5 hour walk along the ridge of mountains linking Bandipur with Rangkot.
Rangkot is a Magar village with some of the last surviving examples of the typical round house design.
Tried locally spirit distilled from Maize.Monday, 2 March 2009
Bandipur 18 February 2009
5 hour walk along the ridge of mountains linking Bandipur with Rangkot. Rangkot is a Magar village with some of the last surviving examples of the typical round house design. Tried locally spirit distilled from Maize.
Bandipur 17 February 2009
Breakfast in the delightful garden of the Himalayan Encounters http://www.himalayanencounters.com/ office befre driving to Bandipur - a mountain village in the Newari style, where we stayed at The Old Inn. This offered delightful wod-beamed rooms, higgledy piggledy through the building, delightful food and, allegedly, the hottest showers in Bandipur though not, it turned out, at 6.30am.
Late afternoon walk around the village on dusty tracks that presumably degenerate into impassable mud in the monsoon. Kids playing badminton with a shuttlecock improvised out of cassette tape.Pokhara 16 February 2009
Up before dawn (again) for the mercifully short drive to the hilltop village of Sarangkot to witness the dawn.
Glad of the thermals.
Machhapuchhare and Annapurna peaks tinted pink by the sunrise.
After breakfast wecanoed across Phewa Lake and climbed the steep wooded slopes on the far side to reach the World Peace Pagoda. We descened the far side to visit a Tibetan Refugee village and the Devi Falls (apparently much more spectacular in Summer when the snow melt feeds the rivers).
After these exertions, opted for a lazy afternoon by the pool (32 degrees in the sun - water 20 degrees). Guess who tried which.
After dinner cultural show - why are they always the same dances?
Pokhara 15 February 2009
Another early start for the long drive to Pokhara. Incredible steep-sided valley on a busy highway with trucks journeying from India to Kathmandu. Buses loaded with passengers on the roof - sharing space with furniture, presumably loaded on and off by the passsengers while their fellow travellers wait patiently (or not). In Kathmandu we pass families on scooters: father steering (and the only one with a crash helmet), mother riding pillion (often side-saddle) and baby clutched between.
Namobuddha/Panauti 14 February 2009
Drive from Bhaktapur, climbng through passes where the terraces of mustard, corn, wheat and rice cling to the impossibly steep vallley sides. Pass 3, 4 and 5 story villas, each unique with balconies and roof terraces worthy of Esher.Trekked from Dhulikel to Namobuddha with views across to the Himalaya, apparently floating in the distance.
Rather than walk on to Panauti, we get the bus.
Visit the Krishna Nmaya temple and Indeshwar Mahadev Temple, the oldest in Nepal. On returning to Bhaktapur Mark haggled over pottery windchimes while jennifer Susan retreated to the Guest House.
Romantic candlelit dinner for 17 as no power again..
Kathmandu/Bhaktapur 13 February 2009
Early start. Negotiating narrow street around hand-painted and gaudily decorated Tata trucks and Hiace minibuses with seating for 7 that serve as ad hoc buses crammed with up to 20 passengers in neither style nor comfort. Passed many schools, most offering tuition in English, and tiny low-fronted shops. Every tree, building corner or other vantage point is festooned with power/telephone cables.Drove rond the perimeter wall of the Swayambhunath Stupa inset with 1000s of prayer wheels. Decorated with prayer flags in red, wite, blue, green and yellow, the temple is home to monkeys who feed on scraps of food left by pilgrims and tourists alike.
Then on to the Pashupati Temple, one of Hindu's holiest shrines on the banks of a tributary of the Ganges. Around the temple are many Sadhus - ostensibly holymen seeking enlightenment but many are consumate beggars in search of easy money and hashish.
A short drive to Bhaktapur where we check in to the Bhadgoan Guest House http://www.bhaktapuronline.com/hotels.htm . An afternoon walk takes in the Nyatapola Temple (the highest building for miles around) and the temples and palace in Durbar Square including the famous Golden Gate. The buildings are all brick in the Newari style. Many of the roof struts are decorated with erotic carvings.
Dinner on the rooftop terrace fom where the stars appear unnaurally bright owing to the power cut reducing light pollution to a minimum.
Kathmandu 11/12 February 2009
Flew with Jet Airways http://www.jetairways.com/ from Heathrow. managed to blag an exit row for the overnight flight to Delhi - the extra leg-room more than made up for the child being sick before takeoff necessitating a cleaner to come on board an mop up. Easy conection at Delhi with staff hovering to make sure we didn't go astray.
Kathmandu airport, apparently shoe-horned between houses and mountains, provided light relief in the shape of a post-colonial civil service bureaucracy. Thi required us to queue first to pay for the entry visa. The you mut take the two recepts you've been given and queue at a second desk where one person checks the receipts, a second writes out your visa details and a third signs it, when he gets back from the loo.
The drive from the airport proved that the crucial skill for drivers is to be able to deliver a rapid staccato on the car horn to warn all and sundry to get out of the way. He who hoots loudest and longest has right of way. Miraculously this seems to work and we arrived in one piece at the baroque splendour of the Shanker Hotel http://www.shankerhotel.com.np/ Under the circumstances it only added to the sense of the alien that Nepal drives on the left like the UK.
After a shower we went for a wander round the Thamel district of the city. As well as the usual shops selling tourist tat (Tourist: "What is he making?" Guide: "He's making it old.") and trekking essentials, there are money-changers. These are semi-legal but well-controlled and all offering identical rates, taken that morning off the internet. There are also the ubiquitous internet cafes, as well as normal bars (with and without "shower dancing girls") and restaurants.
After the third offer of hashish we retreated to a rooftop terrace for a Gorkha beer and a vegetable curry as night fell.
Kathmandu airport, apparently shoe-horned between houses and mountains, provided light relief in the shape of a post-colonial civil service bureaucracy. Thi required us to queue first to pay for the entry visa. The you mut take the two recepts you've been given and queue at a second desk where one person checks the receipts, a second writes out your visa details and a third signs it, when he gets back from the loo.
The drive from the airport proved that the crucial skill for drivers is to be able to deliver a rapid staccato on the car horn to warn all and sundry to get out of the way. He who hoots loudest and longest has right of way. Miraculously this seems to work and we arrived in one piece at the baroque splendour of the Shanker Hotel http://www.shankerhotel.com.np/ Under the circumstances it only added to the sense of the alien that Nepal drives on the left like the UK.
After a shower we went for a wander round the Thamel district of the city. As well as the usual shops selling tourist tat (Tourist: "What is he making?" Guide: "He's making it old.") and trekking essentials, there are money-changers. These are semi-legal but well-controlled and all offering identical rates, taken that morning off the internet. There are also the ubiquitous internet cafes, as well as normal bars (with and without "shower dancing girls") and restaurants.
After the third offer of hashish we retreated to a rooftop terrace for a Gorkha beer and a vegetable curry as night fell.
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