One Last Trip...

So the first travelling month has been and gone, our last few days in Nepal are slowly coming to an end and Thailand is just around the corner....actually its tomorrow.

Just a couple of rest days...

After the trek we thought it would be lovely to have just a couple of rest days before our visiting began, our legs had seized up and our bodies were screaming and cursing us for the last 20 days. So we thought we would just chill. Little did we know what was in store for us after the "amazing waffle" (Picture on previous blog) Something I am never 'treating' myself to again.

The inevitable Delhi Belly arrived, bed ridden for a day or so sweating it out and thinking of the worst things that it could possibly be, I can say that it wasn't very pleasant and for poor Brett to actually watch and not be able to do anything but bring me boiled potatoes and clean the sick bucket. They say every experience is a good experience....Perhaps not in this case.

The following day unfortunately Brett developed tell tail signs of the same bug, we managed to drag ourselves out and buy antibiotics at a pharmacy hut which we were to take for 5 days, our couple of days chilling were not quite what we had in mind! Still we managed a slow walk to Damside and had a fairly 'human feeling' day. Whatever the tablets were they seemed to be working so we could actually continue on as normal.

Orphanage Visits

The next few days were filled with visiting friends made from our previous visits and visiting the Namaste family (NCH). On the Thursday we met up with Surendra baai, he is working at a paragliding company and we were so pleased to see how well he was doing, a couple more years and he will become a pilot in Paragliding!! That afternoon Surendra baai took us to an Orphanage that John Riley had said to visit, it was a beautiful homely orphanage housing just 12 children. However the children were not there as it is currently 'Chhutti' at the moment (Holiday) and they get sent home to visit their relatives in their villages. It was a refreshing visit and lovely to see how the owner Manoj and his wife who are both volunteering, have been running and funding this home for 6 years.

The following day we visited the children at Namaste Children's house. It was lovely to see the children or for some teenagers again. We received a lovely reception and were surprised how many children remembered us as its been 3/4 years since our last visit. When we arrived we were surrounded by the children and they were shouting "whats my name, whats my name", surprisingly we remembered alot of the names but the look of disappointment on some of there little faces when their name just did not come into our heads.

Sadly Manju Didi (One of the mummies at NCH) has had Typhoid and was ill at home, however we spoke to her on the phone at which point she invited us to her home, which in Nepal is a great honour. So that evening we made our way to Manju Didi's home in Ranipauwa and eventually after some searching and asking the locals we found Manju Didi! (A phone may have been handy at this point) We spoke for hours catching up and we met her husband and 2 children, she showed us her wedding photos which were beautiful (she got married 4 months after us). We then had dinner (Dal Bhat) cooked by her husband and said our goodbyes and made our way back to Pokhara. It was so lovely to see Manju Didi again, hopefully she will fully recover soon!!

Spot of Paragliding...Don't mind if I do

Having been to Nepal a fair few times we have seen most sights numerous of times and have completed a few treks, but there was one thing that we have never done (Purely because of the money) and that was Paragliding. And since Surendra baai worked for one of the companies we thought why not! So on Saturday off we went up Sarankot hill in the jeep, higher and higher. When we reached the top we meet our pilot, we had a brief briefing and away we go.........We were literally flying with the birds, and I have to say although it was not an adrenaline rush it was one of the most exhilarating things I have done. The views were amazing from the height, you never realise the size of Pokhara until you get literally a birds eye view! Brett wants to look into training to become a pilot, which I do think is a fab idea however I will stick to just being the client he can glide around the world with, don't think I quite trust myself to have full control. Here are a couple of pictures:

Sad Goodbyes

We knew the time would come, and sadly we don't know the next time we will be coming back to Nepal and therefore the children we know may also be integrated back to their homes by this point, who knows what the future holds. So on Sunday we said our goodbyes which felt odd as we had only been there a few days and spent a short time with them but we always knew this would be the case with this visit. After wishing them all well with their final exam results and many hugs and kisses we left, happy to have seen everyone but a pang of sadness for leaving with no plans when to return.

