Annapurna

Dear Blog-follwers,

I sit here in a small travel agents/internet cafe with a cup of milk tea and a chocolate croissant feeling inspired to write to you all. I have in fact forgone my normal breakfast of toast, eggs, spinach, potatoes and tomatoes for a slightly less healthy option, but one that allows me to type. I've even cycled 7.5km (3.5miles) in 20 minutes to get here and write, so, as I sit here sweating, I'm sure you're wondering what could possibly have made me so enthusiastic? The clue is in the title of the entry. This morning was our first sighting of the Annapurna mountains. We woke before 7 and having had a night of no rain and a sunny morning we decided to walk up to the viewpoint just behind where we are camped.

We tried not to make any noise as the campsite was quiet, but Amelie and Til's dog Ole was too excited to see us up and had to have at least a few barks! We took him and their other dog Ford with us and with another stray in tow, the five of us followed the footpath over the bridge, up the side of the hill to see the snow-capped peak of the Annapurna for the first time. We sat in the sunshine and just looked in awe at the vastness of the mountain. I think the Annapurna is around 7,800metres high. It's been covered by the monsoon clouds almost everyday for the last few months and you almost start to doubt that there are any big mountains at all.

My cycle in around the lake this morning was also beautiful. The monsoon, despite being the worst for a long time has produced, along with the hard labour of Nepali women, beautifully deep green paddy-fields. The hillsides are covered in grass and trees and running with water. We're only 800 metres above sea level in Pokhara, but the hills around the lake climb to 1500 metres and the water is continuously running off them. Terraced farming has been the method used to harness the water, the end result being the continual sound of running water as it is chanelled through different terraces, over and under roads and eventually makes its way to the lake. Is this the most magical combination in the world; snow-capped mountains, deep green hills, cool water and hot sunshine?

Anyway, I realise that I should return to the story I left last time. We had just had four weeks in Pame at the campsite and were heading to Kathmandu. We went with Amelie and Til and decided to stop at place called Bandipur, a small town set amid the hill tops 80km from Pokhara. We arrived in the afternoon and found a great place to park where there were two hotels and a huge area of grass at the end of which was a viewpoint of the mountains. The town was a lovely little place and the buildings almost tudor looking. Newari architecture is incredibly similar. The little carved wooden windows and doors, the closeness of the houses, the flagstone streets, all looked like a small village from the middle ages.

We had a really nice couple of days there, but the day Amelie and Til were due to leave was a little more fraught with tension. We had parked next to an old water tank. It was  a big square hole set into the ground, maybe 2 metres deep, and 15 meters across both way. They are still used in many places for people to wash and do their laundry. The sides of the tank are exactly the same as the dry stone walling you get at home. We had both parked next to this tank and the two days we were there it had rained very heavily. Amelie and Til were due to leave at 6 in the morning to get to Kathmandu. We heard their engine start and then had a frantic knock on the door with Amelie asking Mark to help them. We both got up and couldn't believe our eyes. Their truck; a great big 8 tonne green Mercedes 911 beauty was precariously tilted on one side where the wall of the tank had fallen away as they'd tried to reverse out of their parking spot. The combination of the sodden ground and the weight of their truck had made the tank collapse. The frog (it looks like one!) was not looking good. It wouldn't be an exageration to say it was tilted at a 45 degree angle. All 8 tonnes of it.

We knew we couldn't tow it out as we only weigh 4.5 tonnes max, but we instead tried to act like an anchor but attaching our winch at the back and then tying more straps around trees to try and stop it from falling in. I had to go into the local town to try and find some oil for the winch, but instead I found through some other local Nepalis a guy who claimed to have a ten-tonne winch. We all returned to the truck and the guys had to dig a deep hole 3-4 metres in front of the truck and then tied the winch rope wround a tree trunk and burried it at least a metre deep. The truck was then winched forward. At least at this point if felt like it was safe and no longer about to fall.

After lunch however, with the lead guy of the winching team enjoying a few bevvies, they asked Til to just reverse the truck out. It was madness as he would have fallen straight back into the same position. Mark had a brainwave - put some wooden boards underneath the wheels, squirt them with washing-up liquid and then winch the truck sideways, sliding on the boards. It worked, but not after Mark had been smacked accidentally in the face with a wooden plank! It's all healed now, but I'll let him tell that story. It took us 13 hours to get that truck into a position of safety. The next day we all left for Kathmandu. I had manged to get a guava seed jammed into my tooth and needed to get it seen to!

First impressions of Kathmandu - filfthy and polluted! But then we were staying at a car workshop just down the road from a dump! Having had a small glimpse of a few of Kathmandu's sights, having walked among the beautiful architectire of the Durbar Square in Patan, and having been lucky enough to see the Himlayan range that surrounds the city's namesake, the Kathmandu valley, I can really see how people's stories of arriving here in the 1970s when there were no cars and no pollution made this city into the Shangri-La that it once was. It must have been amazing.

