November 13 – Once in a Lifetime

We got up at 4:30am this morning for a once-in-a-lifetime activity.

Kalpana met us in the hotel lobby at 5:30am to give each of us the tickets we would need for our trip. Only five of us in our group opted for this excursion today but several others had already taken it before our tour began on November 4th.

Our taxi driver dropped us off at the airport. We passed through all of the routine security procedures & then proceeded to the domestic flight departure terminal.

At 6:30am we boarded a small plane for our scenic flight to Mount Everest and the Himalayan Mountain Range.

The plane was a small turboprop with about 30 seats on it. Everyone on board was guaranteed a window seat.

The plane took off just as the sun was rising over Kathmandu.

It wasn’t very long before the Himalayan Range was in sight. The plane flew along the range with the mountains on the port side so everyone on the side of the plane could see clearly. Our plane had a pressurized cabin so we were actually flying above all the mountain tops – including Mount Everest.

Everyone on board also had an opportunity to go up to the cockpit to say hello to the pilots & to see the mountains from their perspective.

After we flew past Mount Everest the plane turned around everyone on the starboard side of the plane had the chance to see the mountains.

Mount Everest is the pyramid shaped mountain top in the photo below – just off the wingtip of the plane.

This time the plane was even closer to the mountains & I was able to shoot a video of the flight past. Here is a link to the video posted on YouTube. It’s about 8 minutes long. Watch the entire video if you have the time. 🙏 🏔🙏

https://youtu.be/IxinC5PE7bo

What an amazing experience. The entire flight took about an hour & we were back at our hotel by 10:00am – just in time for a late breakfast.

We also managed to meet up with a few more members of our tour group in time to say goodbye. We were really fortunate to be on this tour with such nice people & to have an awesome group leader like Kalpana.

After breakfast we checked out of our hotel & took a taxi to the Fuji Hotel, where we would be staying for the next 4 days. We splurged & booked a nice room on the rooftop for only $80.00 / night with breakfast included.

The hotel & our room is much nicer than the last place we were at. It will give us a good opportunity to rest up & fully recover from our colds before our next tour begins on November 17th.

Cheers!

November 12 – Kumarwarti to Kathmandu

Today we travelled from from Kumawarti back to Kathmandu. It took 7 hours to cover only about 200 km. We have been on these roads before but this time we were climbing instead of descending & there was lots of slow traffic.

Our group had a hearty breakfast in the dining hall before starting the journey. The villagers presented each of us with a hibiscus flower bud wrapped in leaves as we boarded the bus. As the journey progressed, the flowers opened up into beautiful decorations. We will be returning here next week as part of our next tour and we look forward to seeing the villagers again.

There was a heavy mist in the air as we drove down the local roads. At that time of the morning the only traffic we encountered were farmers on their tractors and people on motorcycles going to their work.

Once we turned onto the main highway the traffic got much heavier with lots of big trucks and buses full of people intermixed with farm tractors pulling wagons.

Along the way we got small glimpses of locals going about their daily lives alongside the highway.

I finally got a decent photo of kids playing on the swings made from tall bamboo poles. We saw dozens of them all along the roads from Kathmandu to Pokhara.

Many of the people living along the highway have very little money and establish their own little business to support themselves. Some people sell food to the truck drivers. We saw a lot of roadside stops with small woodfired clay ovens.

Other people have little shops where they make decorations especially for the truck drivers to put on the outside and inside of their long haul trucks. The truck drivers are hardly ever at home so the truck is their home while they’re away from their families.

We stopped a few times along the way for bathroom breaks and fuel for our bus. There were lots of places to buy coffee & other drinks but no Tim Hortons. The drive through here is a wide spot on the road to pull over. We were often treated to an interesting view at our stops.

Some of our stops were in the middle of towns & others were in the countryside.

We arrived at our hotel in Kathmandu around 4:00pm. Everybody was road weary and ready for a little rest. Kalpana had arranged for a dinner at a nearby restaurant at 6:30pm. Catherine and I were still feeling pretty rough so we decided to stay behind. We were sad that we could not be with the rest of our group for the final evening meal but were pleased with a quiet dinner by the open wood burning fireplace in the dining room.

Tomorrow we have one last activity to mark the end of our trek/tour of Nepal. We need lots of rest as we have to be on the bus at 5:30am.

Cheers!

Relaxing at Barauli Homestay

Wemay be on vacation but we certainly did not forget that today is a very special & somber day in Canada as well as in many other countries.

Today was a welcome stationary day for the group. Several local activities were organized including a bicycle tour of the village, a jeep safari into Chitwan National Park & an early evening cultural performance by local village dancers.

Catherine & I were both still feeling a bit under the weather so we decided to opt out of the bicycle & jeep tours. We will be coming back to the Barauli (village) Homestay next week as part of our next tour, so we will be able to participate in those activities then. 

Photo below: Catherine & one of our tour group colleagues relaxing outside the dining hall.