In the afternoon we met up with John Bethell from the IOM, Krishna daai and Rabin baai (older child now 20yrs from NCH, John is his sponsor), had some lunch and caught up with them all. It was a beautiful afternoon and to finish our last day in Pokhara we had some dinner with Surendra baai and said our final goodbye!

What to do Kathmandu

On the Monday we caught the bus to KTM, it took 7 hours and was a fairly comfortable ride compared to ones we took 7 years ago. On arrival we managed to find a newly built/still building hotel for 400NPRs. The rooms had not even been slept in, the mattresses were proper mattresses not just foam and the pillows crisp and soft. The shower is like the shower from home. This was by far the best room we have stayed in so far!
That night we went to meet up with John again for a final get together before he flew the following day. We met at the Shangri-la hotel, well....it was rather an amazing hotel and did not even know these existed in Nepal. We had a lovely dinner with John and sat a chatted for a few hours before it was time to head back to our hotel. We said our goodbyes and headed home.

The next few days we have been chilling (again) and yes with chilling comes the inevitable Delhi Belly......again.......this time with Brett....I don't think he was fully recovered and the bug hadn't passed through before the end of the first lot of tablets. This time it was my turn to just not be able to do anything but watch and rush to another pharmacy for yet more antibiotics.Luckily he seems ok and was only bed ridden for an afternoon and night - it was a lovely hotel to be ill in! I did feel for him and its the first time i've seen him look so so ill. It makes me appreciate and feel very lucky that we both love travelling and can travel together rather than single travelling.

We also had the time to create our own 'sweat shop factory' in sandal making.....what do you do when the sandals you buy blister and cut your feet to pieces....but your current ones are ok on the straps but the sole is falling to pieces:

I think we would make great manufacturers! ha ha! Move over China!

We are now just getting ready to depart to Thailand on Friday, our Flight number is RA401 (In case you have flight tracker) Flying at 9am tomorrow morning! We are very excited as its a new country, new things and bizarre as we don't know any of the language unlike here we can generally understand the gist of things. Time will tell......

Our next blog will probably be when we arrive in Vietnam. We are looking to go to Thailand, perhaps go to a beach for a couple of days then make our way through Laos then to the North of Vietnam and travel down to the South to visit Hannah and JP. Can't wait for our next travels.....Until then we wish you well and hope you have enjoyed the read. Slightly longer than I expected! oops!

Just checked Bangkok weather......storms predicted - Beach option? who knows, maybe not

Take Care
Bethany x

A few pics of the last eventful week:

Morning all, hope everyone is good at home and enjoying Easter. We've decided to join in with the festivities and bought each other 2 whole chocolate bars to celebrate! Me a Dairy Milk Fruit and Nut, Bethany a Crunchie - and both of us the holy grail...a Twirl! Yum!

Our trek

Any way, you'll all be glad to hear that we are back safely from our trek around the Annapurna Circuit. To give you an idea of what we've just achieved, the trek is essentially a 15 day trek but you need to allow at least 3 days to acclimatize to the higher altitudes, which makes it at least 18 days taking it steadily. Due to Bethany's history of altitude sickness it was imperative that we took our time otherwise we wouldn't make it over the mighty Thorong La Pass which sits at 5416m all day every day just waiting to congratulate those who manage to reach it. The pass changes with the seasons but it always remains a pretty steep challenge for anyone attempting it - for us it turned out to be a monumental challenge.

So much more than just a pass

As I say we had to take it slow on the ascent to make sure Bethany (and myself of course) stayed AMS free, but along with the success of completing the highest part of the trek came the crucial factor; if we managed to cross the pass we would get to finish in Pokhara, whilst also experiencing the western side of the trek which we knew would be more beautiful, along with the fact that part of it would be retracing the steps we took on our first ever trek in Nepal to Annapurna Base Camp 7 years ago. For us it represented so much more than just avoiding altitude sickness, it was a combination of crossing a pass of such significance, completing one of the most prestigious treks in the world, beating the sickness that defeated us at the last hurdle on the Everest Base Camp trek 4 years ago, and re-acquainting ourselves with our first travelling adventure from which we have such fond memories.

