Langtang Trek: Day 5 to 7 - Super View Hotel to Sybrubesi

Very chilly wake up at 5am on day 5, we had to take a 600 metre walk up to a view point overlooking the mountains and settlement we were staying in. After a very cold start (I couldn't feel my fingers!) the sun was soon out and we were making good progress up the slope. Sadly Rebecca had to go back to the hotel after the half way point because she had very bad stomach cramps. The rest of us pushed on and after 2 hours we had reached the viewpoint. The views were definitely worth the early start! We had great views of the mountains and the valley along with a incredible glacier on an opposite slope. After some photos we all made our way down, it only took us 50 minutes! 

Ollie and Zoe lead the way up to the viewpoint, it's at the top of the black rock in the top left of the photo 

Me at the viewpoint, this was literally the "high-point" of the trek; 4,400 metres! 

Looking over at some of the peaks from the viewpoint, you can see a glacier inbetween the two peaks in the middle of the picture 

Well done team! 

Group photo with the prayer flags at the top of the viewpoint, check out the mountains! 

After meeting up with Rebecca in the hotel we had an early lunch before beginning our LONG descent back down the trail. The last two days trekking saw us repeat sections of the trail we'd already walked up, although this time it was all down hill (mostly...). Rebecca struggled for the last few days as her stomach cramps were wearing her down. But thankfully at around 4pm on day 6 we all made it back to Sybrubesi in one piece. We were all a little tired and my feet desperately wanted out of boots! We all had a great dinner that night and lukewarm showers (our first for a week!), before getting almost 11 hours sleep!

The next day we made our way back to Kathmandu along the same terrifying bus journey! Safely back in Kathmandu we headed to our favourite restaurant, Roadhouse Cafe, for some great pizza! It was nice to be back after a week but we don't have long to wait before our next adventure! Today we had a briefing for our three day white-water rafting and visit to Chitwan Safri Park! We're all really excited and can't wait to get started. We'll spend the rest of today relaxing and sorting out photos before hopefully getting an early night. 5am breakfast tomorrow, happy days! 

That's it for this post guys, the next post will either come from the lakeside town of Pokhara in western Nepal or back in Kathmandu! 

Langtang Trek: Day 4 - Langtang Village to "Super View" Guest House

Day 4 was only a half day of trekking, although the the effort and illnesses of the last few days were starting to catch up with some of the group. Strangely though, I was still feeling absolutely fine, I only had the standard light headache from the altitude. Laura had a bad stomach and Rebecca was completly exhausted. Nevertheless we headed out into a chilly but sunny morning (with more incredible mountain views) at 8:30. I couldn't quite believe where I was that day, the views were simply amazing. We shared the trekking trail with a number of Yaks that day, the locals use them for making curd (which was sold pretty much everywhere!). Our guest house for that evening lay at 3,850 meters and was surrounded my mountains. We had the afternoon off so we based ourselves in the dining room, covered ourselves with blankets and chatted away the afternoon. 

We had also reached our highest guest-house of the trek (plus morale was a little low), so I dished out my stash of "Boost" bars I'd been saving for the occasion to the group. Mum and Dad had bought them from Oman as I couldn't find them in Kathmandu. After dinner that night we were all soon in bed, a 5am wake up the next day awaited!

Mid-morning view on the trail, amazing views :)

Me soaking it all in :) 

Zoe approaches a Stupa in the last hour of walking 

Me and Ollie during a break, the stone structure over my shoulder contains water powered prayer wheels 

Nearing the end of the day's walking, views didn't disappoint all day! 

Langtang Trek: Day 3 - Moonlight guest house to Tibetan Guesthouse, Langtang Village

Day 3 was a really interesting day. We were off by 8:15 after some great porridge for breakfast. The walk that day felt more like walking through the Alps rather than the Himalayas! The morning views were amazing and the weather was sunny but cool, perfect trekking weather :). We passed "trains" of donkeys on the forest trails and even a dead cow! As the day went on we started seeing more and more snow on the ground, as a result of the rain the previous night. We stopped for lunch at 11:45 and to started full-on snowing! The guest house we were eating in felt more like a ski-lodge! After lunch we changed into warm kit and headed out into the snow. I really enjoyed walking in the snow and the views were pretty impressive. The gradient was also a lot flatter than the previous day and for the most part spirits were high. I even found time for a snow-ball fight with Sophie and Laura at one point! 

During a break at around 3:30 the skies cleared offering amazing views of a now snow-covered valley. We reached our lovely guest house in the village of Langtang just after 4pm. After a few hours of relaxing we all met up for dinner and I had Dhal Bhat again (it was cheap and you got free "re-fills"), filled me right up! We were all in a good mood by bedtime at 8 despite the cold and snow in the afternoon. That night we slept at 3,475 meters! 

