Archiv für die Kategorie ‘in English’

geschrieben von Johannes (26. Oktober 2008)
Kategorie: in English
(5) Kommentare  Weiterlesen

Since we arrived in Nepal end of September we enjoyed the days beeing hardly active. During the first days in Pokhara we met with friends of my brother who lives in Chile/Southamerica. Further we used these days to sleep, to eat, to exchange our India experiances with their Nepal- and Tibet-experiances and to check our emails. In short words we were relaxing after our first three and a half weeks traveling through India. After Karina and Andreas (from Chile) had left us towards India we started very slowly to think about a plan for the upcoming four weeks. We went to some agencies here in Pokhara to compare their trekking offers through and around the famous Anapurna, a range of several peaks from 6000 up to 8000 and something meters above sealevel. We also tried to find out if it is possible to arrange a trip to Tibet, but at least it was much too expensive for us. Even if it were really worth it to see, such an eight day trip under complete political control of the chinese authorities would blast our budget. Sad, but so it is.

After some days of planning we decided to go trekking for four days and with Bharat, a guide that we found by help of the owner of the very nice lodge we have lived in. We enjoyed these four days very much even though our legs reminded us of the trek the following days. We made more than 45 kilometers and climbed up to 3200 meters altitude. After the second night in the mountains we got up at 4 a.m. and started one hour later to walk up to Poon Hill (3200 m) to see and enjoy the sunrise and have an amazing view of the 8168m high peak of the Dhaulagiri. In the afternoon of the same day we were surprised by hard rain and had to find a lodge for the night earlier than we wanted because then we had to walk more on the following - our last day.

And this last day was hard for us except for Bharat our Guide. For him these 17,5 km just seemed to be like a comfortable sunday afternoon walk. But we made 1700 m altitude downwards, mostly steep and unregularly steps. My knee started to complain very early and our legs … as I have already mentioned.

During the following days we relaxed again in and around Pokhara and used the time to visit some tibetan refugee camps and their monasteries. We were guided by the young Tibetien Tsering who could give us a small but very interesting overview of tibetian culture. When we left this tibetan village we were suddenly in another world - back in Nepal. What we wonder about most is, that the culture of this people in their own homeland is going to get extinguished by a foreign government (already since decades) and these people do not feel any anger or loose only one bad word. What makes it much harder for us to understand what happens in Tibet.

After more than two not only relaxing days we had to move on and so we took the bus to Kathmandu, Nepals capital city. Another time we wondered how a 195 km busride can take eight hours. But the landscape was very nice to watch passing by the window and we made it there safely. Compared to the last to weeks, Kathmandu reminded us a little of India, very very busy and crowded, many many shops, hotels and restaurants especially in Thamel the main tourist area.

And like in Rajasthan we met the same tourists again and again. But no mexican, this time it was Annette and Torsten, a couple from Germany we met the first time on the trek when they were sleeping in the same lodge as we did for one night, the second time down in Pokhara and several times in Kathmandu. They are also traveling for some months so that we will probably meet again somewhere in Thailand or Laos or … Southamerica? - wee will see and report.