We arrived in Varanasi in the morning by sleeper train from Delhi. As soon as we left the train station we instantly attracted attention from the touts and had to seek refuge in the tourist information centre. Luckily we called our hotel and they sent someone over to pick us up. Our hotel was situated in the Old City amidst a series of alleyways containing small shops and restaurants and cows.

Varanasi has been known as a holy city for Hindus and Buddhists for thousands of years. This is due to the religious importance of the River Ganges. In the afternoon, we went for a walk along the Ganges to see the ghats. The ghats are where the people go to bathe in the river. The river is thought to contain holy water which can cleans you of your sins. People also use it to bathe in if they don’t have any running water. There is also an area where cremations are performed on the rivers edge. (We had been told that quite often body parts end up in the water and there are turtles in the river waiting but we never saw this). We’d also been warned that at the cremation ghat, ‘local guides’ will try and tell you something you already know and then demand a donation. After being there for about 10 seconds, we were swarmed with these local guides who tried to lead us up these narrow stairways onto the so called ‘tourist viewing platform’. Seeing the stairs and that it was the only way in or out, we just walked away.

Apparently, the main cause for the pollution in the river is actually the many factories upstream dumping their toxic waste into the river. There is rubbish all along the waterfront which also makes it unappealing for a swim but there were plenty of people bathing and swimming in it.

We decided to sign up for a tour with our hotel the next morning to take us for a boat ride at sunrise and a tour of some of the local temples. Unfortunately, when we woke up it was pouring down rain and cloudy. We eventually went out to the river once the rain subsided but there wasn’t a sunrise. The morning is when a lot of people come to bathe in the river so there were many people around. There was even a clothes washing area with a row of flat rocks on which people were beating the clothes and washing them in the river water.

Afterwards we were taken to the Durga Temple, also known as “the monkey temple” but we were only allowed to see it from outside the temple walls. Beside it was a disgusting pool of water which our tour guide called a lake.

We were then taken to a large marble temple called Tulsi Manas Temple whose walls were covered in Sanskrit versus. It also had a strange museum which had several animated dioramas depicting Hindu gods.

Afterwards we were told that we would be taken to the Muslim district to see how silk is made which is another way of saying that we will be taken to a silk shop and put under pressure to buy something. We saw the silk makers which was interesting and I ended up buying a scarf. Later a restaurant owner told me that I probably bought a fake and wanted to take us to a shop where I could buy real silk but we figured that we would probably just get conned again and we don’t really know enough about silk to know the difference.

We arrived in Delhi yesterday evening and decided that it would be easier to hire a cab for the day to take us to all of the main sights. The first place that we visited was India Gate and the houses of parliament. The pollution was pretty bad and the weather was very cloudy. At India Gate, we were followed around by two young boys begging for money. They were very persistent but harmless.

The next stop was Qutb Minar, “the first city of Delhi”, founded in the 11th century. The main attraction was a fluted red sandstone tower that kind of looks like a smokestack. It was covered in intricate carvings and versus from the Koran and surrounded by the city ruins. There were lots of school children visiting the site and some girls really wanted me to take pictures of them in front of the tower. I guess they wanted to see themselves in the photo.

On the way to the next stop, we asked if we could stop for a snack and a coffee and our driver assured us that he could take us somewhere nice. He then dropped us off at a market place called “Delhi Haat” and we thought it was a bit strange but we walked in and after the storekeeper gave us his marketing speech about how the shop is government approved, etc., we asked him if they sold food and he told us that no food and drinks are sold there. After telling him we weren’t going to buy anything he showed us the exit. We were pretty annoyed. The driver was obviously trying to get a commission by bringing us to this shop so we told him to forget it and not to take us to any more ‘shopping’ stops. We think he got the message and told him to take us straight to the Lotus Temple, our next destination.