This was all in our minds from the outset so we set off from Kathmandu on a 'Tourist Bus' to get to a place called Dumre, then transferred onto a local bus after 6 hours for the remaining 3 hours to get to our start point of Besisahar. We decided to stay the night there rather than trek for an hour or so straight off the bus so we had a fresh start in the morning. A lot of the first side of the trek was a dusty road which we felt ruined the authenticity of the trek although we also appreciated that this road is of huge significance to the local villagers. Even so we wanted to be purists and complete the traditional route, hence we started in Besisahar instead of Bhulbhule further on, and continued all the way to Naya Pul on the western side instead of taking a jeep down from Muktinath or a plane from Jomson which are other options. We had the time to do it all so there was no need to cut anything out.

It took us a good 3 days to settle in to the trek as it always does, our bodies simply aren't ready to trek for 6 hours or so a day carrying 14kg on our back right from the off, the legs take time to get into their stride, the hips all the way to the shoulders take time to adjust to the extra weight, and quite frankly it takes a bit of time to get into the mindset of trekking. With this in mind a 9 hour day for our second day probably wasn't the best idea. Tal was a beautiful place and as our book said it really was a "Shangri-La View", but after the day we'd had we simply couldn't appreciate it for what it was...however the did have amazingly cosy blankets which made everything all better.

Headaches begin

We continued on, stayed at a lovely place with an extremely friendly Tibetan family in Danagyu which was erring on altitude at 2300m, and continued on the next day to Bratang at 2850m. This place really was a bit miserly, there was one guest house (the other was being knocked down) and it was dark and cold. Ever since lunch that day in Koto the people along the trail seemed miserable and the feeling in the air just wasn't comfortable, but we wanted to get there as it set us up better for acclimatization. So we negotiated a price and plonked our bags down in the room. Bethany by this point had started developing headaches which was a bit of a worry because a crushing headache is a major sign of AMS. That said we were fairly comfortable in the knowledge that this wasn't due to AMS, it was simply because Bethany's petite frame perhaps wasn't built to carry an extra 14kg whilst trekking for such distances, so we transferred perhaps 2kg or so of stuff Bethany didn't need to carry herself - first aid kit, iPod speakers, her spare water bottle, little backpack for rest days etc - into my bag and continued on like that, Bethany now carrying about 12kg, me 16kg-ish. This coupled with the fact that we met a wonderful Aussie lady called Eleanor that night who along with being such a captivating personaility, also had a vast knowledge of natural healing, meant Bethany was on her way to ridding herself of the headache. It's fair to say that Bethany was rather overjoyed with El's offer to perform a lower back to top of the head massage to try and relieve some of the stress of carrying the extra weight, and it's also fair to say that Bethany benefitted a great deal from it so thanks Eleanor!

The next few days were essentially trek, rest day, trek, rest day because we'd reached the point at which Bethany suffers from AMS. We tried to stress the importance of taking the symptoms seriously to a group of young Danish trekkers we met because one of the lads was suffering, but they continued up and a couple of days later his trek came to an end by way of a helicopter to Kathmandu to recover. Luckily for us we were both still feeling really good. The scenery was becoming more barren the higher up we went as was the weather. We experienced our first bit of snow in Manang on our last rest day and the nights were getting colder and colder, the minus 20 sleeping bags were becoming a real blessing.

Still, onwards and upwards we went. The normal route from Manang (3540m) would be a day to Yak Kharka (4018m), followed by a day to Thorong Phedi (4540m) but we were going slowly so we went a couple of hours to Gunsang (3900m), then a couple more to Letdar (4200m) and a couple more to Thorong Phedi which broke up the ascent allowing us a much better chance of acclimatizing and making the pass. Bethany celebrated her 27th birthday in Gunsang by opening a couple of birthday cards in the morning whilst watching the sunrise over the mountains from the comfort of our room, trekking a couple of hours to Letdar, enjoying a Mars roll for dinner which are delicious (essentially a Mars bar wrapped in a cornish pasty looking batter - sounds horrible but trust me, they're gorgeous), and using the first of 2 heat packs that a couple of really lovely Israeli guys gave to us purely because they knew it was Bethany's birthday. She used the second in Thorong Phedi the night before the attempt on the pass.

