Nepal

We left the hustle bustle of Kathmandu on friday evening and retreated a long way further up the hill to a tiny place called Nagarkot (7000ft up) . There is nothing to do in Nagarkot apart from sit around and soak up the glorious views of the mountains. Unfortunatly the weather was not great when we were there so the views didnt really appear, but we had a great time just relaxing! Our hotel turned out to be a little wooden cabin set on top of the hill, so it was a nice place to sit and watch the world go by! We have come back down the hill today and returned to Kathmandu.
We arrived back at the hotel in good spirits after a relaxing weekend to find out that our bus we would be getting the next day to the border has been cancelled due to a road blockade. Sigh. Since then we have been running around Kathmandu trying to simultaneously get our money back from the bus tickets and find another way out of the country. The only way we can do it is to fly, as we cannot miss our flight from Varanasi back to Mumbai. We have forked out a small fortune, but the plan has now been remoulded. We get a flight tomorrow afternoon from Kathmandu to Varanasi, where we will spend the night before getting our next flight the following morning to Mumbai. It has all come together, if a little haphazardly! So much for having a relaxing weekend eh?

I shall write a quick entry when we get to Mumbai, just to let you all know. After that the next entry will be from Bangkok!

Missing you all lots and lots,

Chris and Alex xxx

The trip to Nepal was a long and tiring one. Firstly our train was 3 hours late from Varanasi, meaning we arrived in the heat of the day in Gorakhpur. We got a very cramped bus to the border town of Sunali, where we passed through the immigration barriers, which were laughable to say the least! We got a taxi from the border straight to Kathmandu, which the taxi driver said would take 6 hours, but it ended up taking nearly 8! The road to Kathmandu was in a very bad state, and the pollution was the worst we have ever seen! We arrived late a night and passed out straight away, after a journey which took over 48 hours!

Our hotel is really nice, set away from the road, with a beautiful secluded garden, a very nice retreat! We spent the first day walking around Kathmandu, which we both really enjoy. It has a very relaxed vibe, and despite being full of tourists, it seems to have retained quite a lot of the Nepalese traditions. The Nepalese are really friendly people, and a lot less intrusive than Indians. On the second day we took a trip to Durbur Square, which is a large collection of temples gathered in an old square in the heart of the old city. The 3 main cities in Nepal – Kathmandu, Patan and Bhaktapur each have their own Durbur Square, as the Kings at the time each tried to out do each other. The following day we took a day trip to visit the nearby cities of Patan and Bhaktapur, and discovered their Durbur Square's to be of similar style but the quality differed greatly. Bhaktapur was by far the most impressive and well restored , followed by Patan , which was smaller but the quality of the temples were remarkable! Kathmandu's Durbur Square is the largest but due to traffic and years of pollution, it has lost its former glory unfortunately.

Today we got up very early (4am) to get ready and get a taxi to the airport for our Everest flight. I don’t think words can really do it justice, but it was absolutely amazing! It was an hour flight and it took us in a loop right over the Himalayan Range, during which each passenger (there were only 16 of us – tiny plane!) got to go up to the cockpit. Chris obviously got very excited at this point, and ended up going in twice! The photos we got are pretty good, but seeing it for ourselves was the most amazing thing ever. Totally worth every single penny!

We got back to the hotel before 9am and had breakfast in the garden. We spent the rest of the afternoon lazing in the garden and then we went up to Swayambhunath, which is a famous stupa sitting on top of the hill above Kathmandu. We sat up there and watched the sunset before walking back down the hill for a cheap steak dinner! I don’t think this day could be anymore perfect! Plus we get a lie in tomorrow before we make a move to Nagarkot, which is supposed to have stunning views of the Himalayan range, if the weather is good!

Hope you are all well, missing you all lots!
Lots of Love
Chris and Alex xxx