![shaftwhores only by [EXE]dann](/files/avatars/2007/51852-shaftwhore.gif "shaftwhores only by [EXE]dann"){kind=small}
Oh crap i've been home one week and I still haven't bored you all with a photo journal from my travels. Feel free to skip the text and just look at the photos, or just feel free to skip it all and call me names.
I spent two months in Nepal. The main purpose of the trip being to trek in the Annapurna region, though my plans were loose to say the least, which is how I like to do things because you never know what might happen and also (primarily I guess) because i'm increadibly unorganized. Leading upto the trip I was always in a bit of a daze about it all, and it wasn't till the plane started to slowly descend over Kathmandu (capital of Nepal duh) and I see countless rickity, poorly built shanty town like suburbs that the reality of doing this trip hit me. It was a weird feeling in retrospect, I guess i was pretty nervous but at the same time excited and unsure what the hell was going to happen in the coming days. As it turns out it wasn't so bad at all.
Stepping out the airport and being blasted by the hot, thick, smoggy Kathmandu air one is suddenly leapt upon by a multitude of taxi drivers badgering you for your business. I almost instantly fell in love with the place due the complete lack of order but at the same time not feeling threatened at all. Riding into town to a guesthouse that I had already checked online prior to my flight (one of the only things I managed to pre-arrange) I was transfixed by the sights, sounds and smells.
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It was a world unlike anything a little lad from the safe green rolling hills of the English countryside had ever seen. The dust, the unstable tightly squeezed buildings shoved up against one another in no recognizable fashion, the ridiculous roads riddled with potholes and crazy drivers who know them all off by heart and drive with reckless abandon on any side of the road they see fit.
Well anyway, I managed to find myself a safe bed in a rather Westernized establishment, somewhere I wouldn't stay now, but on my first day I was in need of a little comfort. Three days were spent in Kathmandu, hanging around visiting temples and soon meeting a few other travelers much like me.
I won't go into big descr
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Taken at Swayambhunath (Monkey Temple). Right after I took this the cheeky little monkey stole a necklace and ran into the trees with it.
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So i'm not much of a city guy and after 3 days I felt I needed to escape the mayhem. Myself and two other guys decided on making the trip to Pokhara, the second most popular travelers destination in Nepal. Pokhara is much nearer the mountains than Kathmandu, and well known for its rather lapse laws and all round chilled-out-ness... so yeah we decided to head there. Stopping off for a few days half way through the horribly cramped 8 hour bus journey and then continuing the rest of the journey sat precariously on top...
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...we arrive in Pokhara.
Here we relaxed for perhaps five days. The third or so day in was the Hindu festival "Holi". I won't claim to know the religious meaning behind it, all I know is that all day kids in the street throw dry or wet paint at one another and passers-by. Of course all the young travelers joined in too, and it turned out to be an all day party.
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So the days in Pokhara pass without you really knowing about it and inbetween witnessing the day to day strange sights of Asia....
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...I was starting to get itchy feet and wanted to begin my trek. One evening in a bar I got chatting to an Austrian girl who was planning on starting the same trek as me in a couple of days time with another girl from Switzerland that she had met. So it was as simple as that, and as always in traveling, things just worked themselves out and I had trekking companions.
The Annapurna Circuit trek circumvents the Annapurna mountain range in a horseshoe shape, which consists of numerous mountains. Of course these mountains are huge because we're in the Himalayas... infact they dont get any bigger. The whole thing is marked as taking roughly 21 days to complete and 277km long reaching a maximum altitude of 5416m. Due to the fact I was spending two months in Nepal I had barely any time constraints as I had only been in the country for just over a week by this point.
Anyway we started the trek, luckily on the first day we meet a Canadian dude and so we now have a merry band of four. The first four days being in hot tropical region, which wasn't so pleasant to walk in and when we finally started seeing the white peaks of the Himalayas on the horizon it was a relief.
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This was the first time we relatively were up close to the snowline and cliffs, the size of these mountains was pretty overwhelming at first.
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On the fourth day we walk round the corner to see what was probably the most impressive mountain i've ever seen. I monsterous rock wall called Heaven's Door that has been carved out by glacial erosion causing a gaint ampitheatre like effect. The size of this thing was huuuuuuuge and the evening after we passed it the snows fell for us for the first time. We woke to see this entire wall plastered in white. That was a great sight.
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So by now we're at around 3500m or so. The weathers cold at night and when the sun is fully out in the day its extremely hot due to the thinner air. Most evenings it would snow and by 11am the sun would burn most of it off, but that meant that every morning we had beautiful pristine snow covering the ground. Walking through the valleys often to the sound of avalanches rumbling high on the Annapurnas...
