Name: Becky
Occupation: Student/Occassional Auxiliary Nurse/ABA Therapist/Serial traveller/owner of itchy feet
Home Towm: Bangor, North Wales
Current Location: Bangor



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Sunday, November 25, 2007
Pokhara to Kathmandu  
For those of you that hadn't guessed, the photo was taken in the Sarangkot area, but about 500 metres above it from a paraglide! Was alot of fun, and not half as scary as you'd think running off a huge mountain and then hanging with nothing but a bit of nylon keeping you up, would be! Unfortunatly it was the least clear day we had all week, so no spectacular views of the Himalyas, but the ones of Pokhara and the lake area weren't bad as you can see.

The rest of my time in Pokhara was great- lovely, warm weather, clear skies most of the time, and lots of fun stuff to do. Aside from paragliding, I went by motorbike (no, I didn't drive Mum!) to some nearby lakes, went to a cave full of bats, visited an orphange run by the chariety Bishnu is president of, went to the Gurkha museum (Nepali soliders who are very tough and serve in the Britsh army), went to several temples, went up Sarangkot for sunset twice, and spent lots of time looking and taking photos of the mountains!

I decided to break up the jouney back to Kathmandu by stopping at a couple of little place on the way. First night was spent in the very beautiful village of Bandipur, I saw about 6 other tourists while I was there! Had lots of pretty buildings and great mountain views, and because it was on the top of a very high ridge then it was nice a sunny in the morning, even though the valley was full of cloud! Drove down in to the cloud, hanging of the bck of a jeep type thing, then continued on to Gorkha, once the captital until it got moved to KTM. Also very high up, but not as high as the Gorkha Durbar which was 1500 steps above the town! Walked up ad was rewarded with more fantastic mountain views! Met some guys at the top who had run up, carrying 30 kilos as they were training for Gurkha tryouts! In the evening joined them and their friends for the festival celbrations that were going on which ws nice. Next morning left very early and got a bus to Manakamana (think that's spelt right, I don't have my Lonely Planet on me to check!) which is a very important Hindu temple, and as it was Saturday (Hindu holy day) it was very busy with goat-killing pilgrims! Had to get a cable car (the longest in Asia at 3.03 km!) there as its up a huge mountain (noticing any themes here?!), which was possibly scarier than paragliding! After seeing a few headless goats and chickens decided that mountains were nicer to look at, so bought some interesting looking Nepali snacks and wandered up towards where I thought I would be able to see mountains, and found this:

so ate my very tasty food, drank some tea that a nice family who were also picnicing up there made for me, and enjoyed the views! After that went back down and caught a bus back to KTM, which I rode on the roof of as it was very hot inside and the view were better from the roof! A slightly nerve-wreking way of travelling, but at least if we looked like we were going to crash I could jump off! Got stuck in jams twice which made the journey mch longer than it should have been, so didn't go back to MSCC that night, jst stayed in Thamel and prepared myself for another long journey the next day!

The Chitwan story will follow, but I will give you taste of whats to come...


5:13 AM
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