OK, so we're a little late with this blog entry but we thought we better put it in before we move on with China, Mongolia and Russia.

Easter 2014. 2 weeks off. Trekking in Nepal. We can thank Rochelle and Jasmine for this idea, we saw their photos from when they visited us and decided we had to do it.

Day 1 - Bangkok
So we've finally learnt about these early morning flights. Turns out we have a 1pm flight - lovely. Slept in a bit, packed in the morning, traffic was good, at the airport by 11am, checked in and then did the slow crawl through immigration. Well Jodi did anyway as she's got a different visa. Also turns out that Dan & Sarah, 2 friends from Jodi's work are on the same flight and they're actually sitting behind us (set chairs to recline position). Flight was good. We flew Thai Airways and their seating arrangement is 3,3,3. Brenden was sitting right in the middle although it worked in his favour. As the air hostess on the right went down the aisle - 'Can I have a beer please miss'. As the air hostess on the left down the aisle - 'Can I have a beer please miss'. So by the time we landed in Bangkok, Brenden was playing disco with the reading lights. What made it worse was he was actually sitting next to a parent from the school.....

After getting through immigration, we shared a taxi with Dan and Sarah to the hotel. Turns out they're staying about 300m down the road from us. It also turns out that we've timed our trip to coincide with the Water Festival, which is basically Thailand's New Year celebration. It's bascially a water fight that takes place on the streets across the entire city. No one is safe. So we booked ourselves into this awesome little backpackers. It's called Suk 11. From the outside it just looks like an abandoned brick factory, but on the inside it's all decked out with timber walkways and palm frons in the ceiling. And the lighting is earily dark so it gives a really cool atmosphere. Definitely recommend it. On trip advisor a lot of people complained about bed bugs but we didn't have any issues.

We met up with Dan and Sarah and had dinner at probably the most expensive restaurant we could find. We didn't do it on purpose and we weren't even really looking for something fancy but we got it nonetheless. Then we found a bar to drink at. It's not the normal bar you think of either, it's a Kombi van with the top cut off. They park them along the street and deck them out with disco lights and subwoofers. Then they just put some stools, tables and chairs around them and people proceed to get drunk, and wet if you happen to be there during the water festival.

Day 2 - Transit to Kathmandu
Up and out by 7am and off to the airport. Luckily it was pretty quiet on the street at this hour so we weren't too worried about getting wet. Flight was on time and we landed in Kathmandu just after lunch. Got this dodgey looking taxi to our hostel. Was a bit hesitant at first but then realised all the taxi's are the same. We stayed at this placed called Elbrus House. Really excellent service. The guy behind the front desk helped us with everything. The room wasn't the best but the service definitely made up for it. The hostel also happened to be a 5 minute walk from Thamel, which is the main shopping/tourist area. How convenient as Jodi had to buy all her trekking stuff, including a bag. She'd basically come with nothing and had planned to buy everything that afternoon. It worked out really well as there was lots to choose from and quite alot cheaper than buying it in the Philippines.

That night we ended up having an early one as something in the lunch we had earlier went straight through Jodi. Funnily enough we had also timed our arrival in Nepal with their New Year celebration. Even though it was an early night it was not a very solid sleep as the whole town was out and about joining in on the celebration. Too bad we could not venture too far from the bathroom as it sounded like everyone was having alot of fun.

Day 3 Kathmandu to Pokhara

So we'd heard rumours/stories of the bus trip from KTM to Pokhara. Tourist buses crashing, crazy drivers, people dying, etc etc. So we thought we'd give it a go. The nice gentlemen at Elbrus Home who'd sold us the tickets the previous day walked us to the bus stop at about 6.30am so we didn't get lost. With our seat belts firmly fastened we headed off at about 7am and started to wind our way through the dusty streets of KTM and eventually out of the city and down the very steep and windy road towards our destination. To our surprise, it wasn't as bad as we thought. We had a very calm, patient and dare we say responsible bus driver. That's not to say that everyone on the road shared the same luxury as us. There was one van that overtook us and then about 20 minutes later we passed them as they'd had an accident with someone else. It didn't look too serious but not surprising either. We did see some other ridiculously stupid driving also but hey, we've experienced the same thing in the Philippines.

