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Jomsom to Muktinath

Posted on August 6, 2013 by Alan Stock

Day 122 – Location: Jomsom; Nepal

01/01/13

New Years Day. What better start to the new year than trekking around some of the highest mountains in the world? From the bedroom I heard and caught a glimpse of a few old-looking light aircraft landing and taking off from the airport. Trekkers can fly into Jomsom from Pokhara. The safety record isn’t great though, the aircraft aren’t in the best condition and the weather and wind can be unpredictable up here. There have been two crashes (1 fatal) in the past two years! But after yesterday’s torturous bus journey I could appreciate that it might be worth the risk! We had breakfast in the restaurant with the baking sun shining through the windows and admired the mountain ridge looming out the window. We tried the local buckthorn berry juice which was very tasty and refreshing. Buckthorn (or seabuckthorn as it’s also known) is unique to the upper Himilayas and is grown in fields here, generating good money from exports. It is one of those amazing “wonderberries” which is super-healthy and people back home will probably pay 5 dollars for a shot of it, and immediately be cured of all ailments. Well at least it tastes good. After brekky we left most of our stuff at the hotel and set off with lighter bags with enough stuff to last a few days up in Muktinath, our destination.

Jomsom’s main street

Outside in the sun at midday, we took in our surroundings (having arrived in the dark last night). We were in a big valley surrounded by mountains and ringed by sandy-coloured cliffs, which rippled in buldges. I was unlike anywhere I have been before or even seen, it felt like we had wandered into a planet set from the original Star Trek. The only thing missing was Kirk punching up innocent aliens. We walked through the middle of Jomsom passing the airfield and an army training camp which looked like it could have been in Afghanistan, sandy stone bunkers and all. There were some trekkers walking around and rugged-looking locals with flat faces. I was happy to see my first ever yaks – some wooly females and scruffy looking youngsters were tied up by the path. Bare, skeletal trees were planted all over the place, presumably buckthorn or apple trees (this area is also famous for its apples).

We crossed the icy-looking river flowing through Jomsom over a suspension bridge covered in colourful prayer flags. The sun was very bright and it was quite windy. We were hoping to catch a bus up the dirt roads to Muktinath, a small village higher in the mountains, and trek back down. But there was no one around the bus stop in Jomsom and the bus office was closed. We walked to the edge of the town where we thought we could find private jeeps, passing a few male yaks being herded along. Compared to the females they are big shaggy beasts with magnificent smooth curved horns. I was pleased, I’d been refusing to leave Nepal until I’d seen one!

At the outskirts of town was a little bus park and a big red Tibetan temple under construction. We asked the jeep drivers there but there wasn’t a jeep going up the mountain till 3pm, so we decided to walk and see how far we could get.

We set off out along a grey dusty track aside a vast shale field covering the valley floor, segmented by strings of meandering river. At the cliffside on our right groups of women were sat on the scree, cracking rocks open with hammer and chisel. I’m not sure what they were doing, perhaps looking for fossils to sell which I had seen in the souvenir shops in town. If you know, send me a message!

Sophie walking away from Jomsom

Sophie started to get some heart pain so we slowed the pace. She was concerned because she was still recovering from tonsilitis and if that disease becomes more serious it can infect the heart or lungs. We continued along the track admiring the mountains around us. All the rock was layered or scattered in interesting patterns, and the scale of the valley was awesome. A bus in the distance was a mere dot snaking around the shale field, making good progress, not that there seemed to be any track out there though.

The bus bumping over the shale down on the right gives you a sense of the huge scale of this place

Grey sand lined the edge of the rock field, scattered with humps from which round thorny bushes poked out. Now it really felt like we were in a cheap episode of Star Trek. I was glad I wasn’t wearing a red jacket (fans will get the reference)! We passed some other groups of trekkers, all heading the other way. The motorbikers from India who we’d met yesterday passed us and stopped to stay hello, they were heading up to Muktinath today as well. They had seen in the new year in Jomsom with some other travellers in a more busy hotel than ours!

