Sunday 17 October 2010

PHOTOS: Trek to Annapurna Base Camp - Click on the link below

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Annapurna Base Camp and Goodbye Nepal

Dear Blog followers,

We have just waved goodbye to our cousin Sarah and Ed after completing what can only be described as the experience of a lifetime.  As you can probably tell from the title of this blog we all managed to trek and climb to the Annapurna base camp at 4130metres (for those of you who haven’t quite gone metric, that’s 12,390 feet!). This of course was the pinnacle of our trek, but like every journey it has a beginning, an end and great experiences along the way. I’ll start at the beginning.

Sarah and Ed flew to Pokhara from Kathmandu and after we missed each other at the airport, we found each other in a restaurant on the lakeside in Pokhara. After hugs, kisses and beer we returned to the campsite in Pame and promptly erected the tent; they wished to sleep under the stars and see how we lived in the van! The first night in the Nepalese countryside was certainly an experience. The mosquitos and leeches smelt fresh blood and had a little feast on Ed and Sarah, whilst we gorged on the gourmet snacks and red wine!

After a day relaxing in Pame we ventured into Pokhara to organize our trek and pick up the remaining gear we needed. We had originally thought to do the trek without a guide; it’s a very well-trodden route and the permits and trekking passes give you access without an informed guide. However, after realising that the difference between having a guide or not was 5 pounds a day for all four of us, it was a no-brainer! The guide was hired, the equipment bought and hired and the taxi booked for the next morning.

We returned to Pame to pack, eat and sleep. That evening Marion cooked a huge pot of soup and we all ate at their van. Sarah had bought some truffles and waffles from Fortnum and Mason and a lovely bottle of Port. We took them over to share – you can’t believe how good they tasted!

We set off the next morning as planned and met our guide, KB. Our first day was trekking from Nayapul to Gandruk. It was a seven hour day, mostly uphill and brought with it beautiful valley views but no mountain views, yet. We were at 1950 metres at the Trekkers Inn Hotel for our first night. After a filling Nepali dish called Dhal Baht (rice, lentils, vegetables, papad and pickle) we headed off to bed.

The next morning we awoke for Sarah’s birthday and an awe-inspiring view of the Himalayas. We were on the top of the hotel with a big balcony in which we all stood mouths gaping at the stunning Machhapuchhre, fishtail mountain. It has an almost text-book peak which twists. The Annapurna South mountain which stands at 7,129metres was to its left and leading up to these glorious white peaks were a set of dark green valleys, full of newly forming clouds drifting up towards us. 

After breakfast our guide showed us the valleys we’d be walking through and informed us that the base camp was the other side of Annapurna South. We got a vague idea then of how far we were going. I think in total we walked 75-80 miles, but that doesn’t really give you a good idea of distance as you go up and down so much to snake through the valleys.

That day we trekked for 8 hours from Gandruk to Chomrong. We chatted our way through villages, over rivers, and bridges, past water buffalo, goats, sheep, other trekkers, porters, donkeys and cyclists! It was a tiring but great day and we ended up at the Himalaya View Guest House. We celebrated Sarah’s birthday with a whiskey and coke and sat on the balcony of the guesthouse watching bright blue birds fly between the trees. We had a gaping set of valleys in front of us; the sheer scale of Himalayas really strikes you, that and the incredibly varied countryside and wildlife.

We all had a fantastic shower at the guesthouse, hot and powerful. It was just what tired and aching muscles needed, and this was only day two! After dinner we sat chatting, and it was then that we realised that we hadn’t brought with us as much money as originally thought.  Our guide borrowed some money for us, thankfully he had a lot of contacts!

The next morning was just as spectacular as the last, but the great thing was that we could see we were closer and our changing perspective of the mountains was illuminating. We could see from here the twist and twin peaks of the fishtail mountain, soaring 6,993 metres into the air. The sky was a brilliant blue and again we had the view of the next deep green valley we were to walk that day.

This was to be the day of steps. We had slept at 2,170 metres at Chomrong and were to stop at Doban at 2600m, however we descended at least 500m before starting the ascent of almost 1000 metres. It was a pretty tough day but the scenery had been stunning. We were walking through rain forest and deep, deep valleys. From almost every nook, cranny, crack and crevice in these fierce hills and cliffs came waterfalls. The sides of the valleys were scarred with a series of landslides, in which some incredible pieces of rock had been moved. It was a geologists dream. The different layers of time evident in these rocks brought an appreciation of the natural history of our planet (and distant memories of geography lessons!).