The Lotus Temple, also known as Baha’i Temple, is a modern temple built to look like a lotus flower with marble petals and surrounded by nine pools. The temple accepts all religions and allows all religions to be worshipped there. It’s all about unity and equality. The inside was very simple with rows of benches and a speaker at the front sitting passages from various religious text’s. The place was very nice but there was something kind of creepy about the whole place. It kind of reminded me of the South Park episode where the kids go to the planetarium and all the kids who work there keep saying “i love my work”.

After this, we visited Humayun’s Tomb which is a complex of buildings built for the Mughal Emperor Humayun. The main building set a precedent for future Mughal architecture including the Taj Mahal. There was a young man who seemed like he worked there, who asked us where we were from and talked to Ross about cricket for a little while. Then he wanted to take a picture with me, which we agreed to even though I thought it was a bit weird. A bit later we decided that we should get a picture of the two of us, so we asked him to take our picture and afterwards he asked if he could have another picture with me. I said okay and this time he put his arm right around me and his hand on my breast! I told him to get take his hand away and Ross took the picture. I couldn’t believe what he just did, he was so creepy. I decided from then on, not to let anyone take a photo with me.

We got back to Kathmandu yesterday sore and exhausted after a long trek along the Annapurna Circuit. I also seem to have caught a cold but at least I have some time to recover now. We are busy planning our next adventure in India. I’ll write more soon.

After our trek we went to a small village called Bandipur. The sign upon arrival boasted that the town was “defecation free” which basically meant that there is no cow shit on the ground unlike most other Nepalese villages.

The village was on a hill and had a nice view of the mountain range.

On our walk around town, we saw a maternity hospital which was pretty shocking. There were used surgical gloves hanging on the window sill to dry, a pump with some disgusting fluid inside and the place was filthy. We were glad that we didn’t have to go to a hospital during our trip.

Our transportation on the way out of town was a small pickup truck with benches in the back. It broke down on the way down the hill and we had to jump into another one.

 

Dave and Laura from our group decided to stand up at the back with Kamal. The funny part was when these two guys whose truck broke down hitched a ride on the back. One guy was grabbing onto Dave’s leg while the other squeezed beside Laura and you can barely see it in this photo but Kamal is actually hanging on behind Laura as we were speeding down the side of this hill.

Pokhara is the second biggest city in Nepal but still pretty small. The nice thing about it is it is on a lake and has a great view of the Annapurna mountain range. It is also a lot quieter than Kathmandu. This is where our tour company put on a delicious Nepalese dinner for us to celebrate finishing the trek.

This is the whole team including the porters.

We trekked the Annapurna Circuit with an organised tour company which included three guides and four porters. We had nine people in our group varying in age from 21 to 59.

To start off, the Australian guy in our group had his bag stolen in the lobby of our hotel just as we were about to leave. We figured that it must have been stolen by another backpacker. I would have been pretty upset about this but he seemed to be pretty relaxed about it and decided to go ahead with the trek with only the clothes on his back and his day pack. He managed to get through the entire trek only buying a fleece and a warm hat along the way which was pretty amazing considering the extreme conditions that we encountered.

The first day of the trek, Ross and I decided that we didn’t need our waterproof gear and packed it away in our main bag. Sure enough a storm came through about an hour into the trek. The rain was basically the last downpour of the monsoons so soon we were soaked right through. Even the inside of our boots were full of water. The storm finally ended just as we arrived at our tea house. The night was cold and there were no hot showers so we just changed into some warm clothes and put our boots by the fire to dry. This tea house was basic to say the least. The walls were made of mud and it had a tin roof but we weren’t expecting much. None of our clothes dried overnight as it was so damp and cold but we were lucky that the next day was sunny and we had time to hang our clothes after our trek. I carried my waterproof gear in my day pack from then on, but of course it didn’t rain again for the rest of the trek!