We reached the shale field (the track went down into it and faded from existence) and struck out across it in the general direction indicated by our map. The rocks were small but the footing was tricky, it would be easy to sprain an ankle here. We crossed streams and step-stoned across shallow rivers. We shuffled through heat-cracked sand bars and saw locals in the distance collecting rocks and flitering soil with sieve struts.

Me standing on the valley shale fields

After an hour we finally reached the track again and investigated a little set of shrines surrounded by prayer flags strung out over the surrounding rock faces.

We followed the track to meet a change of scenery. Around the valley’s bend it had turned to a flat, sandy coloured plain dotted with wirey, leafless trees. On our left side was barren terrain, across the valley huge flat steps ascended the hillside, the steps made up of undulating cliffs. The mountains were only populated with tough grass, stones and bushes, reminding me instantly of footage of Afghanistan that I’d seen. Again the scale was immense. On the right a stoney valley wound up to a jagged Himalaya a river flowing down to the basic wooden road bridge in front of us.

The road ahead

The stoney valley on our right

The amazing view to our left, with the incredibly flat steps with rippling cliffs. You can see a village up there on the hillside, and the temple in the middle of the top ridge – now that’s high!

Looking back along the valley (we came from the left). You can see Sophie down there on the left too!

We crossed a pedestrian log bridge over the river and continued straight, down a drystone walled road and past a flat-roofed house which ominously had in its perimeter both a mummified yaks head and yak skull on stakes. A souvenir stall was outside. Buy a souvenir, get staked? It all smelled very Wolf Creek to me.

We continued past certain death and followed the road for another hour as it snaked above another shale field on our left. This one had a river too big for us to cross on foot, although we saw a bus fording it. Traffic had been light, with the occasional jeep, motorbike or tractor rumbling past us (and creating big dust clouds!). We rounded into the next part of the valley and passed a long suspension bridge which was closed. Up the hills on the opposite side you could see little villages as dots against the wilderness, and there was even a little temple spire at the top of one of the ridges on the horizon. The road soon descended to the shale field and a cluster of buildings which we crossed over to. It was so windy here that we had to force our way forward so as not to be blown aside, the sand whipping our faces.

The track took us along the side of the valley

The cliffs were super jaggy here

The settlement we stopped at for lunch

The buildings turned out to be lodges, only about five of them, and we stopped at one for lunch. We seemed to be the only tourists around. Sophie’s heart was still giving her trouble. As on the ABC trek the food selection was staples like Italian, Chinese and tibetan dumplings, I settled for a “lasagne” (made with tagliatelle of course, not lasagne pasta!). Checking the map, at our current rate we weren’t going to be anywhere near Muktinath before nightfall, we’d left Jomson too late. Instead we decided to walk to the next village a few hours uphill. But just after lunch a jeep approached. I ran outside and flagged it down (the sun had vanished forcing us inside from the bitter wind). It was full of locals and the driver didn’t speak English, but said he was going to Muktinath. We hurriedly agreed a price, paid our lunch bill and hopped in. How lucky! It was expensive (about 14 dollars one way) but all transport up here is for tourists. Locals pay a fraction of the price. We’d already seen this on the bus up to Jomsom, where we were paying a fortune compared to the locals despite our protests. We later found there is an official tourist rate they use up here though where the money goes I don’t know.

Another jeep passes the orchards, I took this through the back window of our jeep.

The jeep rumbled along up towards the next village, climbing above the shale fields and offering us good, if dusty, views of the river and the surrounding terrace farming and walled orchards of bare trees. I was sat next to a sheep skin and in-between us all were sacks of vegetables and rice. On the way we stopped and two local women got off to be violently sick! They don’t handle motion too well in these places (I’ve seen the same elsewhere in Asia). We reached the next village and the jeep was unloaded, passengers departed and jumped on. It was a charming place, very rustic, the people were all dirty and working out in the streets, the roofs were flat tops and animals and kids romped around. Colourful flags poked out the top of every flat building roof.