We stopped that evening in the Annapurna Approach Hotel. We met a guy named Peter from Switzerland who had first travelled to Nepal overland 25 years ago. Meeting people in the guesthouses was an unexpected bonus on the trek. In the evenings everyone would gather in the dining-room as it was pretty cold; we were already wearing puffer jackets and thermal underwear! There was a feeling of excitement about going to the base camp and at the end of each day you really felt chuffed that you’d come that far and were going higher.

Our fourth day was a climb of 900metres to the Macchupchre Base Camp, MBC for short, at 3700metres. It was the day when we really experienced the change in altitude. We were almost drunk or high at times. It became very surreal when we emerged out of the rainforest into much wider valleys where the surroundings became more Scottish; rust and brown coloured hills and valleys and far less vegetation. We were next to the Modi river and the huge boulders in the river seemed almost oversized. It felt like the landscape was becoming wilder and grander, preparing you for the vastness of the mountains ahead.

We entered what felt like a scene from Lord of the Rings. There were old trees with sparse vegetation covered in Spanish Moss, a weeping green moss that appears to blow in a non-existent wind. In our slightly inebriated state we headed for the MBC. We made it in good time. There are no hot showers this high up so we  just changed into our dry warm clothes, donned our hats and gloves and indulged in a cup of hot sweet milk tea whilst mountain-gazing.

We had almost come full circle on the fishtail mountain and she was there in full glory right behind the guesthouse. We turned 180 degrees and there in its magnificence was Annapurna South. Even as the sun was setting we could make out the glaciers that hung on to her sides and settled on to rolling rock formations that protruded before you. Which way to look? Even the valley we had walked up could stake a claim to your eyes as it produced different cloud formations and changed colour with the setting sun.

The winner was to be Machhapuchhre. The sun setting on its delicate, stark rock peaks and pristine snow covered sides and ridges, was hard to beat. It felt like you were sat in the presence of one of nature’s greatest offerings.

That evening as we sat in the dining room with a kerosene burner at our feet, we met four guys who had just climbed a peak of just over 6000 metres. Two Sherpas had assisted them in the climb. What an achievement. Two other teams were also on expedition; one to climb Annapurna South and another to climb Himachule. 

None of us slept too well that night. In fact most nights you felt that you had slept lightly – the effect of the altitude. I think this night was altitude and the fact that we knew we were getting up at 3.30am to leave in the 4 ‘o’ clock darkness to ascend the 430 metres to the Annapurna Base Camp (ABC).

We probably wore nearly every piece of clothing we had as we trekked to ABC. It was so cold that by the time we had reached ABC, the water in my bottle, runny at 3,900, was ice. It was a tough walk. We set off too fast and the affect of the altitude meant that half an hour in, we were puffing and sweating. We carried on after short break and made it in time to see the sun rise over the Annapurna range.

ABC has a few guesthouses at it and many people had got up to see the sunrise. We were sat next to Tibetan prayer flags, strung between little stupas and memorial piles of rocks commemorating someone who had died attempting to climb these mountains. It was a humbling and amazing experience. Milk tea in hand, we sat watching the mountains, waiting for the first glimpse of the sun on this magnificent array of peaks.

Annapurna 1 at 8,129 metres was the first peak to show the sun. No less beautiful, if not as tall, the rest of the peaks hosted the sun’s light one, by one until the whole range of mountains were sparkling at us. I don’t know if you could call it life-changing, but it has to be the experience of a life-time.

We breakfasted at ABC before our descent and took the opportunity to try our first ever fried mars bar and snickers!! Maybe they should twin with a Glasgow chippy! As Mark reminded us, it wasn’t deep fried in batter, it was shallow fried in pastry. It was great. We consumed this and fried Tibeten bread with honey.

We’d left our bags at the MBC, so we packed and set off for our return journey. We stopped that afternoon at 2pm at the Himalaya guesthouse and napped, read books and met other trekkers, including a really nice Australian family, going in the other direction to us.

