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Messner On Tour
Hello there my beauties,
Namaste from Pokahra, Nepal's second city, and a lovely place it is too. It's on a lake in green hills and within a yak ride of the Annapurna range in the Himalayas. Result = the dream.
It has been a fair old time since I wrote on here - completely motivated by me not wanting to write two entries from the same place. In my mind this is the sort of carry-on that used to get people burned at stakes in the middle ages... or something. Anyway - "I've been reading this bloody thing for nigh on 20 minutes and you haven't told us a f*ing thing Whittaker" I hear you cry. Well if you going to take that attitude I'll ruddy well get on with it!
The rag tag took to the water and went on a 10 day rafting trip in a remote corner of Nepal. The corner was in fact so remote that the company didn't inform us that 3.5 days of this Ben Hurr epic was sat two abreast aboard a 1963 Leyland Daf coach amongst rafts, kayaks and various buoyance aids. When we did finally arrive a mere 36 hours after departure without a jot of kip all was forgotten as we were treated to 6 days of excellent banter. This involved rafting during the day and then getting a lather on during the night on potent rum punch (ingredients rum, water - genius) before sleeping under a preacariouisly balanced 80 kg raft balanced on two paddles. I learnt so many parlour games on this trip that the Xmas goose and swan party in 2006 at Dan and Pickstone's could turn into a one man show. The only down side was that at least once, all 22 of the party was treated to a lovely bout of diarrhoea, involving all the rag tag getting caught short in various positions, including:
Si - having to walk through camp at breakfast time with a full load in his trousers, while being forced to stop for civil chats with my new team mates along the way.
Phil - Getting in to trouble while casting his fishing rod.
Rich - Being caught by Phil in the late hours washing himself naked in the river while uttering the immortal words " Phil - don't come down here - I'm covered in sh1t"
After a comparatively short 24 hour bus ride back to Kathmandu we decided it was time to get lathered. Every night. We signed up to another rafting trip for 2 days to escape - to no avail. There was a resort with a bar half way. Where had all the wholesomeness of Pakistan and Camp III gone? Probably down the pub with the rest of us. Urgent action was required - and so to Pokhara!
Pokhara is the start of many treks and as we only had 7 full days remaining before Rich had to fly back to Kathmandu, we decided on the Annapurna Sanctuary (Base Camp) trek (Lonley Planet advises 10 days - we had 6). We'll mince it we said.
As we set off on this trek 48 hours ago and I am here writing this in Pokhara - only one of two things can have happened:
a) We did the trek in unheralded time and were brought back in a procession of lilly and rose throwing all the way to Pokhara by local Nepalis who saw us as demi gods
b) We made a complete balls up of it.
As scenario a) didn't occur we did indeed make the worst attempt at doing something right since George Bush was re elected last week. We set off like bats out of hell with a first for the whole 2 month trip to date - a map! This proved to be our downfall. After rising 1000 metres in a commendable 2 hours we then descended 1000 metres in 2 hours after going left instead of right. The town the map showed as 500 metres away never appeared and we walked for 1.5 hours in the pitch black down a wet steep staircase which we all fall down on varying occassions. We eventually reached a village which was not far from our starting point and slept on a random families floor where we lay in fear. This was because two minutes before the light was turned off we saw a spider way bigger than a Yorkshire Terrier run behind a cupboard.... The irony that we were in sleeping bags and had saved the fella cocooning us for later had not escaped me. When a cute family kitten decided to snuggle up to a very on edge Phil in the middle of the night it came within a gnats chuff of being decapitated....
So we awoke and decided base camp had gone for a burton and so set our eyes on a new target - Poon Hill (a 4 day trek). I was feeling ill the day before and not much better by now. The rag tag had been deflated by the previous days events and after 2 hours decided they couldn't be arsed and went back to Pokhara. Today has been spent fishing off a boat and swimming in a lake - and to be honest that's fine - I'm all trekked out I think. The rag tag finish as the started - all over the shop - long may it continue.
Off to Delhi next - I'm sure I started there - I need to look at another map I think.
Love to you all.
The artist formerly known as Messner
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