This was taken from the window but it gives you a feel for the village

We departed and started to climb a winding and bumpy road heading right, going high above the town allowing us to look down on the vast valley which continued into the distance.Herds of animals being shepherded across the rock field were just dots from here.

Looking back down the valley, taken from the jeep

The terrain flattened out and became a barren plain full of the small round bushes. The sun began to set and we had a great view of the Himalayas all around us, poking out of the clouds. There was a lot of dust and getting photos was very difficult, we couldn’t open the dirty windows and were bumping around all over the place. I would have loved to stop to take pictures but instead had to take them through the windows!

We bumped into a vast new area lined with huge cliffs in strange ripple shapes, peppered with round caves far below us. The area was like a massive crater surrounded by mountains. The terrain was completely uneven in this crater and villages hung onto the sides of the strange shapes. Unfortunately it’s hard to make out from the photos. Terraced farming and walled orchards littered the inner landscape. It was getting quite dark now. We passed through a village stacked on the hillside, a ruined hill fort towered above it. Some people got off and we got to see more of the hardy locals. It felt like we’d entered another world again, this really felt like we were in the heart of the mountains.

You can just about see the “crater” here, but its hard to make out the rock formations and villages dotted down there

The sunset had turned incredible, one of the best I’ve ever seen. The sky was baked in gold and orange light shone around the gleaming snowcaps, with dramatic clouds sweeping past. Glorious!

For the next hour we rumbled along, climbing the edge of the crater winding along the track and past some perilous drops, passing more orchards and villages. We were now the last ones in the jeep. Sometimes the track was so steep the driver needed to reverse and take a run-up to get us up the slope. We passed a cluster of temple buildings and prayer flags strung out over the hillside which we assumed was Muktinath’s famous temple. It was almost dark now and we had finally arrived in the village proper.

Despite the remoteness of the location there was plenty of civilization around, Muktinath was a sizeable mountain town with some big basic hotels. Some of them were constructed from very modern materials, ferried up the roads. Everywhere had 24 hours electricity even all the way up here. We walked along a track into the town centre as it got darker and darker, and found a cheap lodge in the centre of town. It was quite a basic affair, classic trekking lodge with a restaurant downstairs furnished in Tibetan drapery and very basic but clean rooms upstairs. There were only one other group of guests, some other Nepalese on holiday. It was bitterly cold up here, we were wearing all our 50 layers and we were happy to find they had a hot gas shower! I realized my head torch was missing. I’d had it since departing the jeep to see the way, it must have fallen out of my pocket. I wandered around in the night using the dim light from nearby houses to see, but after half an hour gave up – it was a well-used road and any local finding a good headlamp like that wouldn’t hesitate to take it. Just add it to the epic list of things I’ve lost on my travels!

Sophie all wrapped up with her blanket waiting for dinner in the restaurant

We had some hot, filling food in the nice (but cold) restaurant. The waiter gave us some blankets to sit under as it was so freezing! I ordered some Mustang coffee as an experiment, the last time I had tried (on the ABC trek) it was awful. It’s a mix of coffee and rakshi, the homebrew whiskey. This time though, it wasn’t bad. We went to bed early – it had been a tiring day – wearing all our layers and each with two blankets – and we were still cold!

The Bumpy Bus Ride up to Jomsom

Posted on July 21, 2013 by Alan Stock

Waiting in Ghasa for a bus! (this becomes a theme in this entry!)

Day 120 – Location: Pokhara; Nepal

30/12/12

Me and Sophie enjoyed our last breakfast in the sunshine by Phewa lake (the only restaurant in Nepal that does good poached eggs – mmm!) and then went to the chaotic bus station where we arrived just in time to get the bus to Beni, a town around 3 hours from Pokhara. The route was the same as I’d taken to Naya Pul for trekking, crossing the bottom of a valley filled with rice fields and climbing up to the top of a ridge with great views of the Annapurnas.

