Kathmandu &the Kathmandu Valley

Kathmandu& the Kathmandu Valley. Arriving back in Kathmandu after a tortuous eleven hours we had no time to do anything other than look for a room.

Next morning we set about trying to arrange a 3 day Kathmandu Valley Rim Trek, listed in the Lonely Planet and other guide books as a must do ! ( hold that thought ! ).

We sorted out a porter ( who spoke excellent English and had done the trek many times ) starting to look good eh ? Next morning at 08:00 we got to meet our porter, who didn’t seem to have quite the command of English as we had expected but hey ho at least we were off on time. We started our trek at the Village of Panauti, where the first part of our trek would lead us to the Namo Buddha temple. After a steady walk along the dusty road we arrived at a footpath that lead uphill to the Namo Buddha. Excellent. We wandered for awhile before heading off toward Daulikel, our overnight stop. It was here we noticed that our porter seemed to be struggling with the small day sack he was carrying and he seemed not to know the way and as such we were walking almost entirely on main road tracks, dodging both lorries and buses, not quite the Valley rim walk were described.. Eventually after 5 more hours we arrived in Daulikel and after more confusion and a frantic call to our porter’s office we sorted out some accommodation.

Next day we had to catch a bus to the next walking trailhead, again our porter was struggling with the 5 kg pack and had no idea what bus we needed to catch. Eventually we hopped on a bus we were assured was the right one and soon after got off it, far too early and along way before the walking trail path. After one and a half hours of walking along the dusty busy tarmac road and seeing our porter repeatedly ask locals for directions we decided that another chat with “wayfarers” (that’s the highly recommended trekking office ) after an exchange of dialogue, we said that the we were not happy that the porter had even done a trek before and that we would terminate the walk after we reached Nanakot. After 5 hours ( and many breaks, due to our porter being too tired) at this point I would like to point out that his pack had been reduced to 4 kg and I was carrying the extra. We spoke to a few locals and sorted out a taxi back to Kathmandu. In short we had a good old go at Wayfarers and got all of our trek money refunded excepting the initial car fare to Panauti.

The moral of the story, don’t always rely on guide book recommendations and if possible have a good chat with any porter or guide before you set off...

Now backing Kathmandu a day earlier we tried to bring forward our flight to Bangkok but sadly the 2nd leg of our flight was fully booked so we have more days in the polluted environs of Kathmandu to endure.
Durbar Square: Kathmandu’s must see area, now 300 rupees for foreigners, another Visit Nepal initiative. We spent about an hour walking around what could have been something really special, but alas the square is used by taxi’s cars, motorbike, lorries as a short cut across city and so there is a lot of noise and pollution to encounter, had this area been paved and pedestrianised it would have been excellent, sadly dodging traffic took a lot off its appeal. We were thinking of visiting the nearby town of Bhaktapur but we hear that they are now charging 1000 rupees a head to foreigners ( was 750 ) to visit the main Durbar, so we wont be going there after all.

Looking back towards Panauti,day 1 of our not so successful 3 day trek.

Namo Buddha.

Namo Buddha.

A short climb to the top of Namo Buddha.

Great views from the top.

The brand new Namo Buddha temple being built above the existing old temple.

As it was new years day 2067 there was alot of celebrating going on and a lot of prayer flags being put up. Namo Buddha. Day 1 of trek.

More views.

New Namo Buddha Temple.

Pretty isn't it ?
One of the many overcrowded buses we encountered on our Valley trek... not much in the way of walking tracks !! at least the locals seem happy ..

One of the reasons why the Kathmandu Valley is so polluted..yuk

Another human haystack, or to be more precise, pine needle stack ! Just think our porter was struggling with a 4kg day sack, whimp !

Temple Lions Kathmandu City.

Temple and Traffic. Kathmandu City.

Durbar Square, wouldn't it look so much better without all that traffic?

Durbar Square Kathmandu City.

Durbar Square Kathmandu City.

Durbar Square Kathmandu City.

Durbar Square Kathmandu City.

Big Bell, Durbar Square Kathmandu City.

Lion Guarding the Kathmandu Museum Durbar Square.

Durbar Square

One of the better views of Durbar Square Kathmandu City.

Small temple inside Durbar square, looks somewhat Ankor Thom like to me.

Cow sharing centre stage with the pigeons

Paying homage, Durbar Square Kathmandu City.

Durbar Square Kathmandu City.

Nice Door .

Fresh Veg.