We decided to set-off slightly earlier the next morning and have breakfast at the next guesthouse down. We left at 6 and made Dovan by 7.30 for breakfast. It was a different feeling coming down. I’m sure that seems obvious, but you don’t realise how much the expectation and anticipation lures you forward. When you’re walking away from the mountains it feels a bit heavier and you sort of know what’s coming. We knew we would end that day by climbing those ominous steps we had descended from Chomrong on day three of the trek.

We were all dreading it, but not least Mark, who had been ill with an Asthmatic cough since being in Kathmandu. The great thing was that his lungs had felt clearer the higher he climbed. He was determined to climb those steps, all 2282 of them (Sarah counted!). When we caught him at the top in the guesthouse, he had managed it in 45 minutes. I bet you can’t guess his mantra to get him up the steps: ‘milk tea and coconut biscuits, milk tea and coconut biscuits!’

Sarah’s strategy as previously mentioned had been to count the steps! We all made it, knee injuries, tight muscles and heaving lungs withstanding. Ed could contain himself no longer; that night we had beer and Pringles before dinner!! We had a really nice evening in the dining-room and met Fran and Dart who were Aussie-English and a couple of Canadian guys, all trekking together. 

The next morning we were headed for the hot-springs. We climbed down and stopped at a guest house, left our bags and began the half-hour descent towards the Modi river, next to which were natural hot springs. They had captured the hot water in two granite pools and through three pipes coming out of a stone wall. It was the first hot bath Mark and I had had since Turkey, fourteen months earlier!

It was lovely to bathe your aching muscles in this hot pool. We also enjoyed the contrast of the cold river crashing over boulders next to us. We were pretty deep in the valley and followed the course of this river onto our next and final guesthouse of the trek; the Beehive.

Being the last night of the trek, we indulged again. Beer, Pringles and Raksi, the local wine got us all pretty merry, not least KB. He entertained us that evening with local folk and love songs and very amusing dance with plates! We met a fellow group of trekkers from China who had also been to ABC. 

Our final day was short, in terms of the trek. We had reached Nayapul, our starting point, in time to catch the 11’o’clock bus to Pokhara. It was a bit strange to come from a place with stunning scenery, no roads, cars, or motorbikes and hardly any people, to a local Nepali bus with music, kids, noise and diesel fumes. It was a quick transition back to the modern world, which included getting laundry done, checking into a new hotel, going back to the van and collecting things, unpacking and re-packing, shopping, showering and relaxing before going for a meal at 7 that evening.

Mark and I had been waiting a long time to eat steak at the Everest Steak house. We’d heard mouthwatering reports from other travelers about the fillet steak. We also needed to celebrate Sarah's birthday in a bit more style. The steak was fantastic - it was three months since we'd eaten any meat and we enjoyed it with a lovely bottle of red wine. We had a lovely evening and we all felt thoroughly chuffed with ourselves for having done the trek. 

We said goodbye to Ed and Sarah the next day. We were so sad to see them go, but what an experience to have had together.

We returned to Pame that day to start the slow process of packing up and getting things ready to go. A few last jobs, some issues to resolve on the home-front, the last bicycle rides around the lake, and the last appreciation of this beautiful and green country. The rice has grown in the few months we've been here; in two weeks they can harvest. The countryside is changing colour with the rice, from a deep green to a light green and golden yellow. The weather is changing; sunnier and less rain. We'll miss Nepal, but the beach in India beckons and who knows, maybe we'll come back next year!

lots of love,

Jo and Mark



Sunday 19 September 2010

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

Tuesday 14 September 2010

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








Friday 2 July 2010

India - the homecoming!

Dear All,

Coming back to India really felt like coming home. It is without doubt our favourite country of our whole trip. I can't go into here why it is, I'd have to try and explain so many things; the atmosphere, the people, the chaos that somwhow works, the food, the cows, the roads etc etc! Anyway, we're back! Four months have passed since we had to temporarily surrender our truck to the Indian government and my goodness we were glad to get it back. We had to go and deal with the bureaucracy that is Indian customs in Goa and formally request that they release our vehicle. Our keys were in a wax sealed envelope, which we've kept as a souvenir. After a few hours we had our keys and headed to the warehouse where the truck was stored.

