Trekking

Kat and I went on a 6 day (but really more like 5.5 days) trek in the hills surrounding Pokhara. Much of the trail was uphill, or downhill, not much inbetween. Needless to say, my legs are sooooo sore! We got nice views of Annapurna South, Hiuncholi, and Machapuchre from many of our stops. The weather held up nicely, as it is the beginning of the monsoon. It only poured once during the day, but every day was pretty wet. And there was a huge abundance of leeches - ewww! I never got bitten, but at one point I had 2 leeches on one shoe, and 3 leeches INSIDE the other shoe. Kat got one bite though:p The grossest thing is when they climb up your legs. The best/quickest way to get rid of them is to either flick them off with your finger, or pinch them and roll them into a ball and throw them away :p

Day one was taking a bus from Pokhara to Nayapul, and hiking up to Tikendunga, where we spent the night in a guest house. This one was pretty nice, but its all relative :p Nice means low levels of bugs, bright, and a cleanish bathroom:p Food is really expensive (again, relative) on the trail, because everything has to be carried in either by porters, or by donkeys. I think more often than not it is human porters that are used though.

Day 2 was killer, we hiked up from Tikendunga to Ghorepani. Straight up a gazillion steps. In the rain (this was the rain day). On the way, there was a dead man under a plastic sheet, with some villagers surrounding him. Kat thought he was asleep. He was definately dead. Another foreigner's guide told her that the man had been drinking and had fallen off the mountain. I believe it is possible to die from falling down those blasted steps!! Our stay in Ghorepani was nice. The guesthouse was by far the nicest - no bugs!! We met a Finnish couple there and the man was quite interesting, and we learnt alot about the Finnish med school :p

Day 3 was the short hike to Tadapani. The guesthouse here was gross. The shower had dead worms and live leeches in it :S But the company here was quite nice. We met a British girl, and her smiley guide, an American lady and her Tibetan guide (and very fast walking porter), and an Aussie girl and her guide. Most people here trek with guides, because well, they know the area so well. Kat and I had a guide arranged for us via our volunteer program. He was nice at first, but got to be quite annoying by day 4ish. Anyhow, the afternoon in Tadapani was raining, so we played cards with the British girl and her guide. Its quite amusing how no one knows each other's names, we just refer to eachother by their country of orgin. The American lady was over 70 years old, but was doing a 17 day trek! Incredible! She seriously has been to so many countries - I definately want to do the same!! (not the trekking part :p, 6 days is enough for me) We kept on crossing paths with these 3 other groups, during the rest of our trek.

Day 4 was trekto Landruk. Here we saw the villagers butcher a young water buffalo for meat. It was pretty cool! 6 families pitch in to buy the buffalo, and they all share the meat equally. They also all share the workload of killing and butchering the meat. Kat and I spent about 3 hours just watching them! It was like a party/celebration for them. The kids came out, the wives watched and some helped with the cleanup, and the local wine was brought out. They invited us to share wine, but we declined. They also insisted we try the freshly grilled buffalo liver, so Kat and I both had 2 small pieces, not wanting to get ill from anything! It was really good. Oh I should note that we didnt actually see the buffalo get killed, it was already dead by the time we came accross the activity. Landruk was my favourite stop, because it has a community feel to it. And this is where we met the eccentric Irish-Aussie girl and her of Mongolian descent guide. A dog followed the girl down from Gandruk, which is about 1.5 hours away, and she bought it food to eat, and gave it all her leftovers. So from that point it followed her all the way down to the end of the trail.
Day 5 we walked to Dhampus, which was actually pretty flat, which was a nice change. And it was a boring town lol. So Kat and I spent the late afternoon/evening watching the water buffalos walk around.
Day 6 - Today! Finally reached the end of the trail in Phedi! Part of the trail wound around rice paddies, while the rest was down some steep steps. Oh how I hate steps!! Anyhow, caught a bus (that had a seriouisly suicidal driver) back to Pokhara, and here I am now :p

So that is my Nepal trip up to date. And I got kinda bored writing it lol. Kat and I move in with our host family tonight. They live kinda far from both our volunteer placements, so we will be looking into renting bicycles.

Thats All!