I don't wish to do it a disservice today. It's a city that's worth looking at. The temples, the shops, the architecure, the people and the mountains are still a great combination, but it does give you an idea of how unplanned and rapid development can lead to environmental damage. Reports in the papers last week were of urban pollution collecting around mount Everest. We donned face masks to cycle around the city.

Our three week stay at Irwins workshop was under a shelter and we were with friends. Mark had all sorts of jobs to do on the van and we managed to get (after two attempts) our alternator repaired. It may seem like we have done a lot of maintenance on the van, and I suppose we have, but the poor thing does take a battering and has driven 25,000km (approx 13,000miles) in the last year, over some very bumpy terrain! She's an old girl too, having been born in 1993!

So, our stay was longer than expected, and resulted in Mark getting a bad cough from the pollution - it's almost better now. It was the arrival of our friends that precipitated our departure. We all met in Goa last year on the beach: Amelie and Til, me and Mark and Mandy and Steffen. Steffen, some of you may recall, is the mechanic that helped Mark on the van in Goa. They were arriving from Australia and picking up their van before we could all spend 10 days together back in Pame.

Those ten days have gone now, they were great- and it was quicker than we all wanted, but the bain of all travellers lives; visa restrictons, made it so. They're on their way to the border now and heading for India and then home.

When we returned to Pame we had new neighbours. Stefan and Petra with their dog and Patrick and Marion with their two children and dog. Both of them own incredible vehicles; Stefan and Petra's is a 6-wheeler, 19 tonne truck that he took 5 years to build and Partick and Marions houses a whole family; brilliant!

So folks, I guess that's all for now. We are eagerly awaiting the arrival of our cousin Sarah and Ed. It's 9 days til they land in Nepal. Between then and now, I guess it will be more of the same; cycling, walking, swimming, reading, raining, sunshine, mountains, clouds, greenness, lakes, temples and  nice breakfasts. In the words of Jill Scott, I feel like I'm living my life like it's golden!

Love, Jo and Mark xxx

A big and long awaited hello from Kathmandu!

Dear All,

You'll be pleased to know that we've made it to Nepal. In fact for most of you it's old news! Our friend Nick has said that our blog is fast becoming a historical document - apologies again! The drive here was mammouth - I think we've clocked up almost 3000km between us. To try and maintain some sort of chronological order to the blog, I'll deal with the journey first and then Nepal. I hope it's  not too boring - it's better when it's fresher!

We last left you when we had departed from a very wet Goa. We visited our old camping spot in Agonda and found everything closed. The restaurant and bar owners had dismantled nearly every beach hut and in the permanent structures the hatches had well and truly been battoned down. It was wet, deserted and wild. Nothing like the winter idyll we'd grown to love.

The monsoon is all pervasive. Everything feels damp all the time and it takes 3-4 days to dry any washing! We had thought to spend 2 days relaxing before we left, but it really wasn't the weather! So we set off; gently at first, only doing 200km on our first day and setting off at 10 and finishing at 4. We had thought to drive through the centre of India but heard that the roads were bad. Time wasn't really on our side so we decided to go on the highways. The four major cities of India; Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata (Calcutta) and Chennai (Madras) are linked up with a quadrangle of pretty good highways.We decided to head for Dehli and then cut east towards Agra - where the Taj is - and then over to Varansi before heading north into Nepal. After a day's driving we had reached the highway and our lifestyle for the next two weeks was established: up at 6-7, coffee, drive for two hours, breakfast, drive until just before sunset, 6ish, stop at a motorway services, eat, wash and in bed asleep by 8!

The motorway services are not quite what you may think of at home. They are usually pretty close to the road and most nights we needed earplugs to sleep. We swap driving every two hours so that neither one of us gets too tired. We quite liked the sense of purpose that we got from being back on the road again. Sad, I know!

There are few things about the drive that are of interest here, but some are worth mentioning. We stopped at Pune on the way up as we had concerns about the tyres. The tread was wearing unevenly and after we had spotted it we decided to stop in Pune in case we needed to change them or something. Pune is just east of Mumbai and is a city of 3 million. It has a huge student population and is a really nice city. Its also famous for the Osho Ashram - Osho was deported from America after they questioned some of his methods - google it!

Anyway, we stopped on the outskirts of Pune by the race course as it seemed quiet and had space. A couple of people had told us we may have problems as there was a military base nearby and they patrolled at nighttime. After the third person stopped and spoke with us we thought we maybe we should move. Fortunately for us the third set of people to stop were Tushar and Nita who lived not far away and said we could park near them.