After breakfast Catherine went back to bed for a nap & I went for a short walk around the guest complex. 

The Barauli Homestay project was initiated by G-Adventures in early 2000’s in collaboration with the residents of the local village. The plan was to help the villagers develop a group of small guest cottages for people who were visiting the area to stay in – as an alternative to staying in commercial hotels near Chitwan National Park.

Farming is the primary source of income in this area so the Homestay project is a good way to diversify the economy & generate additional income. It also provides people in tour groups the opportunity to experience what it’s like to stay in surroundings much less commercialized.

There are currently 15 cottages in the complex & each one is constructed of the same materials as the homes that the villagers live in – with one major difference – each cottage has it’s own private bathroom equipped with a conventional flush toilet. 

Each cottage is also owned and cared for by a woman from the village. The guest complex also has a dining hall & kitchen where all the meals for the guests are served.

Photo below: mural on the wall inside our cottage.

The cottages are very basic in design & furnishings but spotlessly clean & comfortable. Quite frankly, our cottage room was nicer & more comfortable than the first hotel we stayed in in Kathmandu.

Photo below: Catherine trying out the mosquito net tent over the bed. We opted out from using it 🙂

And the meals were delicious & very modestly priced. There is even free internet access at the dining hall. Catherine & I would have been quite happy to stay several more days at this location. 

The Homestay cottages opened for business just before the major earthquake hit Nepal in 2015. While there was no damage to the village, the earthquake did have a significant affect on tourism throughout Nepal & that was discouraging for the villagers. However, with the support of G-Adventures tourist visits to the area are climbing back to anticipated levels & the Homestay enterprise is now doing well. G-Adventures brings each of its tour groups to the complex for a 2-night stay. 

Our group & another newly arrived tour group assembled outside at the dining hall at 7:00pm for a cultural presentation by the local village dance troupe. They even served us hot popcorn!

There were about 24 women dancing & they were accompanied by 2 men playing traditional drums.

They put on an excellent performance & for the grand finale the dancers got the entire audience up to participate in the final dance.

It was a great deal of fun – even if most of us did not do a very good job following the movements of the dancers. This evening clearly was the cultural highlight of our trip so far.

I took some videos of the dancing. This link will take you to one of them that has been uploaded to YouTube. 

https://youtu.be/wHkn2l-kQrQ

Cheers & enjoy!

November 10 – Pokhara to Kumarwarti

Today our group had a slow start. Everyone had the morning to themselves in Pokhara, with the option of going paragliding for a few hours as an additional cost activity. Catherine & I chose to take a pass on that one. We have had enough of high altitude thrills for a while but more than half of our colleagues were up for it! I look forward to hearing all about their experience.

Last night Catherine had the beginning of a sore throat so she decided to enjoy our comfortable hotel room this morning & rest a bit longer.

Kalpana walked downtown with me to find a local pharmacy to buy some non-prescription medicine for Catherine & then to find another shop for me to buy some new sunglasses to replace the ones that had broken the day before.

Our tour group reassembled at 1:00pm & we boarded the bus for a 6 hour drive to Kumarwarti where we will spend the next two days at the Barauli Homestay enjoying the local village & nearby Chitwan National Park.

Everyone in the group is having a great time but our energy levels are dropping off a bit as the past several days have been very busy. The bus ride today provided a bit of “recharge” time for all of us – despite the many bumps & swerves on the road.

Google maps predicted that the journey would take about 4 1/2 hours to travel about 170 kilometers but it took us 6 1/2 hours.

The first half of our journey followed the same road we took a few days ago to get to Pokahara from Kathmandu then we turned off the road to Kathmandu & headed further south.

The good news was that this new road was recently rebuilt (after the 2015 earthquake) so it was in much better shape, giving us a smoother ride. But the bad news was that all the vehicles started travelling much faster & nobody changed their desire to pass everything in front of them – so we witnessed numerous close calls with oncoming traffic.

Fortunately our driver was not at all aggressive in his driving. He was focused first on getting us to our destination safely & if that meant that it took a bit longer to get there then that was OK with all of us.

The last hour of our journey was in the dark & that was a whole new experience in itself. Everyone was still passing aggressively & visibility was way down. Fortunately it was not long before we turned off the main highway & started traveling down a local village road that had no other vehicles on it.

When we arrived at our destination there was a group of villagers there to greet us with garlands & tikas.

We went to the main dining hall & had a brief orientation followed by a delicious traditional supper on a large stainless steel plate.

After a long journey & a meal we were more than ready for bed in our little cottage. There will be lots of time to explore the village tomorrow.

What goes up must come down!

I left Wally to sleep in this morning as his cold has settled in heavily. Poor guy! He must think I am trying to do him in coming on this trip!

I was out the door at 5:45 am as the sky was changing colour in the dawn light. The Annapurna range was lit up in a fabulous way and I really enjoyed being on the roof by myself for about 45 minutes being serenaded by roosters and the sound of recorded Buddhist chanting floating on the air.

