A few days in Nepal

I left India on the ninth ready to explore Nepal and all its Himalayan beauty! I was greeted by the most beautiful woman on earth, my mum (who had been in Bangladesh for the last few weeks and was now with another few people from church debriefing in Nepal), at the airport. They even had a sign for me! haha

Straight from the airport began a pretty awesome and fast paced holiday for me with mum and the rest of the team, so I’m gonna try and not go overboard on details but just give an overview. First stop for me was straight from the airport to the beautiful mountain city of Nagakhot. The first morning, it was an early wake up to do a hike up to the highest point around the immediate area where we got a 360 degree view of the Himalayas (including Mt. Everest) as the sun rose over the peaks! It was so incredibly beautiful, and with my dismal describing skills, I cannot even begin to give it justice! On the way down, not having to race against the sun, we took our time, having a swing in a makeshift swing made of bamboo with a view over the mountains! Deb (one of the ladies from church) spent the walk down encouraging the Nepalese army men who were doing their workouts and time trials (packs and gun included) running up the mountain.

Kathmandu itself I must say is pretty different to what I thought, it is a lot more dusty, dirty and underdeveloped than I imagined it would be (being a key city for droves of tourists who come to do trekking). It was more like the country town I stayed at in India rather than the capital of Nepal! In saying that however, there is a large shopping strip and tourist street that has a huge “western country tourist ” vibe. Like India, the traffic is hectic with about 10 different modes of transport all trying to share the roads, not to mention the cars and bikes that are parked in the most inconvenient spots just to create more chaos. I have to hand it to them however; this system works for them and road rage is non-existent!
For the last few days Mum and I spent our time in Pokorah which is a beautiful lake city which you are supposed to be able to see the Annapurna Himalayan ranges from… unfortunately however, apart from in the plane on the way there, it was too cloudy and impossible to see the huge snowcapped ranges! Not to worry however, we were able to enjoy a hike, some more shopping, plenty of walking and plenty of food (it’s nice to have some more western style meals after living off very simple diet in India, plus the prices are ridiculously low).
I also convinced mum (although I must say it wasn’t hard) to do some paragliding with me, which again, would have been spectacular if we could see the huge ranges while in the air but they were covered in cloud… Nevertheless, it was a SPECTACULAR experience! A Spanish man named Carlos was the one who took me for a ride, a magnificent feeling floating over the town, the lake and fields not to mention we were sharing the airspace with a number of eagles! At one point we caught a thermal so high we were engulfed by cloud and it was so strange and incredible being surrounded completely by pure white, with only my legs and Carlos behind me visible!

I left Mum at Kathmandu airport 7 days later, which was incredibly crowded and hot, the delays that everyone was facing didn’t make tensions ease any faster either. I got frisked four times in order to get onto the plane, a bit over the top I think…haha
I had a ten hour wait in Delhi, and was instantly brought back to Indian life when even the bus that took us from the plane to the terminal used his horn about 10 times weaving in between, what I thought was supposed to be highly organized, tarmac traffic! Not to mention the overly friendly airport security guy who came over with a piece of paper and a pen and told me I had to put down my phone number and my “good name”….
I am in Amsterdam now and will try and get to another blog about this experience asap! haha

All my love to you!!!!!!!!

PS. you should be able to see pics here
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=93925&id=1297536432&l=036e448f57

Lauren xoxoxoxoox