Nepal

Our trip started off in Kathmandu, Nepal on Saturday.

What a crazy city. Met Fi and James at the hotel - they warned me what chaos the main square area was (they arrived in the morning and went exploring). I wasnt prepared for what i saw at all - i have never seen anything like it. Complete carnage. Small passage ways have thousands of people walking, market stall sellers, beggars, sellers of jewellery/flutes/anything, cars, rickshaws, goats, cows, motorbikes, bicycles, dogs, chickens. All in one place. Its mad. And everyone blows there horn all the time. Its also a complete mixture of smells - herbs&spices, curries, raw meat and fish lying open covered in flies and incense.

But its an amazing experience to try take this all in and everyone seems to be living in harmony with each other. I never felt threatened once. they are all so happy with what they are doing. Great to see the humbleness of the Nepalese people

The next morning we got up at 5am to go for the Everest flight. Unfortunately after taxiing down the runway they turned the plane round to tell us that there was no sighting of Everest due to cloud. We were very disappointed.

But decided to go to Pashupati - the holiest Hindu temple in the world (although Buddhists also worship there). We saw 2 cremations occuring on the side of the holy river, we even saw the person's toes (rest of the body is covered in bamboo and other material) ... dont think you would see that anywhere else in the world.

We tried again the next morning for Everest. This was our last chance to try get up to see it. We were very lucky as some of the flights before us were cancelled and we had an unbelieveable view of the Himalayas and the magnificent Everest. Was brilliant, definitely worth the hack of the domestic airport in Kathmandu.

After travelling 8 hours for only 200km's, we are now in Pokhara. Its a lakeside town and the 'adventure' city. We were up at 4:30am for a 30minute hike up the mountain to watch sunrise across the Anapurna mountain range. Then 6 of us from the group (there are 13 in total) hiked all the way down. Took us 2 hours. Beautiful walking down the mountain through the forest and rice fields.

After having done paragliding once in Turkey with Lee and Daabs, i decided that wasnt enough. So we all went off to go paragliding. Was amazing. But i think thats all the paragliding i will be doing in my life.

Very happy to be back down now, sitting in an internet cafe that overlooks the lakeside area - got to love my life right now :)

hope you all are well and happy
lots of love

Carol

ps had uploaded photos explaining these stories but computer crashed and just lost them... not ideal. maybe next time. bye for now