The Police...really?

Speaking of which we ended up in a rather nice lodge in Phedi (after a particularly life threatening approach thanks to our book sending us the wrong way), it was very big and the people very chilled out. It was more expensive as the lodges always are higher up but the dining room seemed pretty warm with one distinguishing feature from the rest of the trek, it had music playing...I speak for myself here but I can only imagine that Bethany felt the same when I say that when we set off on the trek I wasn't expecting to be listening to 'Rooox-anne' and 'Message In A Bottle' at over 4500m the night before the pass, but it was actually quite soothing because as I've said, the pass represented a lot and we were waiting and hoping that we could get through the night without any signs of AMS so we could attempt the pass. The company helped as well, we met a Brit called Bob and a couple who live in Holland, one British (Jenni) and one Dutch (Phillip) and spent the whole night having a jolly old time.

Tears

And then came the big day. The first hour or so was a mammoth effort up a massively steep incline, the next hour or so was a little less steep and the last part a really arduous slog, that's all that it can be described as. It took us 6 hours to get to the pass with only a couple of 5 minute stops included in that. If you've never trekked in altitude then you won't know the difference it makes in walking. Your breathing is heavier, the legs just don't move as far for each stride, the wind is bitterly cold up there too, everything is much harder. The hardest day of the Everest trek was between Jiri and Lukla when we had to climb 1000m and descend 2000m all in one day - Thorong La Pass was a 1000m ascent and 1700m descent all in one day but 2000m higher! In all it took us about 11 hours to reach our resting place of Muktinath, rising at 5:30am and arriving at about 4:30pm. Bethany struggled a lot that day, her body simply doesn't like ascending that quickly at altitude, the last hour was one of the most strenuous times she's had, each stride was about the length of one of her feet, literally one foot in front of the other with barely any daylight in between, her breathing wouldn't allow her any more speed and her headache had reappeared, this time due to AMS without any doubt. But she saw the mass of prayer flags in the distance that mark the pass and suddenly became reinvigorated, her tears masked by her sunglasses and hidden purposefully from me - she wanted to make this pass - ON HER OWN STEAM! Silently but gloriously we reached the flags and I have to say it was a really emotional moment, unfortunately we couldn't fully appreciate it at the time because Bethany was deteriorating, her exhaustion was developing and she didn't want to eat anything, both signs of AMS, but we knew the only way was down now which is the best remedy for AMS, so we had a few snaps to mark our achievement and I insisted we descended as quickly as possible to relieve the symptoms before Bethany had a chance to "just have a quick 20 minutes" nap.

We made it all the way down trouble free and decided on a rest day in Muktinath after the effort of the day before. Expecting the peace, tranquility and splendour that we felt in Lumbini (the birthplace of the Buddha) 4 years ago we were very disappointed to not find this in the second most significant religious place in Nepal, only behind the incredible Pashupatinath. The place was huge, the temples unremarkable and we had a bad experience in our hotel which really soured the taste in our mouths. We had a bit or a discussion about if we really wanted to continue travelling because the urge of starting a family was beginning to tempt us, had a bit of a rant about Nepal not being what it used to be and the disappointment of Muktinath, and then headed back to our hotel...to find Jenni and Phillip having tea on the balcony of the restaurant. An hour or so of excellent company later and the world was a better place. We had obviously cleared our heads and decided that our angst was probably just from Muktinath, put it behind us and continued with our trek in the morning.

