Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Bear and Boots Excellent Adventure
Hi everyone!
Here's our next instalment, sorry it's a bit long we've been away for a little while! Hope you enjoy, and keep the messages coming.
Chitwan 3rd June - 5th June
Me, Helly and her dad Andrew went to Chitwan Safari Park which was a scary 5 hour journey away. The road follows the river along a cliff edge and the drivers are a bit scary, they like to overtake on blind corners and go speeding towards cliff edges. We saw 3 pretty bad accidents on the way one where a lorry had landed upside down in the river, it looked like a toy car it was so far away.
Got in a jeep to head to the resort which is on an island. It started to pour it down and the grass plains flooded, the jeep got stuck a couple of times which was worrying! We had to get canoe across the fast flowing river which was quite amusing as when they came across to pick us up they got swept downstream out of sight one guy was bailing out whilst the other was rowing furiously against the current!
We went on elephant safari at 5pm which was amazing. We saw 2 kinds of deer, lots of Rhino and a few monkeys. The jungle was really cool.
There was no electricity at the resort so we struggled at night by torch light, including spider hunting. We had to de-bug our room every night the spiders were as big as your hand.
The next day we were woken at 3am by the monsoon and monkeys climbing on the roof, it rained for 9 hours non-stop, so we were stuck playing cards and reading, was actually really relaxing with the sound of the rain. We saw a family of warthogs swim across there babies were sooo cute.
The sun came out in the afternoon and it was really hot. We got to bathe the elephants in the river. This involved us climbing on their backs whilst they splashed us with water. It was sooooooo much fun, it tried to sit down and we fell off into the muddy water! (Which we also later found out crocs lived in hmmmm!) Then we got to give it a good wash and the elephant said Namaste (the Nepali greeting) by raising its trunk cool!
Did another elephant safari and walked along river side which was beautiful with the mountains in the distance, then we got the canoe back down to the resort.
Ooo saw a snake too.
Chitwan - Pokhara
Had a really early jungle walk on Monday morning. We saw monkeys and a scorpion. The guide also heard a Rhino and decided it would be a good idea to go and find it which we thought wasn't a great idea on foot! We saw it through some bushes in the distance.
Andrew got the bus back to Kathmandu and we went on to Pokhara which is by the lakeside near to the Annarpurnas. Just explored the lakeside main street and did a spot of shopping. Its really hippy here we went to a place by the lake called Khims Café which had hippys playing guitars, campervans parked outside and the Beatles playing, was fab! Think we are slowly turning into hippys ourselves. Had an Everest Beer which just had to be done.
There was a huge lightening storm which was really low down, never seen anything so bright. Hurried back to the Hotel where the lady told us how many people had been killed because the lightening hits really low down - scary.
We had a miniscule ghecko in our room which was less scary than the spiders, we named him 'p' short for Peter as he was so small.
The day after we spent a day exploring the lakeside and doing lots and lots of shopping, got some hippy trousers and tops made for us! Booked a mini trek for 2 days starting tomorrow, we met our porter who was going to carry our bags and he was barely 5' bless!
Had dinner by the lakeside and the best chocolate banana pancakes ever at the hippy beatles place. Met some Americans who were staying at our hotel who were missionaries doing lots of trekking.
Next day we woke up real early to start our trek. Drove to a place called Naudanda by bus which took about an hour. The bus was really cramped - made for Nepali sized bodies not our long legs.
We walked for 12km through lots of small villages and got charged by a crazy mad cow diseased buffalo (maybe). It was so misty we could hardly see 10foot in front of us for part of it - still managed to get sunburnt grrr!! The walk took us 2 hours - good going I think. We ended up at Sarangkot viewpoint which is really tiny winy and had about 2 hotels and 2 stalls. The view was really cloudy, and we got there at lunch time and had nothing to do all day. The sunset was really nice - we could see the whole of the Pokhara valley and all the lights in the town came on at dusk - looked wicked!! We ate veg chow mein and spoke to our guide (kanya) for a while. Early night.
Woke up at 4.30 to climb to the viewpoint to watch the sunrise over the Himalayas. We were so lucky as they showed up hurrah!! Really huge snowy peaks of the Annapurnas and Machupuchre - they tower over Pokhara -was really beautiful!! At about 7ish we started our descent down Sarangkot into Pokhara. It was a really steep slpoe and the stones quite slippy. The massive drops either side of the path didn't help much. Me and Claire slipped a few times whilst all the Nepalis and our guide ran down making it look really easy!!! Our legs turned to jelly and we pretty much fell down the slope hoping our legs would follow after and hold us up! Met a cute calf on the way down who licked our hands with a really rough tongue - it actually hurt! We walked through some paddy fields and around the lake back to our hotel at 9.30am!!!
Bridget - a girl who works at Kisc came to join us in Pokhara, she can speak fluent Nepali and tried to teach us some...I think 'Miro nam Helena ho' means my name is Helena.