We hired out a little moped to get around and our first task was to find a place where we could work on our vehicle. We really didn't want to move it as it costs a good ammount to get it towed. It's pretty heavy so requires a crane to tow it! The man at the warehouse said 'yes', so Mark set off to pick up the parts in Margao and we took the engine apart that afternoon. I have to say here that Mark's Mum and Dad have been brilliant in ordering the parts for us and sending them through.

It was also much easier to do the work this time as Mark and Steffen had taken the engine apart four months ago and so every bolt, nut and screw came away much easier than before. The only thing that made it more challenging this time was the rain. It is well and truly monsoon season here so Mark found himself quite often soaked and laying in an inch of water whilst working on the engine. He was brilliant. Most of you have realised by now that I'm also more than just a pretty face! Between us we managed to have the engine up and running in two days. But then disaster struck! Well, that's an exageration, but the engine stopped working again and this time we knew it wasn't the timing chain and the tensioner. Somehow, somewhere air was getting into our system. We ended up taking out the fuel lines, both of which had perished dreadfully meaning we had to replace them. Off we went in search of decent fuel line and another day later we were up and running.

The next task was to get the new clutch fitted. I don't know if you remember or not, but our lovely cousin Jane had acted as our mule in February and brought us out our new clutch. What would we do without our families?! We wanted a decent garage to fit it, as we've found some mechanics here to be a bit hammer-heavy! We went first of all to Eicher and pleaded with them to do it. They said yes and after three days with much maneouvering we had a new clutch. We have two gear boxes on the truck as its a four wheel drive and we'd had real problems changing the oil in the rear gear box as we couldn't release the nut to empty it, but they managed that too and we changed oil in both gear boxes and in the engine too. Can you believe that all that work cost us the grand total of fifty pounds? We needed to do a good bit of maintenance as we're about to drive to and around the Himalayas. They're not the sort of roads you want to have mechanical failure on, trust me!

Whilst all of this has been going on we've also had to flush out our water system with chlorinated water as its been standing for 4 months, and many other interior jobs. The inside was actually filthy! It's now been washed and scrubbed and we've replenished all stocks and replaced and repacked many things. The roof has also been re-sealed to deal with the rains. We've now slept in it for two nights and it's lovely to be back in it.

Vasco de Gama, which is the home of Goa's airport and sea port has been a great place to do all of this as they have every shop you need. We're off this afternoon to Margao to pick up our new Carnet de Passage and International driving permits from the RAC and then we'll have a couple of days on the beach in Agonda to rest up before we drive the 2500 kilometers to the Himalayas. Our current Carnet runs out on the 19 July and that's the date when need to enter Nepal. We're taking the route No.7 up the centre of India to Varanasi and then its Kathmandu. How exciting! Our friends Amelie and Til are already in Pokhara, Nepal where there's an overlanders' campsite with hot showers! Woohoo!

Until the next time,

Love Jo and Mark xx

Thursday 1 July 2010

Cambodia to India

Dear All,

Much time has passed again and we are now in India, but before I update you on the situation with our broken truck, let's talk Cambodia! We arrived into Phnom Penh (PP) after a 24 hour bus journey from Vientiane, capital of Laos. The night bus was a sleeper - literally. It had no seats, only beds. We were given a double, but as you can imagine most SE Asians are not as tall as Mark so we struggled with the space. We arrived into Pakse in Southern Laos the next morning where we picked up the day bus, which had great armchairs, and proceeded onto the border.

Once we were a good few dollars lighter we had had our health checks (a scan with some wierd electronic implement) and obtained a month visa for Camodia. On the way to PP we met a guy called Macca from Coventry and as we were the only ones left on the bus and he knew some people in PP we followed him to the Walkabout bar and stayed there the night.You may now be picturing some Australian themed pub; not so. The Walkabout is basically a bar where alot of ex-pats go to drink and pick up prostitutes! We left the next day, not due to the prostitutes more to the old men!

We met Kevin, a really nice ex-pat who was a friend of Macca's and who teaches English in PP. He helps out a charity run by ex-pats called CHOICE. They were due to go on one of their bi-weekly visits to some local villages. CHOICE works with some local people as well and between them they visit 4 villages once a  month with a medic, food, clothes for the kids and adults and some entertainment for the local kids. On the day that we went a clown came and entertained the kids with balloon making whilst the medic and the nurse saw the villagers and we handed out the food and clothes. The charity has provided water filters for every villager and they are trying to see if they can get a school built.