Donkey's on the trail

Me just after lunch, the sign gives you advice on safety at altitude 

Rebecca leads the way through the blizzard

Enjoying the view after the clouds parted :) 

Taking a breather after the snow had finished, this is one of my favourite photos of the trek :) 

Langtang Trek: Day 2 - Sybrubesi to Moonlight Guest House

Our first full day of trekking started with us all in various states of illness and exhaustion (all except me strangely....). Laura and Sophie had 2 hours total sleep on account of some vomiting around midnight and Rebecca was just generally tired. Ollie wasn't feeling 100% either. After breakfast we set off we set off across a suspension bridge to begin our 5 day trek! That day's trail led us along the Langtang River and through beutiful forests. The weather was lovely all day and the walks over suspension bridges and past tea and guest houses wasn't too tiring. A riverside break around 11am saw us bump into some white-headed monkeys across the river. We had lunch around 1:30 at one of the many guest houses along the route, I had a rather tasty plate of vegetable fried rice. 

The rest of the afternoon was a little harder than the morning's walk, getting caught in a rain storm for the last hour of the walk didn't help either. We were all very glad to reach our guest house for the night, perched on the edge of the valley, at 5pm. Ollie promptly got out his sleeping bag and fell asleep in the room for half an hour! We all met up in the stove heated dining room for dinner and Sophie and Laura had a sing-along with the guest house owner. Rebecca went to bed soon after arriving owing to stomach cramps so she missed dinner. Dinner was very social, we had a chat with some other trekkers and I enjoyed some Dhal Bhat for dinner. We ordered breakfast for 7am and we were all in bed for 8:30 after a good first day on the trail :). 

Laura and Sophie cross a suspension bridge across the Langtang River 

Monkey!

A typical scene from day 1 

The group takes a mid-afternoon break :) 

Enjoying my lunch :) 

Langtang Trek: Day 1 - Kathmandu to Sybrubesi

Hi everyone, be prepared for a mass of posts this time as yesterday I got back from an amazing 7 day trip to the Langtang valley for some trekking!! Happy to say the group arrived back safe and we all had an amazing time. The trek was challenging at times (we fought through blizzards, basic accommodation, altitude, bugs in food and no lack of puking by some of the group!) but the scenery and experience more than made up for it! I've got loads of photos so I'll be doing a post for each day to showcase the best. So then, post number one: our 7 hour bus journey from Kathmandu to our trek start point at Syprubesi in the Langtang Valley. 

After a 5am wake up we grabbed an early breakfast before our guide (Ratna) and our three porters collected us to catch our 7am bus to Sybrubesi. I have to be honest, it was the scariest bus journey I've ever been on! The driver seemed to think that going as fast as possible along narrow, un-paved mountain roads next to 1,000ft drops was the way to do it! We as passengers thought a little differently...... Despite the drive the views were incredible and I even managed a close-up view of the mountains I can see from my bedroom window in the village! We stopped in a village around 11:30 for lunch and Ollie (the latest member of the group) got his first taste of Dhal-Bhat. Luckily he liked it! We reached Sybrubesi around 4pm.

Me on the way to catch out bus to Sybrubesi :)

Himalayan air conditioning for the locals! 

View from the bus en route to Sybrubesi 

Ollie tastes Dhal-Bhat for the first time! 

Me about to enter the Langtang National Park

After checking into our guest house we went for a walk around the village and stocked up on some snacks for the trek. Dinner was an interesting affair, mainly due to Laura finding a long dead "Daddy Long Legs" spider in her fried rice! After that little scare we all headed to bed I high spirits and ready for the trek to start the next day! 

Happy Holi and Holidays!

Hi everyone :) 

Sorry about not posting for a month (oops) but have been wi-fi problems at the hotel. I've had truly incredible time over the past month and I've got plenty to tell you about :). Let's get started! 

All in all teaching is going very well across the board and I've seen a marked improvement in Class 5's writing skills which I'm very pleased about. We've got to know some of our fellow teachers very well, especially Ragaram (our coordinator teacher who looks after us) who likes to check up on us often and make sure we're ok. 

Two weekends ago Rebecca and I visited Sophie and Laura in their village, Godawri, to watch them perform in their school's annual talent competition. They did a great bolly-wood style dance routine in some amazing red Saris. The whole school were impressed and we all had a great time. The kids were pretty good to, with some great dances and some comedy sketches that had the audience in stitches (well, apart from the four of us....). And what talent show wouldn't be complete without phone-in voting? Yup, that's right in the middle of Nepal we found a school talent show using phone-in voting. Just like in the UK! 

The four of us just before Sophie and Laura performed 

After the show was finished we walked back to Sophie and Laura's house for a quick visit. Their house is VERY nice, complete with dining table and chairs and a seated toilet! (I sit on the floor to eat and use a squat toilet!). After lunch of noodle soup it was back to Kathmandu for me and Rebecca. It was pouring with rain and we got very cold on the walk to the hotel. Didn't help that there was no hot water for showers at the hotel either.... 