Next day Bridget, Claire and I (notice the gramma) went pony trekking. It was soooo much fun. We trekked along the lakeside, occasionally trying to get them to gallop, though they were quite lazy and couldn't be bothered most of the time. They also didn't understand the signals we use in England so we really couldn't steer them at all and the pony's insisted on walking on cliff edges eek!!! On the way round they pointed our a horse that had fallen off the cliff and had been lying there for 3 days with a broken back as they couldn't afford to get an injection to put it down. It was really awful they treat animals so badly in this country - we are going to come back and teach people how to look after animals properly, we are also going to set up a safe bus company and become the next prime ministers as the current government is so corrupt!
We stopped by a stream for a while and one of our guides did amazing impressions for us - a baby, a donkey, buffalo, a dog being run over by a motorbike and so on - really amusing, he also wanted us to marry Nepali guys and live on farms in the mountains - we are not really warming to that idea.
On our way back we passed the field where all the pony's are normally kept and some of the loose ones came to meet us. As our guide attempted to make them go back into the fields claires pony decided to follow them, and lurched down, at a 90 degree angle, into the paddy fields. Claire decided now was a good time to fall off and did a funny looking dive over the pony's neck - oh how we laughed hahahahaha!! She has now fallen off an elephant, a horse and fell over in our little trek as well. We are going to count how many animals we manage to fall off in our whole travels.
We got back and were so hot we decided to get a boat and row out into the middle of the lake and jump off. Me and Bridget jumped off into the muddy lake then jumped out again after we thought about what might be under us. Claire decided it was one thing she didn't want to fall into as it was really yukky looking!!! Also a naked Nepali man was following us in a boat so we quickly diverted to a small café by the lake and got chow mein. Whilst we ate it began to chuck it down and we had to bail out our boat and row frantically in the monsoon rain in order to get back to the boat place. We went to khims café for a pancake then back to the hotel to dry off. In the evening we went out and watched some Nepali dancing and singing - quite amusing dancing - they sing so high it hurt our ears a bit - cant say we are huge fans!!! We went to a bar called Busy Bees and watched the football and talked to a crazy drunk Scottish guy and some Nepali guys who offered to take us around on their motorbikes - I don't think so!!!!!!
Went back to the hotel and found a cockroach who chased me round the room we squashed it with my walking boot eventually eew!!!! Also slight ant infestation!!!!
The day after we had a day of shopping planned as couldn't face any strenuous exercise from achy legs and saddle sore. Bridget didn't come with us as she has decided to return to England for her Grandfathers funeral. Me n Helly went to Mahindra Pul (poo!) We had been told there was a big shopping centre there but it was rubbish. We got a twix and a taxi back to Lakeside! Had pizza for lunch at Busy Bees and did more shopping.
In the evening we went to watch the football (Busy Bees again!) We invited the American guy next door called Vince as he was on his own having returned from a trek feeling Ill. Helly fell down the steps at the bar which made me feel a bit better. Bridget and Vinces friends (who returned from trek) Josh and Calm joined us later and we played pool.
When we returned to the hotel we had 5 huge cockroaches in our room eurgh! We chased them with our walking boots and they chased us back a bit too! Took us ages to catch them all, they're sooooooooo fast.
Next day (Happy Birthday Daddy Tomlinson!) we went to Everest Steak House - recommended by the Americans - for a huge steak (for elevenses). Was good but not as good as K-Toos in Thamel!!!! Then we caught a taxi to some Waterfalls called Devi's falls after a Swedish couple who swam in a pool near the falls but got washed to their deaths down the falls after the dam broke further up the river!! The waterfall travels underground so we went into some caves where the waters flow, there is a small temple there too. We walked back to lakeside in the boiling sun and decided to go to a place called Pokhara Joes where they make coke Floats and yummy cookies!
We went back to the hotel for tea as Bindu (the lady who owns the hotel) had invited us to eat Nepali food with her. She is so sweet and lovely and the food was good to, although the chicken was full of bones. She told us about how the Maoists had invaded her hotel once and held her and her family at gun point, they wanted her to tell them where a friend of hers was or they would kill her and her family. They found her friend eventually and took him away and he hasn't been seen since. She is very afraid of the Maoists as she is a Christian and they hate Christians. The whole Nepali government is very corrupt!!
We then headed out to Busy Bees again and met with the Americans and watched more football even though me and Claire really don't care and didn't watch most of it!! We also got accused of not paying our bill from the night before but we had so wouldn't pay up. the staff watched us really closely all night.
We went home to find even more cockroaches to kill - we now have a small Pringles tube full of dead squashed cockroaches!!! Eew!!! I bought a chilli's cd today but the Nepali's have spelt it Red Hot Chili Papers haha!!
Monday 12th we headed back to Kathmandu on another early, long and scary bus ride. Arrived back around 3 and chilled out for the rest of the evening.
Love Claire and Hels
xxx
- comments