The food at the tea houses was good overall. The menus were all government approved so every tea house had a similar menu.  The options usually included curries, pasta, fried rice, fried noodles, pizza, momos (dumplings), and always Dhal Baht which is a Nepalese staple. Dhal Baht is lentil curry with rice and pickle and sometimes potatoes on the side. We quickly learned that if you order Dhal Baht, they always come around with seconds so it was a good meal if you were really hungry. It was also what the porters and guides ate every day. The food quality varied from place to place. One time, Ross ordered a pizza and what came out looked pretty disgusting. Ross dubbed it the “liquid pizza”. It consisted of a chapatti with unknown curry sauce poured on top. We did sometimes get some decent pizza and sometimes along the way there was a bakery where we could get cinnamon rolls. As we got higher we were also able to get Yak cheese which turned out to be pretty good. 

To drink there was always tea but the price varied and got really expensive nearer the top. We drank ginger tea every day which is supposed to be good for acclimatisation and I think it helped. The masala tea was also really good. There was also beer but alcohol is not good to drink when trying to acclimatise. Despite this, there were lots of Europeans who drank the whole way up and they somehow made it over the pass.

During the first half of our trek, we passed through villages where there were no roads so we would always see horses as well as people carrying extremely heavy loads up and down the trail. Most of what was sold in the tea houses had to be carried up.

We had to cross many bridges along the way. Some were more sturdy than others. The bamboo ones were the scariest. This one was particularly unstable.

The scenery changed dramatically as we climbed higher into the mountains. At first there were rolling green hills and rice fields.

As we got higher, there were lots of evergreen trees and it started to look a bit like Canada.

Then we started to see the mountains.

When we reached the top of the tree line it started to get cold and dry and the sky was the deepest shade of blue.

Tea houses ranged from small huts to bigger buildings.

 

One of the villages that we stayed in called Manang even had a movie theatre where we watched Seven Years in Tibet. The theatre was just a small hut with some benches covered in animal furs and a TV at the front but it was still pretty cool.

 

Another village had a Yak Donalds which we though was pretty funny and a very strange statue… you’ll have to click on the photo to see why.

There was also a little traffic jam along the way.

And as we went along we noticed more and more marijuana plants just growing the wild.

 

This was a cucumber that we bought from a local farmer and we all shared as a snack.

The villages along the way were Tibetan Buddhist so we saw many stupas, small temples, monasteries, prayer wheels, and prayer flags.

 

 

A few days before we went over the pass, we visited a small monastery in a cave at the top of a steep hill 400m above the village. A Buddhist monk who lives there blessed us for safety crossing the Thorong La pass.

 

The Thorong La pass day is the biggest day of the entire trek and every day on the Trek so far our leader Kamal kept saying we couldn’t do anything fun “until after the pass” he was so worried about us all getting across. The day consists of a 1000 meter climb and then a 1600 meter decent all at altitudes over 4500 meters where the oxygen is about 50% of sea level which makes doing anything a strenuous ordeal. Even packing away our sleeping bags in the morning involved taking a break half way through to catch our breath!

We woke up at 3:30 am with a start at 4:30 am and when we left it was around –7 degrees Celsius. There was a switchback path straight up the mountain and since all the trekkers leave at roughly the same time and it was pitch black, it looked like a trail of snails all wearing head lamps. Half way up the 1000 metres there was snow and ice and it was very windy. Our socks and gloves were not warm enough. We had to keep our hands in our pockets to stay warm. We heard horror stories about someone who died a week earlier when there was a big snowstorm so it was pretty scary. We walked slowly and the guides offered to carry my day pack which helped. Luckily we didn’t have any symptoms of AMS (Acute Mountain Sickness) on the way up but we were definitely feeling the lack of oxygen. About half way up is when we saw a man selling a horse ride the rest of the way to the top. I felt like I could keep going for a while but I knew that there was still a long way to go and we were worried about my health so I decided to take the horse thinking that this could be my only chance. The horse ride was very scary as the path was very narrow at parts and there was no saddle or anything to put my feet into. There was only a rug which I had to grab onto. There were also very steep and slippery parts where the horse was slipping and I thought I would definitely fall off but luckily the horse made it to the top. Then I had to wait for the others because there was still 1600 metres to go and the horses cannot take people down the other side because it is too steep and slippery. There was a small hut at the top where they sold tea at a premium but there was no heat and it was very cold so I had to drink tea to stay warm. About an hour later the others arrived, we took photos and we started to make our way down the other side straight away. I started to get a really bad headache so I really wanted to get down as fast as possible. It still took us another four hours to get down to a tea house where we could rest and then another two hours to reach the town where we were staying. It was a long day. Our porters apparently did the whole journey in six hours and they were carrying our heavy backpacks. They were the first porters to reach the town which was pretty amazing.