It was a really good day and we saw a side of Cambodia that I'm not sure we have seen without them. It's a poor country. There are, I think, more non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Cambodia than any other country. There's even a section of PP that everyone knows as the NGO quarter. Not surprisingly, when you see the cars they drive and how the NGO workers live, there is a lot of cynicism about the NGOs. There are definitely things they do that are very worthwhile, however one wonders if they are not destined to become ineffectual and victims of their own success.

When we talked to the people from CHOICE and they talked about building a school you can see the problem start to arise; you can't just build a school. You have to have land and permission which means lawyers and bankers being involved - this is on a small scale, but imagine if you were UNICEF or OXFAM, you would have huge legal departments and so on. We can't go into all the issues here, suffice to say that the question of aid is full of contradictions and problems.

The most prominent issue of Cambodian history is, of course, the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot, or Brother No.1 as he was also known. The Killing Fields that have been documented in the film and books came after the Khmer Rouge came to power in 1978. The backdrop was the American war in Vitenam. A war it should be said that didn't just affect Vietnam. Laos is the most heavily bombed country in the whole world for its size and forty-plus per cent of bombs didn't explode. Cambodia was also bombed heavily and in both countries we saw the victims of unexploded land mines, cluster bombs and other ordinance.

The rise of the Khmer Rouge was devastating for Cambodia who lost 23 per cent of its population. The idea, in short, was based on Chairman Mao's 'cultural revolution' in China, where a heavy emphasis was placed on agriculture and those seen as intellectuals or as city workers were seen as part if the capitalist problem. The Khmer Rouge's first victims were those who lived in the cities and those who were intellectual - or educated. They were moved into the surrounding countryside and subsequently many of them were killed.  We visited the notorious S21 which was a high school in PP that was turned into a torture center and prison and the loal killing fields where many were buried. It was nothing but grim and the impact on the population is still apparent today. We met people who were our age who had lost both parents during the regime.

Today though, PP is a vibrant city. We really enjoyed ourselves there. It has great bars and restaurants and its possible to meet some really cool people. It could really do with a women's movement and some serious development. The sex industry is rife.

The other famous part of Cambodian history is Angkor Wat. If you've seen them film Tomb Raider you'll have seen some parts of this incredible complex. It covers 30,000 square kilometers and includes some of the most incredible buildings you've ever seen. Building began in 802 AD and the temples were origianlly Hindu, although later were developed as Bhuddist as well. The actual temples of Angkor Wat are amazing and are being steadily overhauled and preserved. Then we went to Angkor Thom which was once a city one million strong. Most of the houses were wood so they are long gone but the temples and walls remain and are vast. We finished day one with Phnom Bakeng, the highest point of the whole complex which people urge you to vist at sunset.

The next day we saw the temples where nature has taken its course more so than elsewhere. The temples of Ta Phrom and Preah Khan (the tomb raider set) feel magical. Trees that are five hundred-plus years old have grown up and around the temples and are almost as majestic as the buildings themselves. This combined with piles of stones and pillars strewn accross the ground and around the still-standing temples make you feel like you've just discovered it. Indian Jones eat your heart out. The thing that was great about it was that even on the second day you weren't tired of looking around.

From Siem Reap, the home of Angkor, we headed South to the beach. Sihanoukville is Cambodia's beach resort and the gateway to its islands. We went there mainly to see our friend Quest and help him celebrate his 24th birthday, but we met up with some other friends Jen and Stef who we also met in Chiang Mai. There was as it turned out a proper little group of us, Dan, Ruth, Dice and Miles being some of them. We mainly hung out at a bar called Leopold's which was showing all the world cup games and gave out free shots everytime a goal was scored! With such an international group we had someone to support in most games!

We left Sihanoukville to come back to PP and 2 days later to fly to Kuala Lumpar and then Goa. We shopped, ate and drunk and met up with people we'd met at the beginning of our Cambodian experience. Finally it was time to leave SE Asia. We'll come back to do Vietnam on motorbike another time. We really enjoyed oursleves there but we were looking forward to coming back to India, the truck and a more independent way of travelling.

Next update coming very soon, love from us both xx