Our year in India: Nepal, part 1.

We got home last night from one of the best places on earth.

Nepal is beautiful and the people are so friendly and helpful. We have had an amazing time and it will probably take a few days to cover it all in the blog! We have so many pictures it is crazy! I will do the pictures in different parts.

So we spent 10 days in Nepal, the first 2 in Kathmandu sightseeing. Then we went to Chitwan a wildlife reserve and went on a safari, the first two nights in a little cottage and then the last night in a tent. We left Chitwan and went to Pokhara and stayed in the Shangri-la for one night and then drove for about 30min up into the hills to Tiger Mountains cottages where we stayed for 2 nights. We finished our trip in Kathmandu with one night in the lovely Dwarika Hotel.

Kathmandu is very nice, it is busy but not like a big city that has cars everywhere, Kathmandu is busier with people although there are plenty of cars and trucks as well!

We went around Kathmandu and went to see all the Stupas they have there, it was quite interesting because we learned things about Buddha and their views that we didn’t know before, which we enjoyed very much. The first day we walked around without a guide and just took everything in and we fell in love with the place, the people are so gentle and even when they are trying to sell you things they ask you politely once and if you say no they leave you alone (not like in India). We bought some knickknacks and had some great meals at the hotel.

In the morning we went to the airport early (6am) to get on a tiny airplane to fly over the Everest. The airport in Kathmandu is tiny and there were hundreds of tourist wanting to fly over the mountains. Unfortunately you need clear skies for that and a lot of these kinds of flights get cancelled, we were unlucky and had to go back to the hotel without our flight! So we had breakfast and then returned to the airport to fly to Chitwan. We landed and the people from the Tiger Tops Jungle Lodge met us and took us first for an hour in a bus on a very bumpy road, we had children running along the bus and girls blowing kisses too Stephen all the way. Then we came to a smaller airport which basically was a field and a house, so we had lunch and then jumped into a Jeep as the bus couldn’t go any further. We travelled for about 20min out into the jungle and then had to get into a boat to cross a small river and then back into another Jeep for about 30min. Then there it was one bigger house were you eat all your meals with everyone and then two large houses on stilts and then smaller cottages further in the jungle. We slept in one of the more “luxurious” cottages further into the jungle but we still had no electricity and only warm water in the morning and evening. It was magical!

During the days we stayed there we went out on elephant safaris, Jeep safaris, jungle walks, boat safaris and we had one bathing session with the elephants!

We saw Rhinos and Rhino babies, wild elephants, beautiful birds, crocodiles (2 types), gaur (huge wild cows), different kinds of deer, wild boar etc. We didn’t see a tiger but we saw plenty of marks from them when we walked around, we also saw paw prints from the sloth bears. It was amazing to get up close with the Rhinos like we did on the elephants back and also in the Jeep, sometimes it felt like we came too close when you could basically touch it! One afternoon we got to give the elephants a bath and got in the river with them splashing them with muddy water! After coming back from the walk in the jungle, we sat outside the dining area and had a drink and all of the sudden a mummy Wild Boar came running out across the grass and she had 10 little piglets with her! They were running around squealing and then disappeared into the jungle again! That evening as we walked to the dining area we heard a noise in the woods, on shining the torch we saw about 40 eyes looking at us. There was a whole herd of spotted deer sheltering from the rain in the forest.

In the morning we transferred to the tented village, it again had one big dining room with an open fire where the food was cooked and then little tents dotted around it, and we stayed in one of the tents for one night. It was really nice as well although we found a huge spider in our toilet in the evening and we didn’t know what to do! This spider was as big as my open hand! Stephen even choose to pee outside our tent (where we found paw prints from bears) than inside our toilet! I didn’t get close to the sink because it was just above it! It was gone in the morning and I don’t want to know where it went! It was great to sleep in the tents because you could hear all the noises that went on around you. When we say tent there were still a proper bed inside it, very cool! When we woke in the morning there were 4 rhinos in the glade we overlooked.

We left after another elephant safari and our driver took us to Pokhara. It is a 4-5 hours’ drive but WOW is the drive amazing. You zig zag up over and around the mountains that has rice fields, tiny houses, small villages, waterfalls all going on around them and down in the valley you have the river. It is stunning!

Then we fell in Love for the second time. Pokhara is heaven on earth! There are less people and the view is amazing, you have the mountains all around you and it is like a fairy-tale. The first day I woke up by Stephens saying WOW look at those mountains, and as the sun came up over the Himalayas that had snow on them just glistened in the sun. That morning we went for a pony trek for about 3hours, I don’t know what I expected but we waited outside the hotel and these two tiny boys turned up with two very bored looking ponies. Mine was ok I had a comfy saddle with a rug on top of it and stirrups and reins to hold on to. Stephen’s saddle was half to start with and he only had one proper stirrup where you put your feet in and on the other side he had a rope. So he sat all wonky! We set of and the boys walked along with us, it was a really nice way of seeing the nature because we obviously got further than we would have done by foot. The only problem was that my horse was a bit lazy and the normal sounds you make to get the horse to move quicker would not work, so I was sitting there making noises in Nepalese (that I obviously pronounced wrong) and the poor horse just did not want to move. To make things worse it turned out that she (Berta) was scared of cows, goats, trucks and cars. Stephens’s horse just walked along nicely behind us, but as soon as we stopped his horse stared to eat! It was a great little trek but out bottoms hurt quite a bit afterwards! Especially half of Stephens bottom!