The scenery along the road is quite spectacular. Beautiful valleys with rivers that wind through them for miles, passing all the villages with rice and vegetable fields along the way. The only disappointing thing is the pollution - and it's not the fault of the Nepalese. We were told that all the smog that is generated in India and in particular Delhi, drifts North into Nepal and gets trapped in the mountains. It's a real tragedy that this beautiful place is marred by something they have no control over.

After stopping for lunch along the way, we finally arrive in Pokhara at about 3pm. We were hoping to get our trekking passes that afternoon but we'd unfortunately arrived on a public holiday. So we got hustled by a scout to stay at his hotel and then quickly shoved into a taxi before we changed our minds. $2 for the taxi ride and we were there within 5 minutes.

After checking-in and a few beers later, we headed down to the lake where the town was gathering at a small festival for the Nepalese new year. It was like a step back in time to the old Fraser Coast Show. We walked around for about 20 minutes, particularly analysing the safety conditions of each of the rides and then quickly decided none of them were for us. A few more beers later and we were in bed.

Day 4 - Pokhara to Nayapool to Hille

We'd plan to get our trekking passes early but the office doesn't open until 10am. We ended up organising the whole process through the hostel. We basically just handed over our passports and $50 each to a person we didn't know and by 11.30am we were ready. We paid a bit extra for the service but from what we'd heard it was probably the quickest way to do it. We were really keen to get going and by 12pm we were in the taxi heading to Nayapool

The drive takes about an hour and costs about $20. And after stopping and having lunch at a tea house, we started our trek at about 2pm. 15 minutes in, our first Marijuana plant, just growing on the side of the road in amongst some gravel that had been pushed into a pile. It really was sign of things to come. The stuff just grows wild here and the novelty of taking photos of all the plants we saw soon wore off - there was just too many, plus we were running out of memory space on the camera. One other thing you learn pretty quickly on the trek is 'Namaste'. It's a local saying and it basically translates to 'I salute the god inside you'. So naturally all the tourists say it to each other as they pass along the track.

After about 3 hours trekking along the dusty roads and stone footpaths through Birethanti, our first stop was at Hille. We found a nice little tea house to stay for the night, ordered some of pots of tea with dinner along with some nice sides of bread, a few beers and finally a shower before calling it a night. Was such a lovely way to spend our first night and the excitement for the rest of the trip was growing. Unfortunately these were the first and last creature comforts we experienced for the entirety of the trip.

Day 5 - Hille to Ghorepani

After what was a reasonably pleasant night sleep and a enjoyable breakfast with a few more pots of tea, we got around to asking for the bill. About $40 it came to for the both of us. Fairly cheap but a little bit more than what we had anticipated. Better check how much money we actually had with us. Hmmmmm….we made the mistake of the splitting the money up when were in Pokhara so neither of us actually knew how much we had in total, and we both thought the other had more then what they did. So we totalled everything up and we had about $210 between us, with a mixture of Nepalese and American dollars. Based on what we'd spent the night before and the 8 days of trekking we had originally planned ahead of us, we really weren't going to be able to do our trip the way we had originally planned. And hey, for some reason there are no ATMs up in the Himalayas - seriously what is this world coming to?

So, rearrangement of the plan and the daily budget was necessary. We knew that everything was going to get more expensive the higher we went so we had to take that into consideration as well. So we ended up working out a budget of approximately $25/day for food and accommodation plus a little bit for water. That would allow for inflation in prices as we got higher and a little bit of a buffer. It also meant we had to compress the 8 more days we'd originally planned into 6.5. On top of all that, there were no more luxuries along the way. Beer was out, cups of tea were a thing of the past and showers ($1 each) were now a nice-to-have instead of a daily expectation.

So with this new, and let's admit a less desirable travel plan/itinerary ahead of us, we set off. Hille to Ulere, 560m rise in elevation, straight up approximately 2000 steps - awesome!!! 2 hours it took us with the sun beating down on us the whole way - could this morning get any better. It was a far cry from the nice pleasant stroll we experienced the afternoon before and with a realisation there was no beer at the end of the day, we could have given up and turned around then.

