few days and we managed to meet up with Andrea's friend from home, Barb, so that was nice seeing a friendly face, even if it was just for one day! Our stay in Kathmandu became extended as we both suffered from a dose of the flu, so most of the time was spent in our hotel room, oh the joys of travelling. We didn't miss much, we checked out the busy tourist area of Thamel, which is perfect if you want to buy counterfeit clothing or watch young kids sniffing solvents on the street, but quite frankly we could have stayed in Sunderland to see this. We did enjoy the tourist friendly restaurants, something that India seems to have completely missed the boat on.
We did check out the marvellously surreal temple to the tooth ache god! A gnarled lump of wood that is completely covered in coins which have been nailed in the wood?? I can't think of anything witty to write about the possible link between toothache, a lump of wood and nailed coins. Any suggestions please....
Once we'd semi recovered we headed to Pokhara, a wonderful, albeit touristy, town on the side
of a lake with magnificent mountain views. But with it's easy to walk on streets, lack of hassle, great selection of eateries and bars. Compared to India it was heaven.It was from here we organised our trek. We were to do the Annapurna Sanctuary trek to the Annapurna Base Camp (ABC) 4100 M , and we selected a route that would take 11 days.
The trekking was amazing, and it's made so much more comfortable due to the number of small guest houses that line the trails. So unlike other treks there's no need to sleep in a tent and eat out in the cold. No, here you got private rooms with real beds (!), hot showers, a fine selection of food choices and even heaters under the dinner tables. Luxury! Our guide and porter made the whole experience hassle free.
We had good weather which allowed us some wonderful views. It certainly got colder the higher we got, and we were very thankful for our rented down sleeping bags and jackets.
Unfortunately Andrea's knees were playing up, if she had made it up to the base camp it would have meant a slow and very painful descent. So to avoid any major knee damage she took a rest day as I pushed on. Once at the base camp the snow fall was so heavy I couldn't actually see
anything! The snow continued during the night and there was a risk of being snowed in here! Fortunately the snow had stopped and the morning was virtually clear and the views around the base camp were amazing. It sits in this large bowl surrounded by a ring of peaks, some over 8000m. I didn't stay long this morning as we had to get moving incase of any more snow and we had to pass a few avalanche prone areas before it got too late into the day.This also gave me plenty of time to catch up to Andrea.
With Andrea's knees giving trouble on the down, we opted for a short cut home, which saved us 2 days! Hooray!
We didn't spot any yaks or a yeti, but we did find a dead drowned rat in one of the toilets!
The last few hours of the trek were relaxing. It was funny passing trekkers who were just starting their trek, should they be envious of us on the brink of being home after 9 days, or should we be envious of them having marvellous days of some of the world's best trekking ahea
d of them? I think we looked happy, relieved and they looked happy, excited.The day we finished the trek was the Holi festival day where people (mainly kids) take great joy in covering people (mainly themselves and tourists) in coloured powder. So it was great fun seeing these brightly coloured people everywhere, Andrea ended up with bright red cheeks!
So it was back to Pokhara to get cleaned up after 9 days, get shaved and put on some clean clothes and head out for a few beers and hoped we wouldn't get recovered in paint!
We then headed back to Kathmandu avoiding Maoists, Tibetan demonstrators and anyone else who would slow us down.
