After our long ass trek up to Everest we all decided that a little R & R was in order. Sorry for not blogging sooner but this relaxing is tiring work you know. Here's a run down of what I've been up to for the last 2 weeks

After arriving in Kathmandu on the 10th we decided to take it easy for the week and generally eat as much as we could. After satisfying ourselves with the juiciest steak we could find (so good after the trek), Alex, Sarah and I realised that we should actually do some the sights while we were here. We had spent two lazy days in restaurants and felt that we should try to keep the side up. So we headed off to Durbar Sq which is basically a temple complex in Kathmandu. Part of the complex included the old hippy hangout of Freak Street which we ventured into. We spent the afternoon spotting hippies who hadn't realised the 60's was over and then headed back to the main complex. In one of the temples sits a living goddess. It's basically a young girl who is chosen to represent some god (sorry a little dis-respectful I know) until she hits puberty. We were gathered into a small courtyard and told not to take photos of her appearance at the window. It totally wasn't worth the wait however, as a young girl appeared at the window, proceeded to turn her nose up at the crowd and flounced back in. We suspected that she had already hit puberty and was slightly cheesed off that she had to leave the palace.

The next day I headed up to the monkey temple that stands at the top of Kathmandu. It was a solid climb up numerous steps but the monkeys were really entertaining. Good views were had over the city and that was another sight checked off the list. The next day we 3 went to Pashupatinath. It is the holiest Hindu temple in Nepal and is where many people come to be cremated in the open air. Their ashes are then scattered into the holy river. We watched a cremation take place which was pretty amazing. The atmosphere was somewhat ruined however by a paperboy shouting "Extra, Extra read all about it" (in Nepali of course) right through the middle of the funeral. Still to mourners didn't seem to mind. We were then ripped off by Holy Hindu men who wanted 500 rupees for a picture. Bloody holier than thou priests they're all on the make. We gave them 150 and told them to make do! At this stage we all decided that a week in Kathmandu was enough and we booked our tickets to Pokhara the city by the lake.

Sarah and I decided to make a stop at Manakamana which again is a sacred Hindu temple about 2000m up in the sky. Thankfully there was a cable car. Basically couples come here to pray for sons and bring goats to offer for sacrifice to seal the deal. We unfortunately couldn't acquire a goat at such short notice so we hopped on the cable cars with our sacrificial coconuts. At the temple we managed to make the ultimate faux pas by not taking our shoes off which caused a mini uproar, however with that behind us we joined the queue and got ready to say goodbye to our nuts! Sarah managed to get into the temple but I was thrown out of the line for being a non-Hindu. Bloody Facists! Apparently Sarah looks like a Hindu but I don't. I was quite annoyed by this and resolved to make this injustice known to my mates at the Tooting Popular Front in their struggle to liberate Nepal. Stillour nuts were sacrificed and they were kind enough to give it back to me. (ouch)

After our quick side trip we ended up in Pokhara 3 hours later. We all quickly agreed that the town was awesome and quite a welcome change to Kathmandu. We were joined by an English guy named Bruce who we met on the bus so we all ended up in the same hotel which was cool. Most of the tourist side of Pokhara is based on the Lake which made a really nice relaxing setting. We decided to all get Motorbikes for the day so that we could do some side trips around the town. I was a little concerned that I'd never ridden one before and didn't have a licence, but this didn't seem to bother the guy who rented them to us so off we went. I really liked my bike despite the fact that it would have taken 50 MOTs and its own Kyoto agreement to be driven legally in the UK. The smoke cloud form the back was pretty incredible. It was the best way to see the sights around the town though and we headed off to the local caves which were inhabited by bats. This cave also involved us having to climb through the smallest hole in the world in order to exit the cave. We all made it through though.

The next day I signed up to go Paragliding over Pokhara. I figured this would be good practice for the skydive later on. It was an awesome experience made better by my comical French pilot Evi. He didn't speak much English so I made do with my GCSE French. Mange tout! It was brilliant though and we managed to fly with the eagles which were amazing. Later in the day Sarah and I hired bikes and rode to the World Peace Pagoda which sits above Pokhara. It was a steep climb but we seasoned trekkers got there in good time and the views of the Annapurna Himalaya Range were great. We spent the next couple of days chilling out and rowing a boat on the lake. To cap off a good stay we finally met up with Andre who we had all trekked with and enjoyed a few beers and some mighty fine Korean food. So there you go, two weeks of doing very little but enjoying it a whole lot.

Off to Chitwan next and then back to India for a month before going to SE Asia. I can't believe its been 7 weeks already.

Hope everyone has a really Happy Christmas, Eid and Hanukkah….etc

All the best

Will