By lunch time we'd reached Banthanti and then started the push through to Ghorepani. "Namaste." What amazed us about the walk was the changes in scenery. After leaving the somewhat bare, agricultural grown hills in the morning, we were walking through lovely green, lush rainforest type scenery by the afternoon. It wasn't something we were expecting and was a nice surprise. The streams and waterfalls were beautiful and we got higher the temperature cooled and was quite pleasant to walk in. The steps are relentless though, you don't realise just how many there are. With backpacks and camera's harnessed on, the thought of maybe we should have done some training in preparation for this walk did start to cross our minds. The fact that we were both starving but couldn't buy anything didn't really help either.

By 4pm we'd reached Ghorepani, checked in with the local Police tent, and then found a tea house for the night. Ordered dinner, which was somewhat more basic than the previous night and then retired to our dorm for the evening and just enjoyed the view from our window. However no showers tonight, too expensive ($1) so it was up to the wet-wipes we'd packed to try and clean us. Let's just say we're lucky the dorm was 2 single beds instead of a double……..

Day 6 - Ghorepani to Chomrong

The thing about the tea houses on the track is that the walls between each of the dorms as what you would call thin. So at about 3am, the 2 Chinese ladies staying beside us decided it was a good time to have a fairly intense conversation. Seriously, they kept the whole f***ing floor awake. Incidentally we had to get up at 4am any way but that extra hours sleep would have been nice.

The reason for the early start was so we could make the 45 minute trek up Poon Hill, about 3200m in elevation, to watch the sunrise. This is definitely a nice addition if you are doing ABC as the view was amazing. Watching the sun come up over the snow capped mountains is truly beautiful. We froze our asses off but it was worth it. It was also nice not to have to walk with all our gear as well, even if it was only for a few hours.

So by 8am, we'd walked back down to the tea house, "Namaste", had breakfast, packed our stuff and were on our way to Tadapani. We'd managed to pay for the night using the US dollars we had, which was a relief. We also managed to swap the remaining dollars we had to Nepalese Rupees through one of the locals at the tea house. He took his 10% but at least now we knew exactly what we had in Rupees and we didn't have to worry about tea houses not taking our US dollars halfway through the trek.

On the map, the walk from Ghorepani to Tadapani looks reasonably comfortable. There's about a 200m fall between the 2 places. What the map didn't show the 800m drop into a valley and then the 800m rise back up to the top of the hill. This was the day we learnt the phrase 'Nepalese Flat'. Nepalese Flat only takes into the account the elevation difference between your starting point and your final destination. If there's not much change in elevation, then it's flat. The fact that you walk 1000m down and then 1000m up in between is irrelevant. So the last hour up the hill to Tadapani was a killer. "Namaste!" We'd still made good time though, about 4 hours, which is what the map suggested.

Lunch at Tadapani and then start the trek to Chomrong. "Namaste, Namaste, Namaste!" It's actually lower in elevation between the 2 towns by about 500m but yes, there is a fkn crevasse in between. By 4pm we were ready to die. The last hour we walked in the rain, Brenden was exhausted and close to laying down and dying as he hadn't eaten since lunch and we had to chuck the water out that we'd bought at Gurjung as it was full of s***. So we were both thirsty, tired and cranky. To top it off, we saw one of the native, endangered vultures on the track standing at about 1m high. We figured that it was here to pick the last of the trekkers off at the end of the day. We probably wouldn't have given up much of a fight if he had tried.

We got into Chomrong at 5.30pm absolutely exhausted. We'd walked solidly for 8 hours, Namaste, plus the 1.5 hours up Poon Hill in the morning, which started at 3am with the Chinese ladies and their need for a 'deep and meaningful' which everyone heard. We found somewhere to stay and the lady who worked there just looked at us with shear sympathy. This was definitely a shower night. What? No hot water - awesome!! The lady was kind enough to heat up a bucket for us and she only charged us half of what it would have cost for 2 showers. It must have been about 10 degrees outside so any hot water was welcomed. It was probably the only thing that saved Jodi from a melt down that evening. We had an early dinner and then off to bed. We didn't even stay up for the entertainment supplied by some of the locals, we were absolutely stuffed. We probably couldn't even afford to pay them anything so it was probably best we didn't stay up.