We followed them home and parked outside their apartment. They were on their way to the hospital where they do voluntary work with burns victims. They left us to it and invited us for breakfast the next day. Such hospitality - can you imagine meeting two foreigners on the street and taking them home and making them breakfast?!

The breakfast was lovely - Nita is a great vegetarian cook. Both her and Tushar are Jains (pronounced jay-een). Over breakfast we were educated about Jainism and learnt about the voluntary work that they do in the hospital. The government hospitals are, by all accounts, underfunded and in a poor state. The burns wards are some of the worse. Many people here cook with kerosene stoves- many of which are faulty - and are consequently burnt - badly. Tushar and Nita decided they wanted to give something back to their local community and decided that every other night they would visit the ward and help people. Great people whom we were very fortunate to meet.


Tushar showed us the way out the next day and we were on our way towards Mumbai. I couldn't possibly do that city any form of justice by describing driving through it, so we'll leave that one til after we've actually stopped there! We headed on past Mumbai and towards the next state of Gujarat. As we were heading north the temperature was starting to climb and it was becoming more humid. The night times were the worst. The days weren't so bad as we were heading north and only had the sun in the cab in the early morning. We also had a constant breeze pouring in through the windows. But, when we hit Jaipur in Rajasthan and started heading East towards Agra the temperature was very uncomfortable. We lay in bed sweating as if we'd both been out for a hard run!

It was around this time that we started to question the wisdom of visiting Varanasi. We changed plans and headed towards cooler climes. Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh was our final two day stop in India before heading for the border. Lucknow was a major centre for the British Raj, has some great architecture and is a typical busy Indian city. We picked up provisions there as we had heard that most things in Nepal were more expensive. We also needed, so we thought, American dollars for the Nepali border. This proved impossible to organise as the Indian government says that Nepal takes Indian Rupees and has forbidden the buying of dollars in India to go to Nepal.

Rupees in hand we headed north. After 14 days of solid driving we crossed the border into Nepal at Nepalganj. We had no real problems getting our visa once the guy realised it was Rupees or nothing! We slept that night just across the border and it was definitely cooler. We were so looking forward to a good night's sleep but a young Nepali guy had other ideas. He was a very well educated and clever young man who was desperate to practice his English. He knocked on our van door every hour from 6 to chat with us!

Driving in Nepal felt like a walk in the park in comparison to India. We hardly saw any trucks on the road, in fact hardly any traffic at all. We actually said it was like driving through Longleat safari park - without the Lions! We were following the base of a set of hills below the Himalaya that run from west to east. Pokhara was our destination as our friends Amelie and Til whom we met in Goa were there. After a few days driving we had only seen low lying hills, but as we started to head north towards Tansen we started climbing. The scenery was beautiful and we hadn't even seen any big mountains yet!

Pokhara is the second largest town in Nepal and boasts a stunning backdrop; the Annapurna himalayan range. We, however have seen these mountains once in 6 weeks! The monsoon clouds are keeping an almost permanent curtain infront of the mountains and we eagerly await the opening night - or day, as it were! Pokhara's mountain backdrop and its huge lake make it a really popular toursit destination, but again the monsoon has kept most toursists away. So, what can you do during the monsoon? Walking and cycling have been the two things keeping us most busy, as well as using inner tubes to float on the lake.

We spent the first week camped in the town next to the lake and got some little jobs done on the van and met some of the few travellers and tourists left in the Sun Welcome restaurant. You couldn't cook for as little as the price! We also met some paragliders here. Pokhara is one of the capitals for paragliding -you can imagine the views. Mark had his first flight, which he may come on here and explain - brilliant! I'm waiting til October when everything is just a little clearer.

After a week our friends Amelie and Til arrived from Kathmandu and we drove 10km around the lake to a small village called Pame where, based at the end of the valley is an overlanders campsite. However to reach it we had to do our first river crossing - again we'll put the photos up later, but suffice to say we made it. Although we did wonder whether camping in between two rivers at the base of the valley was the wisest thing to do in the middle of the monsoon!

We spent 4 weeks camped here in our very own private bog! The ground was so wet and muddy from the perpetual rain. But, we had many days where it was sunshine - in fact most time the rains came it was in the night. So, we took inner tubes and floated down the rivers nex to us and walked back (thanks Rob and Sagar), cycled in and out of Pokhara, washed in the stream running next to the campsite (Mark said he felt as if he were in an advert for hair products  - leave you feeling fresh as a mountain stream!!), walked up the closest mountain - Sarangkot with our bikes and then rode down the other side, walked to the world peace stupa and got the boat back accross the lake, and shared great food and lots of fun with Amelie, Til, Ole and Ford (two dogs!).

After 4 weeks Kathmandu was calling, but that can wait for the next instalment.

Back sooner rather than later - promise!

Jo and Mark xx