The Annapurnas tower above the mere mountains we are driving up

The Annapurnas come out of the cloud to tower above the mere mountains we are driving up

We continued past Naya Pul and descended through steep valleys and past craggy rock faces along a shingly river until eventually arriving at Beni around 3pm. As usual the bus was rammed and we were subjected to Nepali and Hindi pop music blaring from the speakers for the duration! Nepali people are quite small and so leg room is usually a valuable commodity for us freakish lanky westerners, after a few hours leg amputation definitely seems like a good idea to avoid the suffering of squished limbs! We were hoping to catch a jeep or bus in Beni to take us further north to Tadapani or beyond, which would make our journey the next day shorter. The entire west side of the Annapurna circuit, which is a popular 30 day trekking route around the Annapurna mountains now has a dirt road running along the route. We wanted to take transport up that road right up into Jomsom in the north, to avoid 5 days of trekking, time we didn’t have.

Driving up by the river towards Beni, taken through the never-clean Nepali bus windows

Beni turned out to be a grim, poor, grey and characterless town on the banks of a big rocky, glacial river. At least the kids were enthusiastic there, excited to see some foreigners in their part of town. After instant noodles at a local restaurant (noodles commonly being the only thing you can point to when there is no menu and the owners don’t speak English!) we asked around for jeeps to Tadapani. We got pointed down to another part of town. After some time of wandering around asking directions we eventually were pointed across the river and found a bus park. But when we asked, it turned out the last bus going in that direction had just left – damn! We were stranded in Beni. We booked into a depressing hotel by the bus park and went for dinner when it got dark, a tasty local place. As Sophie said, at least in the dark you couldn’t see the town’s grimness! On the plus side, our room had some western TV channels so we watched The Hulk before bed, ready to get up early to start our trip to Jomsom tomorrow.

Approaching Beni. In Nepal you often see trucks and tractors down by the rivers with people filling them up with rocks

Day 121 – Location: Beni; Nepal

31/12/12

New Years Eve. After a sleepless morning overlooking the bus park below, we got up at 8am and hopped on the first bus in the dusty bus park outside up to Tadopani. Unfortunately we arrived just as it was leaving and it was full of locals. We crammed in, having to stand. The road was slow and very bumpy, we had to brace ourselves to prevent being flung around. We juddered our way up the edge of the river through villages reminiscent of the ones I’d seen on my ABC trek. We eventually got a seat but Sophie almost concussed herself when she bashed her head on the metal shelf above from a particularly nasty bump!

A village close to Tadopani

The valley slopes on either side got steeper and higher and after about 2 and a half hours of jolting we arrived at the small village of Tatopani, getting our trekking permits checked at a booth and hopping off at the start of town. There was some kind of school festival going on below us by the river, music was blaring from speakers and school kids were milling around. Volleyball nets were being set up and one of the death wheels, a rickety ferris wheel, had been set up. Up the valley we could see a snow capped Himalaya.

Tadopani with a Himalaya in the distance

We walked up the road past Tatopani’s famous hot springs, uninspiring concrete pools where tourists were lazing around in the steaming water. The edges of the river were steaming too and covered in thick algae. There was no time for us to relax though, we reached the bus terminal and climbed some steps to the village proper. Here it was like any other trekking village, a narrow stone path with little walls, lined with shops and trekking lodges. Colourful flowers and laden fruit trees added some colour to the street. We went into a lodge with a nice patio garden for some breakfast and stayed for an hour waiting for the next bus which would take us to Jomsom.