Day 7 - Chomrong to Dovan

After a good night's sleep, breakfast and a beautiful sunrise, the mood of the morning was 1000% better than the previous evening. It didn't last very long though, the first 2 hours of the morning consisted of walking down 600m and then back up 700m from Chomrong to Sinuwa. "Namaste, Namaste!" This Nepalese Flat thing is killing us. What made it worse was on the way day, this local passed us basically skipping and jumping his way down the stairs. We just looked at him with pure envy. To top it off he was picking up rubbish as he went as well. f***ing show off!

From Sinuwa we walked on through to Bamboo, and then onto Dovan where we stopped and had lunch. "Namaste!" The name Bamboo is pretty easy to relate, the vegetation along the walking trail is basically all bamboo. We also decided to invest in some bamboo walking sticks on the way. When we say invest we really mean acquire. This was a defining moment of the walk. Walking with a stick was completely different to walking without one. It definitely was easier. We ended up deciding to stay at the tea house where we had lunch as we weren't sure we were going to get accommodation at the next village. So we just lazed around, read our books and chilled for the afternoon. This was the way the trek is meant to be done. A few hours walking in the morning and then relaxation and rest in the afternoon. Oh only if we had bought more money…..

We met this Irish guy in his late 70's that evening over dinner, can't remember his name for the life of us. Excitable character who runs a B&B in a place we can't also remember. Nice enough guy though and he told us about all the stuff he's done and showed us pictures on his phone. This was one of the first times we'd really stopped and talked to any one on the trek. We think it was mainly due to the lack of funds as most conversations happen over a few beers, beers which we couldn't afford.

Day 8 - Dovan to Machhapuchhre Base Camp (MBC)

Another massive day of trekking ahead of us - a rise of approximately 1100m up to 3700m at MBC. The scenery really gets quite spectacular through this part of the track as it winds itself through a narrow valley with shear cliffs and mountains on either side. You really don't understand the size of everything until you're there.

We made our way up through Himalaya and had lunch at Deurali. After lunch we started the final push up to MBC however the weather turned rather awful and we were walking through rain and even hail at some points. As you walk along the trek, you cross over snow falls and areas where there has been small avalanches. All this extra water and ice on the mountains started to cause even more avalanches. They sound a lot bigger than what they are as the sound echoes down the valley. Even still, they'd take you out if you were caught by one. There was one point where we had actually had to make a run for it as we were about half way across one of these snow falls and then we heard the ice and snow coming down from above. Not knowing how big this one was we decided to not take the chance and legged it. We did try and GoPro it but Jodi pressed the wrong button in the brief moment of panic. It ended up not being such a dangerous event but definitely got the heart and adrenaline pumping.

By the time we reached MBC at about 5pm, "Namaste," the rocky track that we'd been used to for the entirety of walk had turned into about 50cm of snow. And it was cold and getting dark too! We'd phoned ahead in the morning and booked a room at one of the hostels. The higher you go the less accommodation there is available so you need to be careful to ensure you're not sleeping in the dining room. We met a group of 4 who were living in Ireland at the hostel. Justin, Tim, Roison and Mandy. We got talking to them and ended up teaching them how to play 500 after dinner. We also organised to walk up to Annapurna Base Camp (ABC) with Justin in the morning to watch the sunrise. With a 4am start it was a relatively early night. No shower either, was too cold.

Day 9 - MBC to ABC to Sinuwa

The temperature at 4am wasn't exactly what you would call warm. Both of us had at least 4 layers on including thermals. We met up with Justin and started trekking. We were the first ones to leave in the morning so it was good he was with us as we never would have found the path - it was all covered in snow. Within about 15 minutes though we were walking on our own. Our pace was somewhat slower, mainly due to the lack of energy we were both suffering from. Jodi also suffered from shortness of breath on the way up so it took us a fair bit longer. A lot of people passed us along the way, "Namaste, Namaste, Namaste!" Oh well, its not like it is a race or anything.

It took us about 2.5 hours to do the walk from MBC to ABC. We weren't at the top for first light but were pretty close. It didn't really matter any way as it doesn't matter what time you were there, the view is like nothing you've ever seen before. ABC sits at about 4100m and you're surrounded by mountain peaks so you are essentially in a valley. It's really hard to capture it with a camera as well. All the pain and suffering over the past few days, the lack of food, water and showers was all worth it for this one experience. It's really hard to put in words how spectacular this place is.