Next blog ??? not sure at the moment..

5 day Trek pt 2 Days 3 -5

5 Day Trek Part II

Day3 Ghorepani - Tadapani After Breakfast we set about our second walk of the day ( its now only 8 a.m ) we started as usual in an uphill fashion to the summit of Gurang Hill, the same height as Poon Hill and a lot prettier as it was shrouded in the blooming Rhododendrons making for a great “mask” to the backdrop of the high peaks of Annapurna II and Fishtail Mountain. A short stop at the top to take in the exceptional views was made ( and to catch our breath ), at 9630 ft we are just on the edge of thin air and as this was our 2nd walk of the day we felt we deserved a short break. After taking far too many photos we continued on our journey to Tadapani, passing through some superb scenery on the way. The sting in the tail to this section is the very steep downhill path followed by an even steeper uphill path to reach the village that looked only a few hundred meters away, this last bit took over an hour to complete and we were mighty glad when we reached Tadapani. As we arrived a bit late, there were only a couple of rooms free at the lodges so we had to take what we could get, the price being 2 pounds for a double room and an extra pound if you wanted a hot shower, the room was nothing more than a bed in what looked like an old stable block but it served a purpose and we slept well.

Day 4 Tadapani – Ghandruk. This was our easiest day of the 5 a short downhill trek of about 4 hours to reach the pretty Village of Ghandruk, the purpose of this short section was to allow some time to explore the village, we also went mad with the accommodation, we splashed out on 4 Pounds a night room with attached Loo and shower !! Such luxury . The village was indeed worth the stop over, set high in the valley it has manged to mostly ignore the effect of the tourist and many dwelling were genuine Nepali constructions. In the evening we chatted with fellow trekkers in the nice dining hall of the lodge before settling down to another good nights kip !.

Day 5 Ghandruk – Naya Pal. Our last day of the trek. We were expecting an easy gentle downhill walk to finish off or trek but the hills had another agenda, a steep section for about 2 hours kept the pressure up on the knees. After that the going did indeed flatten out somewhat and we had our “easy cruise” back to Naya Pal albeit 3 hours on.. We reached Naya Pal around 1 pm and caught a cab back to Pokhara. That evening we celebrated with Odette ( the Canadian lady we met up with ) and downed a couple of bottles of half decent Australian Chardonnay over a superb Dinner at the Moondance Restaurant. A fitting end to our trek. We decided to stay in Pokhara one more night before heading back to Kathmandu for some more trekking ! Are we mad?

Ghorepani, after breakfast, not bad views.. Annapurna II with a carpet of Rhododendrons.

Annapurna II & Rhodo's
Sorry, more of the same.

The path to Garang Hill.

A Rhodo.

The view from Garang Hill.

Close up of Annapurna II

Him and Her with the Annapurna's as company.

Getting a bit boring isn't it ?

Also available in Red.

Linda on a downward slope.. some say that's been happening for years !

Yak.

The path now goes down, why is it never flat?

Linda with a rhodo and a bridge.

Mule train, this is how the stuff gets up the hills..

Best keep out of the way as you can easily get mowed down

Tadapani, when the last two rooms are these then you know you should have booked ahead !!

Still at 2 pounds a night its not that bad, ours was number 6 .. complete with doors, windows and roof.

More downhill, Linda with waterfall on the way to Ghandruk.

Corn Drying on a house in Ghandruk.

Ghandruk Village.

Prayer wheels on Village Temple.

Home made bee hive.

Ghandruk House

Ghandruk.

Day 5 the walk back to Naya Pal.

A short stop for a snack, Garang Bread, Yummie.

Views on the way back

How hard do we have it? not anything like this, A human haystack. we saw hundreds of Women carrying unbelievably heavy loads on our trek, life isn't that Rosy for these souls.

Shortly after we arrived back in Naya Pal.

Trekking info: when you set about doing a trek in Nepal you are required to make sure you get the correct permits, for Annapurna treks you need the ACAPS permit at $30 each plus you need a TIMS registration which until 1st of April was free but is now $20 per head per trek so the costs can rack up, all part of the Visit Nepal year in 2011 just another way of rooking the tourist me thinks.Apart from that the basic cost is pretty good as the Lodges are cheap and much much better than those we had in India on our Darjeeling / Nepal Trek. All in all really great, hoping to do Everest base camp in 2012, anyone interested in joining me ?

Next Blog Kathmandu Valley & Treks.