We got back to the hotel and had lunch and realised that we were quite burned! I had a nice red forehead and a V down my front and Stephen had a burned nose and neck! A few hours around the pool, a drink and a billiard game later we got back into a car that took us further up the mountains to the lovely Tiger Mountain hotel.

Now; this place is amazing, if there is one place you should go to before you die, this is it! Again it had one house where you could sit around and have drinks with a big fireplace in the middle, then a dining room and kitchen to the side and then you had all the little cottages spread out around it on the mountain, we were 102 steps below it, that hurt going up and down for breakfast, showers, activities etc! It also had a lovely dog called Mr Boss. He came with us the next morning when we had planned a walk with one of their guides and it was really cute because it felt so homely! This walked we did lasted for about 3-4 hours and we first walked 305m down the mountain to the valley along the river and then back up again! Hard work! During our walk we walked through the little different areas and we walked through peoples gardens, they are such a friendly community, they help each other out whenever needed, they love to talk and show you around! We stopped at one house where they grew coffee! They showed us their plants and they were just sitting on the ground checking the beans, sorting them out. If one of their beans was bad the whole lot would be rejected. We walked on and it was such a nice day, we walked past a small school and a piece of land that the whole community help kept nice, we saw cows and goats running around, smelled popcorn which they take with them out on the field and have as a snack. It was just great! When we came down to the Valley and walked along the water we laughed because Mr Boss got chased away by a water buffalo further on, but as we got closer we saw the reason, their baby calf had fallen in the water and could not get up! There were no hesitation from our guide or Stephen what needed to be done and they undresses quickly and I waved at two boys that came running and they undressed as they came closer. The water in this irrigation channel comes straight from the Himalaya’s and was freezing cold, with strong current and the floor was covered in small rocks that were very slippery. They managed to pull/push the calf closer to the steps where it had fallen in at the same time as the mummy water buffalo stood on the side roaming and pacing. They managed to get the calf up to its mummy again and it could not move for a few second as it was so cold. But after a while it was ok and ran away with the family! This just shows the strength of the people living here because soon this old lady came and thanked them and said that she had seen it fallen in and ran to get help as well but we were quicker. After a little bit in the sun to warm up and dry of they put their clothes back on and we kept walking. I wanted to get in and help as well but because the Nepalese are quite a reserved people I didn’t feel I would look right me being in my knickers, it would probably do more damage than good! We then started walking back up the mountain which is a bit harder than down! We met this old lady on our way and she started to chat to the guide about us. She was a great old lady and she talk and laughed and we asked the guide what she said he said that she went to see her daughter in America and that it was her first time abroad and on the airplane she said all the food had plastic on them and she could not open the containers to eat, why did food have plastic on them?! And she also said that she had something to eat that she did not know the name of but she liked it a lot. It was like butter and it was cold and she needed to eat it with a big spoon, she really liked it, we laughed and said she had eaten ice cream. We managed to get home in one piece but the dog was so tired and did not move for the rest of the day, well neither did we!

We had our last evening there on Stephens’s birthday and it ended with a nice meal and then the staff came and sang happy birthday and had a cake with candles on it. Stephen got very embarrassed but I thought it was really nice of them.

The day after we flew back to Kathmandu and to the lovely Dwarika hotel, which is an amazing hotel well more like a museum. You walk around it and it has all this knickknacks everywhere! In the evening we went to a dance show and meal that our travel agent had arranged for us and it was really nice, they showed us different dances at the same time and we had a traditionally Nepalese meal. At the end of it they said that it was someone’s birthday and we thought well it is not Stephens as that was yesterday but it was and he had a second cake, song and more embarrassment! But it was a great evening and we had a lovely time!

We tried one last time to get up early and go for a flight over Everest but once again it was too cloudy (thunderstorms)! So we returned to the hotel, slept for a few more hours and then for the rest of the day we spent walking around one of the Stupas again and bought a few little pieces that we wanted, we also bought two paintings directly from one of the artist up there so that was really nice.

We have had a wonderful time and we will get back to this place sooner or later! We even talked about buying a house up there in the mountains but it would be difficult! I could have stayed for much much longer!

We highly recommend it too all and thank Rajan of Earthbound Expeditions for organising it for us.

Here are the pictures from the Kathmandu :