elephants bathing at the river, which basically turned into elephant rodeo.

All good fun. I spent the afternoon in the community forest or buffer zone around the park reading and watching the world go by. There’s been a few rhino sightings there but I just saw the locals at work with elephants collecting a few logs.

Also i'm not sure about the cocktails in Chitwan...

(see monkey gland and nightlife)

Yesterday I had the long bus ride to Kathmandu, where I’m beginning to find my bearings and am sat in the tom an jerry pub right now as recommended by Ms Wilkinson (cheers Charlie)

Let you all know how drunk I get soon.

*Indecently Bambi’s parents were two different species of deer, both found in the park, thanks Disney for confusing generations.

Rafting

Hi Again
A couple of days before I left pokhara I went and stayed up at the guest house Robbie is building with Druba and his family and finally saw a proper sarangkot sunrise over the Himalaya. As you can see its pretty spectacular.

Then yesterday morning we headed off rafting. There were 5 of us on the raft, the guide, a german girl, an ozzie couple and myself, plus a kiwi in a kayak and 2 safety kayakers.
Most of the rapids were pretty tame but there was the odd challenging moment and the ozzies fell out once, but there was not really enough water.

It was really nice floating past the scenery and tiny villages of 3 or 4 wooden dwellings high on the banks, often on stilts, all the kids shouting from the banks "Namaste", "hello", "goodbye" and even at one point "I love you" to Anna (the german girl). The river was really warm (and weather scorching) so we did a lot of swimming.

On the first day we came across another raft of mischievous French and Spaniards containing my neighbors from pokhara. This led to lots of splashing each other that continued all day when we were close.
At about 5 we joined up with a big group of kayakers on a 3 day trip and setup camp on the river beach. Was a really nice evening.

Today we rafted till about 3 then caught a bus to a small village outside Chitwan national park. We all found a nice guesthouse and I am now typing from a hammock and watching the sunset.
Tomorrow into the park to try to spot some rhinos and tigers and other dangerous animals (humm do ozzies count).
-Dan

More Pokhara

It’s been a couple of weeks since I got back from my trek and I’m still here.

Not really done much except playing chess and drinking.

But why go anywhere when you can get an all you can eat meal like this for less than £1.50

And have a balcony like this to enjoy on my £3.50 per night room

There has been a thunder storm almost every afternoon, but it has made for some amazing sunsets.

Went sailing on the lake one day and got caught out in a sudden storm. We managed to beach the boat and get the sails down just in time. Two other boats on the lake capsized. Was quite exciting.

I also have been to Davi’s falls. A very odd water falls where the river goes from ground level straight down through successive holes it has dug. Its done is such a small space you can’t even see the bottom. Although there is also a cave with a temple in that comes out bottom of the hole the falls have dug deep under ground. All pretty cool.

Two days ago 3 of us hired bikes and went on a mission to get to Panchase which is only about 10km from here as the crow flies.

We’d heard rumors that there was now a road that was passable on bikes. The problem was no one seemed to know where it was. We headed off on one guys advice and after an hour got to a dead end in a village. There we met a chap who was the English teacher at the local school. He told us that we could hike for about 5 hours from there or come all the way back through pokhara and out the other side to get there by bike. We stopped for a chai with him and his mother, tea grown them selves with there own buffalo milk two. twas really nice.

So off we headed back to Pokhara, out the other side the road got progressively worse, we forded a few rivers and then started going up on a loose stone and sand track. It was tricky to say the least. Luis, who has ridden dirt bikes his whole life, was amazed I managed to get up some bits. I was a bit slower than the other two guys so I kept going when they stopped for a smoke. I was in the village before panchase and within sight of it when I got a call from the other guys saying Luis bike had sprung a fuel leak. So I turned around and started heading down again. At this point it started to rain. Now this is where my biking inexperience showed, I was on a steep down, tight, gravely bend doing only about 5km/h and I used the front not rear brake and found my self on the ground a little bit broken, as was the bike. Luckily it was just a few scrapes so I carried on and caught the others up. (Luis had fixed his leak with a stone).

By now we were in a real thunder storm, it even hailed for a bit so the rest of the ride back wasn’t so nice, we barely dared go above 20km/h even when we found some tarmac.

To add a final piece of drama to the day Robbie’s brakes failed on a bend above a cliff. His only option was to bin it and luckily managed not to go over the edge, He’s hired his bike for 6 months and it really is a bit ropey.

In two days time I finally leave here and go to chitwan national park. Seeing as I am now even more scared of Nepal's roads my chosen method of transport is … two days white water rafting ☺

Catch you on the flip side

-Dan