Some of the natural hot springs steaming away in Tadopani

The clothing of the people is already quite Tibetan up in Tadopani

Tadopani’s main street

When we got to the bus terminal it turned out to be the same bus we’d been on before! The young conductor said they could only take us as far as Ghasa, about half-way to Jomsom. Up here in the middle of nowhere, you take what you can get, so we hopped aboard –the only passengers. The track got even worse, bump hell! The terrain became much more barren with impressive cliffs and life clinging to the hillsides as we climbed along the steep valley walls. Sometimes the conductor had to jump out of the bus to shift big stones on the track out of the way. We crossed little rivers on dodgy looking wooden and metal bridges which rattled when we drove over them. Waterfalls cascaded down the cliffside. In some places we were less than a meter from a death plunge into the river far below, with no barriers.The ride was very uncomfortable, the most bumpy of my life, and extremely dusty. We saw a few suspension bridges from the old trekking route crossing the ravine.

The steep hillside we were cutting across

A rare bit of road with barriers, a death plunge is below. As usual, the Nepali bus cabin is filled with decorations and Hindu images

After a few hours we were glad to arrive at a bus park in Ghasa, having picked up a few more passengers on the way. There weren’t many people around, no one we asked knew of any transport going further north today. I got chatting to some passengers from our bus, a group of Indians who were doing a motorbike tour up to Jomsom. One of their bikes had broken down so some of them had had to get the bus. The rest of their party soon arrived on their bikes. The last night they’d had trouble with a bike and had ended up stranded in a random village. A local woman had kindly put them up for the night. They were going to try and get the bike repaired here so they could continue north.The valley here was covered in trees and sheer cliffs, quite different to the scenery I’d seen by the Annapurnas.

Ghasa

Looking back down the valley from Ghasa

With no information to go on, we decided to wait around the bus park to see if any buses or jeeps came through. After a few hours we were getting desperate, the only vehicles had been some full jeeps of trekkers rumbling past, and buses coming from the wrong direction.

Ghasa’s bus park, where we entertained ourselves (read: bored out of our minds) for over 2 hours.

It was already 4pm and we were preparing for a night in this village at a lodge. Eventually a Nepali guy appeared, started up one of the buses and we asked him if he was going north. He was, all the way to Jomsom! Sweet! We piled in with some other trekkers and so began another bumpy four hour journey up into the mountains. The bus became full quickly with locals (who by this point were all looking quite Tibetan) but at least we had a seat. We bounced our way through trekking villages and further up started to pass through a forest. On the other side of the valley there were a row of huge landslides which had decimated the sides, dotted with rocks as big as houses. Up ahead there were a few craggy Himalayas peeking over the ridgeline. Behind us, rocky and barren peaks glowed orange in the setting sun.

The road behind us as we enter the forest, the following photos are all taken through the dirty bus windows – in Nepal you are lucky if they open at all!

Huge landslides cover the hillside. It’s hard to convey the sheer scale of them here, check the size of the pine trees on the right.

The last sun reflects off the snow covered Himalaya above us

The view behind us as we climb to the uppermost valley

After a few hours of rattling and snaking ever-upwards we emerged into a flatter, very different landscape, skirting the edge of a wide valley. The valley floor was flat, a huge bed of shingle with little rivers meandering their way through it. The sides were lined with pine trees rising to cover steep mountains looming above. We sometimes drove down onto the pebbly flats (which was even more bumpy!), and forded through shallow streams and rivers. We passed through villages with flat-roofed cottages which had chopped firewood stacked on the roofs and walls, covering every surface available. Colourful Buddhist flags fluttered from poles on the roofs.

The flat valley we emerged into

When the sun went down me and Sophie both fell asleep despite the jolting. We woke at around 7pm – it was pitch black outside and we passed through a pretty village full of lit-up lodges. I could make out bare trees here, orchards, lining the sides of the road, separated by stone walls. Half an hour later we finally arrived in Jomsom after our 11 hour endurance trip. It was a big town with a main paved road striking through the centre, passing the little airport which was a bare strip of land with a control tower and small terminal. Jomsom was effectively just the same as the other trekking villages but scaled up. Lodges, restaurants and shops lined the main street and dogs wandered around. The people up here all looked Tibetan with flat faces, brown skin and weathered features and there were still a number of locals milling around. Here we were only a few hundred kilometers from Tibet to the north.

