Hi all.

Hope everyone at home is well. It's been a week since I last wrote but I've been a busy bee, so, here goes:

Our amazing, but exhausting trek came to an end, where it had begun, in the mountain town of Lukla last Friday. Although situated at 2700m and with only a pretend "Starbucks" and one pub it was a welcome relief after the eleven preceeding days. We'd walked 109km and had gone to levels where there was less than 50% Oxygen so it was definitely time for a break. In fact the pub was SO welcome that we arrived there at 2pm and had all had rather too many (as some of the photos show - which is not very much at alititude by the way) by dinner time which led to some rather raucous and embarassing speech making and toasts being made with the local spirit, 'Roxy'. Eugh...

Next morning, sore heads and all, we made it to our early flight back down to Kathmandu. As opposed to my arrival day I actually now had time to explore this crazy city. Thamel, the central backpacker district, and where our hotel was located - along with just about every other Westerners - is filled with every kind of restaurant you can imagine, stretching from upmarket pizza places (one of which was our first stop for lunch) to cheaper local places selling momos (Nepalese street food - imagine mini Cornish pasties filled me meat/veg/potato and you're almost there). There's also tonnes of trekking shops for those heading off to the mountains and clothing and souvenir shops so you can stock up on traveler attire and other goodies to your hearts extent. You also have to keep an eye out at all times, ready to jump out of the way of a speeding motorbike or scooter or an aimless tuk tuk vying for your business. It's safe to say that after a day or two in Kathmandu the tooting horns, that occasionally make you jump out of your skin as you veer too close to a taxi, are enough to cause a slight headache!

Kathmandu generally, is a city of levels. Street level, as I have a described, is a mess of people and tourists, with cars, taxis, tuk tuks and street vendors seeming to stream around one another is an endless, chaotic mess. Next level up is a mish mash of more bars and restaurants tucked away (and probably where a better deal is to be found) along with living space where the crowds retreat to when the streets get quieter as the evenings draw in. And, at the very top, if you can find the right spot, are some amazing roof top gardens where the din of the street feels very far away as you sit quietly in the sunshine with a beer (Everest, a local beer is my favourite so far although Nelly, a Danish friend from my Base camp trip, who I'm currently travelling with, assures me that Tuborg, a Danish beer licensed to be brewed here in the Nepal is certainly the best! I'll probably just have to have a couple more to get to the bottom of this...)

I found my way through this maze, along with Nelly and Matt (another base camper) to The Garden of Dreams, a little walled oasis of garden just outside the central tourist district, where we were able to rest our weary bodies in these stunning colonial style gardens of a small palace, accompanied by the 'plopping' sounds of the koi carp in the many decorative ponds. Definitely a welcome retreat from the streets outside! That night would be our last with the group who all made it to base camp, so Maski, our leader for the preceding two weeks, took us to the famous mountaineers favourite 'Rum Doodle' where it is customary for groups who have made base camp, or even the summit (we met a Brit who had just summited whilst eating there) to complete a cardboard foot with their own design and hang it from the ceiling. Ours soon joined many of those belonging to famous former groups including a foot with the signature of the first man to summit Everest, Sir Edmund Hilary. A great end, to a great trip.

Next day, after moving to a lovely new quiet guesthouse with Nelly, I took advantage of a free day to explore further afield in Kathmandu. Heading away from Thamel I moved down the progressively narrower lanes to Kathmandu Old Town. Soon, Matt and I, were only Westerners around and the building seems to lean much closer together above our heads and doorways, from which locals sold all manner of goods, got lower. Slightly stomach turning were the butchers shops, right on the street, where the local butcher hacked away at fly covered meat and fish, just inches from the crowds streaming past. Enough to confirm that the mostly vegetarian diet I have been following since being here in Nepal was a good idea! We were headed towards the famous Durbar Square, which is known by some as the heart of the city. It is filled with old palaces, Stupas and temples. What was lovely to see was the way in which life moved seamlessly around these ancient and special places. People were draped all over the stupas, watching the world go by and fruit and vegetable sellers set up their stalls directly around them. We found this was a good place to grab a Coke and watch the world go by from high up on one of the top platforms. We finished off the evening with a quiet dinner and some final goodbyes to the rest of the group and headed back to our little guest house.

Next morning, first thing (oh yes, back to 5 am starts!) Nelly and I headed to the bus stop to make our way to Pokhara. Now, most famously known as the home of the Gurkha regiment and the place to which young Nepali men stream to try and make it in to this famous regiment, Pokhara is a lakeside town close to the Annapurna mountain range (another trekking haven) and is located around 200km West of Kathmandu. The bus journey there was pretty easy and it was lovely to get out into the countryside again as we wound round mountain roads and past farming villages and local towns. The roads themselves are sometimes as scary as the ones in Kathmandu though. Technically vehicles drive on the left but it was not uncommon on our journey to turn a corner and find lorries speeding towards you on BOTH sides of the road...somehow somebody would manage to swing out of the way at the last moment, but not before a lot of honking and a fair bit of sweating from us. But, later that day we made it in one piece!

Home for the next three nights would be the Butterfly lodge, a lovely guesthouse run by the friendly Ken, (whose English accent was even better than my slightly plummy one, disconcertingly enough) and family and who used profits to fund a childcare centre, the Butterfly foundation, just up the road and was just off the main street in Lakeside, again a touristy type area, but Pokhara is a much quieter more serene city by a lake so it turned out to be a great place to stay. We spent the next couple of days doing a lot of relaxing, a bit of shopping and hopping down to the lake, which was stunning, both in the sunshine (of which there was a lot) and as evening fell. For our adrenaline fix, we headed off for a morning's paragliding, bombing up to the local viewpoint, Sarangkot, in the back of a very speedily driven van. Nelly and I decided later that the drive up may actually have been more terrifying the the paragliding itself as our very young Nepalese driver negotiated hairpin bends, at speed, despite oncoming buses and a drop that fell away hundreds of feet on one side! Once paired with our pilots we were strapped into our harnesses and then on to our parachutes. Take off was a surprisingly simple affair as our pilots pulled the strings of the parachute causing it to catch the wind and jump upwards and then instructing me to start walking...off the edge. This sounds terrifying, but the wind caught us so quickly that the take off was really smooth and we were UP! Gliding around and dipping up and down on the thermals at 1500m, we even had birds of prey swooping around us at times and the views of Pokhara and the lake were stunning. (See photos!) After a bit of time smoothly flying around we headed over the lake and my pilot gave over the controls to me. He then decided to spin the parachute, which was dizzying but exhilarating as we span over and over above the lake. Even our landing was effortless as we glided ever lower. I expected to fall to the floor in a 'Bridget Jones' style heap but instead, just put my feet down when I was told to 'stand up' and we were down...in one piece. Loved it!

Pokhara was a great place to catch up with ourselves after the exhausting trip and manic Kathmandu and it was lovely to move at a slower pace and catch up on some reading and sunbathing! After a great few days we decided to head back to the capital ahead of our coming flights onto the next stages of travel. So that is where I currently write from, back in Kathmandu. Nelly is off tomorrow so I'll be by myself for a day or so before heading off to the airport for my flight to Bangkok on Sunday. I'm planning to have a bit more of a wonder around the city and to go and meet the simian occupants of the 'Monkey Temple'', a giant temple here on the outskirts of Kathmandu tomorrow.

I've loved Nepal, its been such a riot of sights and sounds and I'll definitely be back. Hope you've enjoyed reading about what I've been up to here. Next stop, Thailand!

Sarah x