Krishna came to find me and told me that the Jeep was already here & waiting for us! We had been told the night before that the driver had to come from Pokhara in the morning and wouldn’t be there until 9:00am but he came the night before. We threw everything into our bag – easy to do because we were wearing all the clothes we had brought with us, had breakfast – porridge and milk tea for me, the special for Wally which was 2 fried eggs, two pieces of white bread, fried potatoes, a glass of juice and milk coffee. Krishna joined us for breakfast.

We paid our bill, which was about $70.00 for all of our meals and drinks (beer was the most extravagant purchase at about $5.00 a bottle) for the two nights. Staying at the guesthouse was covered in the tour but ordinarily would have cost about $10.00 a night per person.

A quick farewell was said to our hosts and I wish I had had presence of mind to get a photo before we left. The mom and dad ran the place – Kumari and Subash Gurung, I think it was their daughter and son in law who helped with the cooking and cleaning. They had three more kids, Anooj our assistant tour guide and two young girls. And the sweetest little 13 month old grandson Vitesh (I’m not sure of the spelling) tottering around. I made the mistake if thinking he was a girl because he had gold earrings in each ear but I was told that all Nepali babies get earrings. I blew him a kiss as we were leaving and he blew one back to me. Okay, melt my heart just a little more why don’t you?

Krishna picked up our bag, we shouldered our backpacks and “jimjim” we were off again down myriad tiny passageways and dozens of stone steps – we just can’t get away from them!

We came to a reassuringly large parking lot with several Jeeps and a few local buses. We met our driver Sankar and hopped in the Jeep. My seatbelt didn’t have a buckle on it – oh well!

I was reassured by the prayer flags draped inside across the top of the windshield, a tiny gold Buddha statue on the dash and various icons hanging up. Wally was comforted in seeing that the Jeep had only 30,000 km on it and there was a large screen back up camera instead of a rearview mirror!

Wally had commented to me the night before that we should put our quick dry towels over over heads like they do to calm horses down so we wouldn’t be as frightened during the ride down. Alas, the towels were in our bag in the back.

We headed into the first of dozens of switchbacks with lots and lots of honking at each corner as Sankar came to blind spots in the road. I started to relax a little bit feeling confident that he knew what he was doing.

The slope down was fairly gradual to begin with and then the grade got much steeper. We both had a tight grip on the handholds above the doors but a fat lot of good they would have done if we went over the edge.

It was astonishing that there was a road at all, carved into the side of the mountain. All along the way we passed by people squatting on the side of the road waiting for the local bus to Pokhara while we were traveling in luxury. How the buses manage to get up and down this road on a daily basis is beyond me.

The road was remarkably bumpy and we were being tossed around like a ship at sea. At one point I told Wally that being on a sailboat was not looking so bad.

The ride was so bumpy that there was no chance to take photos but here is a link to a very short video that Wally took so you can get the flavour of the experience. The swinging tassel says it all.

Be sure to be sitting down & don’t have any hot drinks or sharp objects in your hands while watching it.

https://youtu.be/LJMHEhCRUIM

My mom had given us lucky elephant charms to wear and they got a good workout! We took comfort in knowing that both fellows in the front seat were named after Hindu & Buddhist Gods.

I wondered what on earth would happen if we met another vehicle. I didn’t have long to wait for my answer. Sankar spotted another Jeep coming towards us and he pulled over to the side, the side with the drop to the valley below and left just enough room for the other Jeep to go by.

There is a remarkable camaraderie amongst the drivers, a sense of looking after each other and sharing the space. Their lives depend on it. Several times Sankar stopped to roll down his window, greet his buddies and shake hands. Talk about a band of brothers!

At the most harrowing moments Wally and I were staring at each other like a couple of demented hypnotists or just looking away from the drop. It was a huge lesson in surrender! And reminded me of a labyrinth walk in that we thought we were almost back down when we started up again!

After an hour and a half, we were back at the river’s edge. It was great to see just how far up we had been and then we started to come upon familiar places we had walked past on the way up – where we had lunch, the suspension bridge and the stone steps that we started our climb on at the end of the bridge!

The fellows checked us out of the Annapurna Conservation area and gave us the permits back as a souvenir.

On the way up, we were in part on the road and constantly getting out of the way of Jeeps being very annoyed, thinking humph, why aren’t these lazy people walking? Today we were a lot less judgmental and we weren’t as cramped for space as the people in the photo below.

Another hour and a half and we were back in Pokhara. We paid about $80.00 for the Jeep ride – which was a bargain as far as we were concerned. What a way to make a living. Apparently we were lucky to find a driver and car as many people take today off for the last day of Tihar. We also paid an additional $15.00 for Krishna to look after us for two days.

A quiet night in to rest our weary bones. Off to Chitwan National Park tomorrow!