Sophie celebrating New Year with as many layers on as possible!

We were lucky to depart the bus to find ourselves right outside the recommended hotel from the Lonely Planet! They had plenty of rooms, in fact there only seemed to be one other set of guests in the whole place! As Jomsom is such a popular trekking destination we were surprised, especially as it was New Years eve! It was a family run place, a friendly bunch. Our room was surprisingly clean and homely compared to most trekking lodges, and the hotel had a nice wooden restaurant. They even had hot water and we enjoyed our first hot shower in weeks! We soon ordered dinner and huddled next to the gas heater in the restaurant wearing all our layers, it was freezing. As it was New Years, I bought an expensive Yak Steak with their homemade sauce, it was really tasty – I say expensive, but that’s by Nepali standards – 8 pounds is hardly breaking the bank! With no one else around to celebrate with, we bought a bottle of rum and some coke and drank in our bedroom pumping out tunes from the iPod until midnight, giving a little cheer to bring in the New Year. We soon turned in, it had been a very long and bumpy day and a rather bizarre and very remote place to spend New Years Eve!

Yak steak – mmmmmm! Get in ma belly!

Christmas in Pokhara

Posted on July 4, 2013 by Alan Stock

The Fishtail, Pokhara

Day 112 – Location: Kathmandu > Pokhara; Nepal

21/12/12

Me and Sophie took a tourist bus from Kathmandu to Pokhara. The journey was fast and uneventful compared to last time, we passed the time sleeping and reading. It was Sophie’s first time to Pokhara. We arrived at 2pm and took a taxi to Noble Inn in Lakeside, where I had stayed the last time I was in the city. The friendly woman there eagerly welcomed us and we got a good twin room for a cheap price. I took Sophie on a tour by the lakeside and we chilled out. In the evening Sophie wasn’t feeling too good.

Sunset at Phewa Lake

Day 113

22/12/12

Today Sophie was feeling really ill and stayed in bed whilst I went to sort out my visa. On the taxi to the visa office I saw a familiar girl walking along the street – Anja, the Swiss girl I’d travelled with a few months ago! It made sense, as she was a volunteer at her school she was also on school holidays and Pokhara is her closest city. I sent her a text message, sorted out the visa (the Pokhara staff were not impressed with Kathmandu passing the buck to them), and went back into town.

Sophie and Anja

Sophie was still in bed so I went to meet Anja at a café where we caught up. She was enjoying her time in Besi Sahar. Although her daily routine is always the same she loves the children at the school, and her host family are great to be with. She’d been involved in all the local festivals too. Another volunteer had joined her in the house recently, but he was struggling to fit in to the rather chaotic school conditions, being an orderly sort. His overly protective girlfriend had been angry with him for going to Nepal and had insisted on flying over to Nepal to see her, so they wouldn’t be joining us!

I spent the rest of the day chilling out. Sophie dragged herself out of bed for dinner. Pokhara was really quiet compared to the last time I was here, now we were in the low season, and freezing at night. Most of the restaurants were open to the outdoors so for the next few days we picked restaurants with open fires to stay warm!

The skies were very clear now winter was approaching, every day you could see the Annapurnas

Day 114

23/12/12

Sophie discovered she had tonsillitis! No wonder she was knocked out! We spent the day chilling out, sitting by the lakeside restaurants in the sunshine and watching the world go by. Paragliders were doing awesome stunts, somersaulting around with the whitecapped Fishtail mountain looming behind them. The weather had been very clear every day so far and so we could see the Himalayas clearly. We looked up tonsillitis on the internet and went to buy Sophie the right kind of antibiotics. Although we’d been planning and researching trekking in the north of Nepal from Pokhara, for now it would have to wait until Sophie was better. In the evening we met Anja for dinner, she and Sophie got on well and they were both happy to be able to chat in German to each other.

