Hello all,

Got back from the trek yesterday evening and was pretty tired, but not too tired to head to a bar for a Long Island Iced Tea or 6! Anyway, we left on the 5th February to head down to Chitwan for white water rafting and a safari. The rafting was amazing and I've already decided to do it again either in Nepal or another country. We did grade 3 which wasn't too hard so next time I'd like to do a 4 or 5 and for a bit longer as 3 hours goes so quickly.

The next day we had an early start as we went off to our elephant safari, which was really good fun. There were four people on each elephant and then the driver at the front. We didnt see too much for a while but then we saw a couple of rhino and a baby one too which was pretty cool. After that we went on to the elephant bathing, which was more along the lines of the elephants totally soaking us! Three of us climbed onto the back of an elephant and tried to stay on while it sprayed us with water and then eventually rolled over in the water (which was freezing!).

After that, it was back to the hostel for a shower and change of clothes and then a bite to eat for lunch. Shortly after lunch we departed for our Jungle canoe ride and a safari walk. The canoe ride was very cool, the canoe itself is very long and the top of the canoe hovers about 4 inches off the surface of the water and you aren't allowed to lean over to one side otherwise the whole thing starts to capsize! On our canoe ride we saw about 10-12 crocodiles, another rhino and we actually sailed over a crocodile and felt it flick the canoe with its tail! And these crocodiles are absolutely massive and the guide pointed out one of the man eating crocodiles which was looking quite thin so I suppose that was a good sign...

After about an hour in the canoe we hit the shore and left the canoe for the safari walk. We were given a quick safety talk which basically went "If a rhino or a tiger start coming for you, climb a tree and pray". We were told we weren't allowed to take any photos of tigers as they find the flash and sounds very annoying and can provoke them, we only saw one tiger after a couple of hours of walking and it was quite far away so pictures wouldnt really do it justice.

Then after the safari walk we went to the elephant breeding center and saw all the baby elephants who were pretty cute and very friendly. Finally, we headed to the riverside for a drink to watch the sunset and then on to a Thaku cultural show in the evening. So all in all a very busy day!

The next day we picked up a bus back to Pokhara to start the trek which took about 6 hours to travel 100 km. It was without a doubt the worse bus I have ever been on, even worse than my original bus from Kathmandu to Pokhara. All the seats on the bus were broken so it was like sitting on reclining seats that had no lock and you were basically being flung about whenever there was a bump (which was very frequent) and I actually got quite a lot of airtime on some of the big bumps!

So we started our trek from a place called Nayapul and headed to our first port of call which was Ulleri. Things were going well till our guide rather happily told us that the first 3 days were the hardest and at the end of the first day we would have to climb 3,500 steps up a mountain to get to our teahouse and salvation. I think in total it took us about 1.5 hours to climb up all these steps, and let me just state that these aren't traditional steps like a train station or something, these things are absolutely huge and are just big slabs of rock and you are using your hands at certain points to pull yourself up onto the next step!

The next day we set off for Ghorepani and it wasnt quite as severe in terms of sheer climbing, but the entire day was all uphill and really took the energy out of you. Plus, because we were quite high in Ghorepani (2700m) it was pretty cold in the evenings. This was also the only place were the water was hot. Up in the hills they dont have load shedding because of all the hydro-electric power they get and they supposedly have 24/7 hot water, but turns out thats just an outright lie! A LIE!

The third day was by far the most taxing but also the most rewarding. We had to get up at 5am to trek up a "hill" called Poonhill to a height of 3200m where we watched the sun rising over the Annapurna range of the Himalaya's. Took lots of photos so I'll upload those when I get a chance. After that it was a descent back to the teahouse for breakfast then off again to a place called Tadapani.

The next few days were quite good, little bit up and little bit down, although the most depressing part was when we got to a place called Ghandruk and had to descend 800m down to the valley floor then back up 500m to a town called Landruk and to top it off the two towns were less than 500m apart!

We spent our last night in a village called Pothana, where drunk Nepali zombies tried to get into our room in the middle of the night and make moaning noises when we turned the lights on in terror. The next day was a short 3 hour trek to Phedi were we finished the trek, got picked up by a minibus and were driven to Pokhara for a hot shower, dinner and cocktails!

Which brings me to the present time, so thats all for now really. Havent got too long left in Nepal so just going to do some more volunteering then head back to Kathmandu to catch my flight to Delhi (shudders). So I'll probably get a few more blogs posted up before I leave Nepal, so till then....

Mat