West is best

The west side was a marked improvement (bar the ridiculousness of Jomson), we spent a lunch time in Kagbeni which was an oasis of a place, truly beautiful, that evening in a tiny Tibetan guest house in Marpha, a purely indulgent evening and morning in the hot springs of Tatopani, a picturesque sunrise at the famous Poon Hill , one of our favourite nights at a guest house in Sikha with one of the cutest and friendliest Nepalese men we've ever met, and enjoyed the lusher, greener landscape of the west side of the trek finishing the last 2 days retracing the first steps we'd taken on a trek in Nepal, a really lovely way to end our time in Nepal for an amount of time that we have no idea about. All this good feeling even though we had storms for the last 5 or 6 days of the trek. In all the whole trek works out to be 210km - about 130 miles and it really was so diverse in landscape, culture, food and people. It was a great experience and a great way to start our travels. We are now in Pokhara lapping up the relaxation time and letting our blistered feet and aching bones get some much needed rest before heading off to Bangkok for the next part of our trip.

If you made it this far thanks for reading, there is always a lot to tell from 3 weeks when you move on every day. We hope you are all well. We'll leave you with a couple of pictures of the trek and the local foods, and we look forward to hearing from you

Brett

So the trek is finally upon us.....

We arrived Friday late night about 8:30pm after a rather uncomfortable plane journey. However all went swimmingly, our bags arrived on the conveyer belt with no glitch, unfortunately still looking pristine clean. We went out into the airport 'taxi rank' and the bartering begins....However we managed to get a very good rate quite quickly and we were on our way to Thamel in no time at all.

Once arrived we managed to find a hotel to stay in for the next few nights, a bit more expensive than anticipated (400NRps = approx 3.30GBP a night) but we were not too fussed as we were quite happy just to be there. We managed to find a small restaurant and finally had what we had been craving for so long.... Momo's (The next craving, Dal bhat, was satisfied the following day, yum!).

So over the past couple of days it really has just been a case of chilling out purchasing a few books for the trek and having a few daily walks to get our legs warmed up for the mountains ahead! We wandered across a festival in celebration of the God Parbati, apparently it only happens every 12 years. It was quite a hot day so I can imagine this guy was extremely hot! He was dancing all afternoon!

Now the planning starts for our trek, we were either going to go on Tuesday or Wednesday, but we have decided we have done enough chilling and ready to leave the hustle and bustle of Kathmandu for the peacefulness of the Himalayas. We went to the tourist center today to get our permits and slowly made our way back to Thamel to book our bus tickets. We have booked a 'tourist' bus ticket to get to Dumre, it actually works out cheaper than a local bus, and it breaks the journey up. I believe the first bus is only 5 hours journey to Dumre, we then have to pick up a local bus from Dumre to get to Besisahar which is about 2 hours or so. We have to do a couple more things tonight in preparation, this involves hiring some sleeping bags, picking up some trekking snacks (For the sugar bursts, not sure if boiled potatoes would do the trick everytime) packing the lasts bits of our bag and meeting up with the lovely Aisling! ! We have decided to put a few items into storage to lighten our load by a couple of kilos each (always an added bonus!) and once all this has been completed we are finally off to the Himalayas to begin the Annapurna circuit!!

So this is it for about a month - no computers, no phones, no TV's, no worries

Speak to you soon

Bethany x

P.S Just a few snaps of KTM, enjoy!

Next stop Kathmandu!

Well it's finally arrived, I'm sitting here once again in the kitchen, on the laptop (a new one I might add, very swish) and typing what is our last blog entry just 4 hours before we leave for Heathrow. But the last couple of weeks have been pretty manic, we've both had leaving drinks with work, visited lots of friends to say goodbye, went to a wonderful 60th (or 40th according to the limo driver) birthday party with Rick and Sandy in Ely, and then had Max's 3rd birthday party to prepare for.

But as most of you know we were conspired against by my big little sister (thanks Coral ). We honestly had no idea that 'Max's birthday party' was actually our surprise farewell party, in fact I'm still not sure if it was a joint party or not, either way it was a lovely evening with all of our friends and family, really quite emotional...for the chicks of course, not us men. Grrr.