This dog was in bliss getting tickled by Sophie’s feet!

Day 115

24/12/12

It was Christmas Eve, although with the scorching sun it didn’t feel like it! Pokhara was a bit more Christmassy than Kathmandu though – a lot of tourist places had decorations and some even played Christmas music. Sophie was starting to feel a bit better with the antibiotics. We spent the morning in a Rasta bar relaxing by the lakeside, amazed by how different Christmas was here to back home. We met Anja in the afternoon to take a boat ride on the lake, rowing around for a few hours and soaking up the views and the peace and quiet. There were a lot of Indian tourists around and some of them were taking photos of us on the boat.

Sophie loves boats

Anja loves boats more

Afterwards we got coffee and exchanged stories about Christmas rituals in our own countries, and we entered the Christmas spirit by singing along to the piped chirstmas tunes in the café. We met Anja again in the evening for dinner. As the 24^th is Switzerland’s first Christmas day (they have it over two days) we hade a Christmas meal early with tasty apple crumble for dessert. Amazingly it was Sophie’s first time trying it and she was instantly a crumble convertee!

Tourists explore Phewa lake a pedal boat

Day 116

25/12/12

Christmas day! The sun was shining brightly. Me and Anja hired some bicycles (Sophie wasn’t feeling well enough) and we rode around the lakeside, following a tarmac road which passed through villages and farmland. Kids shouted hello at us and we dodged buffalo and motorbikes.

We had to steer around this narky group of ox and buffalo being herded along the road

This side of the lake was popular with the locals for picnicking. It was really nice and great to ride a bike again (the first time since I broke my shoulder biking!). We reached the far end of the lake after an hour. Here there were a lot of flat rice paddies and a paragliding landing strip sticking out into the lake.

Farmers carry their rice harvest over the paddies

We turned around at a simple water ferry – just a raft with a rope hanging over the river which the people used to pull the raft along. Anja loves kids and used her charms on the locals to get some kid pictures. Of course I didn’t miss the photo opportunity! Back in town we still had some bike time left so I took Anja to the dam with the rope bridge.

Rope ferry

Some of Anja’s victims

In the evening it was “my” Christmas day so I chose a place that was doing a real Christmas dinner. The turkey was boney but hey, it’s the first time I ever saw turkey on the menu in Nepal so I can’t complain! I bought us a load of chocolate and crisps to emulate Christmas at home, and drank plenty of beer. Good times!

I love Christmas!

Days 117 > 119

26/12/12 > 29/12/12

We spent the next few days chilling out by the lake with Sophie’s health gradually improving. Anja left to go back to Besi Sahar to start school. She had introduced us to a Swiss bakery in one of the guest houses where she can get her favourite bread from home. She invited a Nepali friend with us to dinner, a guy who she’d met through Swiss friends. He’d got the wrong impression though and tried to kiss her up in her hotel room – although she’d done nothing to provoke it. Western girls can get a lot of unwanted attention from Nepali guys. The society is so stringent when it comes to relationships, and the western TV they’re exposed to (such as music videos) portrays western women as being almost slutty in their eyes, so they assume all western girls are like that. Anja now tells men in her town that she’s married as she gets so much unwanted attention – that quickly gets rid of them!

Rice getting carried from the paddies

With Sophie feeling better we looked into the trekking. With the time available to us (Sophie had to meet her mother soon), we decided to go up to the remote town of Jomsom at the top part of the Annapurna circuit, which lies in the north of Nepal close to the Tibetan border. We bought our trekking permits and one day hired kayaks and paddled around the lake.

Our hotel roof offered a good spot for photos of the Annapurnas

Alan Stock Photography

My travelling (mis)adventures. It's ok to cry.

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