After the pass there were roads again so it was pretty strange to see and hear cars again. For the next few days it was gradual downhill through very dusty terrain. Most days we had to wear face masks just to breathe. The towns were were also going though were so old they almost seemed biblical. One girl in our group said she was expecting Jesus to walk around a corner at any time.

On the trek, we kept running into some adorable children. Here are some of the best pics.

 

   

And some cute animals too.

 

Our last major challenge was our climb to Poon Hill. Ross and another member of our group got really bad food poisoning a couple nights before so they were not feeling well at all. There was no other way to get to the next village but to trek so the guides held their bags and they made it up 1600 metres. The next day was the last day of our trek. We woke up early in the morning to climb Poon Hill which was another 400 metres to watch the sun rise. The views from the top were amazing. Afterwards we went down another 2100 metres which took eight hours. It was very steep and there were lots of rocks so it was very hard on our knees. That was the last day of the trek after which we celebrated with a big traditional Nepalese dinner with the whole group in Pokhara.

 

We arrived in Kathmandu this afternoon. As we were flying in we had a great view of the hills and mountains in the distance. Everything looked so green and lush. We could smell the pollution as soon as we exited the plane though. On our way to the hotel, the traffic was horrendous. Drivers were constantly honking their horns and it seemed chaotic but it somehow worked. Our driver had to get our of his car at one point to move a scooter out of the way so that his car could squeeze through the narrow alleyway. We turned into our hotel and all of a sudden it was quiet. It was like an Oasis of calm compared to what was around the corner. After having a nap, we went for a walk to find a local restaurant recommended by the owner of our hotel. Walking through town was crazy. I thought I might get run over.   There were cars, scooters and bicycles all constantly honking and almost running into people. It took a little while to get used to after being in Hong Kong for a week. The restaurant used to be someone’s house so we were expecting it to be small but it was really big. They even had a stage and there were some performances of Nepalese dancing which looked a lot like Indian dancing. The food was delicious.

http://www.rosssaunders.com

We decided to meet up today with some of the group to see the Symphony of Lights on the Hong Kong harbour. Ross already told us that it wasn’t very good but we thought it was something we should do. We met up with Kate beforehand to watch the sunset from the Intercontinental Hotel Lobby. The lobby had a great panoramic view of the harbour. We arrived at the Kowloon harbour about half an hour before the show and there were already lots of people waiting with their tripods and expensive cameras. The show is basically a bunch of buildings turning their lights on and off in time to music. The show started with some very cheesy music that made me laugh. Not all of the buildings participated in the show so there were some pretty big gaps with no lights. At one point green lasers were shooting out of the tops of some of them. I think that was the climax of the show because nothing else new happened for the next 10 minutes. We still had some laughs and got some good photos though.

Today we arrived in Hong Kong by overnight sleeper train. I was surprised at how different it was to the rest of China. There were streets full of all the shops that we have in London and a Starbucks on every corner. For our last dinner we went out close to the hotel which was in Kowloon near the evening market. William presented each of us with a beautiful scroll with our names painted in Chinese and described to each one of us what our names meant. My name meant black jade which he said was a rare and beautiful stone. It was such a lovely and thoughtful gift. We also got a gift for William in Yangshuo. It was a t-shirt with “No beer, no happy” on it in Chinese.   That seemed to be a popular saying in Yangshuo and we thought it suited William perfectly.

Afterwards we headed out to Lan Kwai Fong to check out the nightlife as Ross had been raving about it for quite a while. We took the ferry across the harbour and saw all of the buildings lit up. The bars in Lan Kwai Fong were packed.