Man day confusion

Speaking of men, grrr, Titman made sure there was one last man day to be had so we went to the Arsenal v Spurs game along with Bruce, I won't mention the scoreline but I'll say it was a belter of a match, a great game to go to so thanks again Titman! One of the most momentous parts of the trip though was right at the start of the day on the train to London when Bruce asked what I would pack for 3 years away, t-shirts for example...it seems my answer stuck with him for the rest of the day and beyond, everyone else replied with "well he'll probably buy more out there" but our Brucey wasn't having it. I feel it may still be troubling him. He did make sure that we'll never forget that moment though thanks to his brilliant present to us. I think the shirts say it all, thanks again Bruce and Jos

Waking up on the Sunday after the party I realised what the next few years would be like with respect to our bags, it'll be much like our bedroom by the looks of it, I like to keep things tidy, Bethany is a bit more 'free spirited' with tidiness, my bag on the left, Bethany's on the right, I think this is a sign of things to come.

After the party we had the Combes family day on Sunday which was really lovely, and the weather was tremendous too, where did that come from?! And the last event was the Indian on Tuesday night which again was a great evening, thanks to everyone for coming to that even though we had the surprise party before, pretending you like me for Bethany's sake for 2 nights in quick succession really is a big ask but it was very well executed, she doesn't suspect a thing. Possibly because she was a little tipsy by the end, I'm not sure that I've ever heard of someone throwing away a necklace because they've thrown up over it but Bethany has shown me a lot of new things since of known her, this just adds to the list.

Goodbye to all

So as I say we're all set now, visitors are starting to arrive now to say goodbye, Bethany has already been in tears, there could be many more. Thanks for the last 3 years at home, they've been fantastic! We're now all packed including a treasure of a gift from Titman, Katie, Gary and Lauren, a lovely t-shirt emblazoned with pictures from the last few years, really lovely so thank you. Bethany's bag weighs 14kg which is about 4kg more than our last trip but that was only for 3 months, and mine is 15kg/16kg which is about 5kg heavier than last time. We have a picture from our first ever trip that has stuck in our minds every time we've been away, so we've taken an updated version, simply our bags packed and ready to go. The excitement is really building now, looking forward to getting started even with the knowledge that I now have 12 t-shirts instead of 10...Bruce's plan obvioulsy worked.

The 'storage' weekend finally came and what a weekend its been so far...

I cannot believe the amount of things we have collected over the last few years. We have managed to sort through what seems to be a lifetime of paperwork. We even went to the lengths of shredding it however this took far too long and we are now going to burn it all. Much more fun than standing at the shredder!

We were hoping for a lovely day today and for probably the first time someone listened and we had glorious sunshine, which meant we could take our brother-in-laws pick-up truck and chuck everything in the back there with a few 'fragile' items going into Coral's car. If it had rained it would have turned out to be a convoy of cars trailing to the offices numerous amount of times. So all in all a very productive day. Our room is so empty it echoes and have finally been able to sort out what we are actually going to take away with us.

To take or not to take.....

It boils down to debating taking the smallest items when it comes to packing, bearing in mind for the first month whatever we take will be trekked through the Himalayas with us so it has to be completey necessary however we also have to pack for at least the first year......Is 10 t-shirts too many? Is 7 too few? Trainers or no trainers? 1 spare pair of laces or two? Who will carry the Malaria tablets and who will carry the medical kit (they both equate to the same size)? All these questions that I have waited so long for and as soon as we get on that plane they will be irrelevant as our only next question would be where will we be sleeping on our first night?

I really cannot wait - It feels that now we have packed up all our things we should be going in a few days however we still have 12 days to go and an extremely busy week ahead full of goodbyes and ....how can I forget - one more working week left!! Its going to be very strange leaving this time.

The weekend is not over so another full day tomorrow and with any luck a pre-pack of the backpack!!

Bring on tomorrow
Bethany

Our Life on the back of a pick-up

Packing our backpacks at last!!