Continued from Part 1 Nepal!

From Kathmandu we travelled east to Pokhara where our trek began. Unlike our Inca Trail trek we weren't in a group, it was just the two of us, our guide and a porter. It was tough going right from the off with lots of steep steps and on our first day we eventually climbed about 1000m. Each night we stayed in tea-houses (basic hotels), which is the most common thing to do. The highest point we reached during the 5 days was 3200m at Poonhill where apparently the views of the Annapurna mountain range are spectacular. Unfortunately, after being dragged up Poonhill at 4am to catch sunrise, there wasn't a mountain to be seen with all the cloud around us!! It cleared up a little later in the day so we managed to catch a glimpse of the beautiful view of the Himalayas. The most popular treks are to Annapurna base camp and Everest base camp however we didn't have enough time to do these as they can take roughly 2 weeks. We really enjoyed our short trek and maybe someday we'll be back to do Everest (base camp!) when we're a bit fitter and are more prepared!

The jungle was our next and final stop in Nepal. Chitwan jungle and national park looked exactly like what we imagine an African safari to be like. The jungle there is full of all sorts of wild animals including elephants, tigers, rhinos, deers, and bears which was a real surprise for us considering we didn't even know Nepal had a jungle! They have an elephant breeding centre where we saw some cute little baby elephants twins, as well as their huge father!

We started our 2nd day by taking a canoe ride along the river. This was primarily for bird-watching but our guide did mention that crocodiles also live in the river, although apparently not in the area we were in. He quickly changed his tune when we came across one croc sitting in the water with just his eyes and nose sticking out, and another one sitting on the bank of the river waiting for his brekky!! It was so cool to see crocs in the wild. From our canoe we headed into the jungle on foot searching for wild animals. Our safety talk consisted of our guide telling us to run fast in a zig zag pattern if a rhino chases us and climb a high tree! He warned that a lot of the rhinos had young at this time of the year so they would be very protective.This didn't exactly fill us with confidence so we tried to stay as close to the guide as possible. We trekked through the jungle for about 2 hours, with the guide sniffing rhino urine and fresh dung so that he could estimate how far away they were! Linda was petrified and kept picking out trees that she might be able to climb, although she had visions of herself running around in circles if chased by anything. She kept saying tree climbing is for boys and she felt 10 times worse when our guide pointed out some fresh tiger prints in the sand. They were about 4 hours old, although I don't know how he could tell that!! Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, we didn't come across any animals apart from a deer hiding in the bush but we did get lots of pics of footprints!! Afterwards, we washed away any disappointment when we bathed with the elephants in the river! We both hopped up on the back of the elephant and he splashed us with water and threw us right into the river a few times, it was hilarious as you'll see from the video which we'll try to upload! Our day ended with an elephant ride through the jungle where we were lucky enough to come across a mother and baby rhino casually chewing on some grass. There were lots of other people on elephants all around but the rhinos didn't seem to mind all the spectators.It was a great way to end our jungle trip.

Crossing the border into India is normally straightforward however we managed to get caught up in a political situation which meant that all buses, even tourist buses, were not running to the border. Local groups from the Chitwan area, fed up with the government, had set up road blocks along the main highway. We had two options, sit in Chitwan and wait for the strike to end (nobody seemed to know when it would end) or get a taxi as far as the border as we were reassured that tourists were ok to cross the road blocks!! Taxis with tourists were ok but buses were not because buses could be smuggling locals through. We took option number 2 as our visa was running out and we didn't want any bother with that. En route we were the only car on the road, and had to go through 3 road blocks, each time explaining what we were doing to angry men. They had put rocks across the road and lit fires and the whole thing was a bit chaotic and stressful but we got through it safely and made it to the border.

Nepal is a great country but unfortunately the political situation has the whole country on edge. Talks of military coups and civil war were common headlines in the newspaper so it probably wasn't a bad time to get out of there!

Thanks for all the messages on the message board, we check it regularly and love hearing your updates.

India blog coming soon!!

Lots of love,

Linda and Ger xxx