So, I finally get to do a bit of blogging! KT has been in total control until now which is why it's so organized… I have been given the task of updating for the last month and I've got to be honest, detail is not really in my nature (in fact historically when I've been away I don't keep in contact with friends and family at all - although that's not through choice but due to an inability to tear myself away from beer, beaches and other monotonous things) BUT here goes….

KT and I got a little bored of looking at forts in India, bored of being pretty much alone (in terms of tourists / backpackers - certainly not Indians as there are loads of them everywhere) and KT also got bored of losing me among the Indians as my tan and beard were reaching monstrous proportions!! So we decided to miss out on seeing burning bodies in Varanasi and the 25 hour bus journey through Maoist country and jump on a plane to Kathmandu instead and we left on the 1st October for Nepal.

My dad said that when he was in Kathmandu about a decade ago it was a filthy place with loads of hawkers, smog, crime etc but when we arrived after a short flight from Delhi we loved the fact it was so much cooler and compared to India it was immaculate and we didn't get hassled at all by comparison. A very cool place with lots of bearded holy men (with whom of course I had to be photographed with), odd tantric Buddhist deities everywhere and of course every piece of fake mountaineering gear you could ever wish for. I couldn't really work it out as this stuff is poo, really bad quality and I can't work out who comes to Nepal to climb extremely high mountains in anything less than kosha kit… I'm just not sure anyone climbing any one of the worlds highest peaks would pick up a leaky tent or some blunt crampons here… very odd but we did end up buying some 'north fake' stuff just for good measure and as I said above, its poo.

It was nice to be able to eat some meat again with out getting the chronics and sleep without bathing in our own sweat but after a couple of days of getting our bearings and visiting a couple more temples for good measure, we walked into a (we know this now) dodgy nepali rafting company in the Thamel district and booked a 3 day rafting trip down the holy river called the Kali Gandaki, camping each night and rafting 175km during the three days. To get up to the river we needed to head west about 8 hours through roadblocks and valleys to the beautiful city of Pokhara. We met some saffas along the way so we thought we were in for a bit of an adventure (how true this turned out to be).