The week before last was my final full week of teaching before our month off (more on that later). Had a true comedy moment in class five on Monday morning when a curious goat decided to pay a visit. Maybe he was a secret English student? Rebecca got a day off that day to go to a party in Kathmandu with her family but I wasn't going to be missing out. I was invited along with the rest of the teachers to a coming of age party (or Banjabunga ceremony) just up the hill. Whilst we only stayed for an hour we enjoyed some great food (buffalo curry and Barfii, milk fudge, being the stars of the show) and I was introduced to yet more members of the village. 

Last weekend showed the beginnings of a holiday atmosphere :). We were all back in Kathmandu and enjoying ourselves, I also had my first warm shower for three weeks (my shower in the village as one setting: VERY Cold, and the hot water at the hotel is provided by a solar heater - and it hadn't been sufficiently sunny 3 weekends in a row)! We also had another Nepali lesson with Ram, the teacher we had on our second day of the trip, and he invited us to his school on Monday to watch a dance programme. His school is huge! It's one of the best in the country and has nearly 8,000 students (for perspective, Rebecca grew up in a town of 6,000 people!) and is the size of a university campus, complete with two swimming pools! The dance programme was very good and lunch was very kindly provided, ice cream for dessert aswell!! 

This past week only saw me teaching on Tuesday and Wednesday as I had some visitors arrive in Kathmandu on Thursday afternoon: Mum and Dad! Nepal has been on their bucket list for a while now and it just so happened that I was in the country when they found time to visit! After a catch-up dinner on Thursday night I spent Friday morning showing them around Sawabunath (or the "The Monkey Temple"). My Nepali got a workout that day, although it paid off with bartering for taxis and souvenirs for Mum and Dad (the crowning achievement being getting Mum two paintings for 1,000 rupees down from 3,500!). They headed to Pashupatinath Temple in the afternoon to watch traditional funeral ceremonies whilst I took it easy. 

Me and Dad enjoy the local brew, "Gorkha", on Thursday evening

Saturday saw us all head to the village (by local bus, I wanted them to have the full Nepali experience :p) to spend a few days with my host family. They hit it off straight away and Dad spent the afternoon teaching the kids how to juggle in our front yard. We even persuaded Susma and Rajan to have a go! It was a great afternoon and everyone had fun. 

Dad's afternoon juggling class :) 

Sunday was a day I've been looking forward to for a long time. It was the day of the Holi festival! Known as the "festival of colour" it's a Hindu festival where everyone spends the day throwing coloured paint and water balloons over everyone in the area! As for the event itself it was a truly amazing experience. It seemed like the whole village came together to have fun and get into the spirit of things. Some of the kids had been up since 3am as they were so excited! We had a group of 14 Australian Rotary Club members (who are funding the new building for the school) join in the fun who were a great addition. They really got into the swing of things. The event itself was chaos but that's part of the fun, powder flew in all directions with people smothering your face in with powder or emptying buckets of water over you (as happened to Rebecca!). There was dancing (complete with a local drummer under the bus shelter), singing and chants of "Holi, Holi!" (One of which I led after being hoisted onto the shoulders of some of the villagers!). The young kids were especially accurate with water bombs (they got me in the head with one en route to the school in the morning) and whenever I opened another packet if powder I had 5 kids ready to ask for some. It was a truly amazing day and spending it with family and great friends (both Rebecca and the Australians) in the "real" Nepal was an experience I'll never forget. It was a hundred times better than staying in Kathmandu for it. 

On that note, over recent years the authorities have tried clamping down on the "Holi chaos" in Kathmandu. Mainly due to the all out madness but also because of the harmful chemicals in some of the powdered paints along with balloons filled with polluted water. It's not uncommon for some locals in Kathmandu to lock themselves away for the whole day to avoid getting hurt to covered in harmful paint (sadly two young children died yesterday after falling three stories). 

Despite this we had a fun and pain-free Holi in the village and I would do it again in a heartbeat. I guess the only really downside is getting clean afterwards, I must have spent half an hour trying to wash off the colour and today my scalp is still red and there's paint in my ears two days on! 

Me, Mum and Dad at the start of the welcome ceremony for the Australians

Getting into the spirit of Holi with the locals :) 

Me, Rebecca and Zoe (who will join us on our trek) after the chaos ended.

On Monday we said goodbye to Susma and Rajan to return to Kathmandu, I won't return for a month as the group are off to travel Nepal and Tibet. We all met up in Kathmandu for dinner at Or2K and caught up on our Holi experiences. Today will see me and Rebecca extending our Visas whilst Mum and Dad will be going home to Oman tonight :(. I'll be sad to see them go but I've had an amazing time with them over the past few days and I'm glad they were here for Holi. 

Now our month of travel begins! Our first trip is a 7 day Langtang trek (starting on Thursday), followed by 3 days whitewater rafting and a safari in Chitwan National Park, 3 days relaxing in Pokhara and to round it all off an 8 day tour of Tibet (with a side trip to Everest Base Camp en route!). We all can't wait to get started and take a break from teaching for a while :). After we get back I'll only have a month left in Nepal! Time has passed very quickly and I'm halfway done! Plenty more adventures to come though, I'll keep you updated. 

That's it for this entry guys, thanks for reading and take care.