500 photos, a couple of time-lapses and a hot chocolate later, we were on our way back down. We stopped in at MBC, had breakfast, picked up our stuff, bid farewell to Justin and co and started the walk back down by about 9am. Walking down is so much easier and we'd made it back to Sinuwa by about 4.30pm. This was definitely a shower day as it had been about 3 days since the last one, which was really only a bucket of water. We got talking to this local Nepalese guy who was sitting next to us, Dhawa was his name. It turned out he had been a monk for the past 15 years and had left the monastery about 2 weeks earlier. It was really interesting listening to his points of view having been a Buddhist his entire life. It also turned out that he was the guy that was skipping and jumping down the stairs from Chomrong a couple of days earlier…….

Day 10 - Sinuwa to Deurali

We ended up walking with Dhawa in the morning and this was possibly the worst walking morning we'd had. Down and then back up to Chomrong. Everyone suffers on this bit of the trek, none more so than Brenden. Apart from the lack of food, Brenden had also managed to pick up a stomach bug so everything that he was eating was going straight though him. Again Brenden nearly laid down and died (p**** . The stairs at Chomrong took a little bit longer than what we had expected.

One benefit of walking with Dhawa is that he pretended to be our guide. What this meant is he would buy stuff for us at local rates and then pass it onto us. It worked out considerably cheaper for us that morning. After finally getting through Chomrong, we turned left and headed down the hill to Jhinudanda. These stairs are also well renowned for being tough to climb, luckily for us we were heading down. We also passed a local who lived about halfway down the hill who was in a wheelchair. Couldn't think of a worse place to live really, poor guy. We also took some time out and enjoyed the hot springs at Jhinudanda for a couple of hours. This was so good for our muscles. We also ran into the Irish guy we'd met at Dovan a couple of days before while we were having lunch. It turns out the night that we'd had dinner with him, he got really sick (both ends) a few hours later and didn't end up doing the climb up to ABC. We felt really sorry for him but he seemed to take it all in stride. I guess being Irish helps a bit :)

After lunch we walked for about an hour before parting ways with Dhawa It was kinda sad in a way, we'd become pretty good friends in the short amount of time we'd spent on the trek. We continued on our way over New Bridge, which must have been a new bridge 50yrs ago, down through Landruk, Tolka and then on up to Deurali where we stopped for the night. "Namaste, Namaste!" We ended up being the only people staying in the tea house that night, which was kinda nice as we got upgraded to a room with a shower. Wow! 2 showers 2 nights in a row, it was like xmas had come. The position of the tea house was also really nice as we sat at the outside table and looked back up to the mountains to where we'd just walked from. This was also the last night on the trek so it was also a really nice way to end it. We even splashed out and bought a beer each to celebrate. Mmmm, beeeeerrrr!!!!!

Day 11 - Deurali to Phedi

Our last day. We left at around 7am and started walking. We'd sort of worked out that it would take about 4 hours to get to Phedi and we'd stop and have lunch at Dhampus. We had enough money for a plate of chips and one more bottle of water. Along the way Brenden made friends with a dog that followed us for about an hour.

The final push was down about 2000 concrete steps. You wouldn't think it but going down steps is actually sometimes harder than going up. It's definitely harder on your knees. "Namaste!" One last push and we were done. We both jumped off the last step together and basically collapsed. We left the track with approximately 1 litre of water and the equivalent of 20c in our wallet. We ended up borrowing $2 off the taxi driver we'd lined up to take us back to Pokharra to buy a souvenir off the lady at the bottom of the steps who wouldn't leave us alone. After leaving our beloved walking sticks at the bottom of the steps, we jumped back into the taxi and headed back to Pokhara, via an atm of course so we could actually pay the taxi driver.

Day 12, 13 & 14 - Phedi back to Manila

Over the next couple of days we made our way back to KTM, through Bangkok and then finally back into Manila. This trip had taught us so much about ourselves. Not just about the physical and mental side of it but also knowing how to survive on a pretty tight budget. We also learnt that trekking ABC with very little money is probably the quickest way to lose weight. Brenden dropped about 5 kilos in the 7.5 days we trekked for. The stomach bug didn't help but maybe there's a new weight loss program/business opportunity. No other program would compete with the scenic views that's for sure……………."Namaste"