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You could notice the visible differences, not only in the landscape which was slowly becoming more barren and also in the clothing of the locals, but also in the houses and arcitecture of the buildings. Everything had a rough Tibetan feeling to its design as we were getting closer to the border.
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So we get to around 3800m and the largest town on this side of the valley. The town is a pretty key place on the trek because its when a lot of people start to feel the effects of altitude sickness. Sadly the Swiss girl got pretty sick and had to turn back. The Canadian guy had a flight to catch and moved on quicker so it left just me and the Austrian girl, neither of us really having a time limit and both wanting to explore the area as much as possible. The following day after our friends departed we both got food posioning for about three days, running back and forth to the shitter every five minutes - good times!
Once we were feeling a little better we hatched a plan to visit the third highest lake in the world - Lake Tilicho...
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It was around a five day trip off the main track. The whole thing was probably the highlight of our trek. The route there was littered with cliffs and very loose rock causing regular rockfall from above onto the path. I know it sounds fucking lame but at one point we were kinda seriously lucky to escape unharmed from football sized rocks that were flying down from the cliffs above us. If anything happened we were in the middle of the Himalayas with few people around, it wouldn't have been a great situation.
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Anyway my friend (understandably) decided to sit out and I reached the lake by myself. Though it wasn't the same without her, being up there in the middle of the Himalayas by yourself is a magical feeling and something i'm not going to try to put into words. The lake, as it turns out, was frozen. It's at 4946m (I think) and so theres only a couple of months when you can see it's blue waters.
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Here is an interim of some arty farty shots of abandoned villages, mountains and all that sort of stuff. Not much left now, I promise!
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Another avalanche
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So about two or more weeks into the trek we get to the pass and cross 5416m. It was a bit of an anticlimax after such a huge build-up and having it loom over you the whole time. It was much easier in comparison to our adventure to the lake.
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5am on the morning of the pass (Thorung La)
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After crossing the pass the first thing you notice (other than the horrible 2000m descent) is that suddenly the landscape has changed. Its barren, with little snowcover above 4000m. This is not far from the Tibetan border and it really shows. At about 10am everyday a hot wind picks up and blasts up the valley making walking not much fun.
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This is looking back at the pass we crossed. The photo is deceiving, it's about 1000m higher than the height I took this.
Well, i'll cut this half a lot shorter. We spent about another 3 weeks on the trek from this point. Going back down the second valley (remember its a horseshoe shaped trek). Slowly back down into the tropics. We made many a sidetrip, none longer than a day. After a week we reached a fork in the path (which convienently had hot springs nearby). We both had time to kill and decided to visit Annapurna ba
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Macchapucchre - My favourite mountain and its completely off limits, noone has ever or will ever be granted permission to climb it.
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By the end of the trek we had been walking for 39 days and were both really mentally and quite physically tired. Carrying huge backpacks and doing fuck knows what in altitude. We spent the remaining time in Pokhara just relaxing and enjoying being able to shower and relative civilization. We said our sad goodbyes, and after being with someone 24hours a day for 39 days in such an enviroment you really get to know one another. It made tom sad :(
I said my own farewell to Nepal. I experienced many new things, saw crazy sights so often that it just became part of normal life. If I were to write every increadibly bizarre thing that happened to us I think my fingers would fall off. Anyway Nepal taught me much, but most of all it taught me that no matter what you when traveling (and perhaps in life too, maybe thats a bit deep (?)), things always seem to work themselves out for the best, and thats a good thought because tomorrow i'm catching a flight to Canada and spending 12 months out there; first traveling and then finding somewhere to snowboard and work for the winter. It'll be fine and awesome, i'm sure.
I spent two months in Nepal. The main purpose of the trip being to trek in the Annapurna region, though my plans were loose to say the least, which is how I like to do things because you never know what might happen and also (primarily I guess) because i'm increadibly unorganized. Leading upto the trip I was always in a bit of a daze about it all, and it wasn't till the plane started to slowly descend over Kathmandu (capital of Nepal duh) and I see countless rickity, poorly built shanty town like suburbs that the reality of doing this trip hit me. It was a weird feeling in retrospect, I guess i was pretty nervous but at the same time excited and unsure what the hell was going to happen in the coming days. As it turns out it wasn't so bad at all.
Stepping out the airport and being blasted by the hot, thick, smoggy Kathmandu air one is suddenly leapt upon by a multitude of taxi drivers badgering you for your business. I almost instantly fell in love with the place due the complete lack of order but at the same time not feeling threatened at all. Riding into town to a guesthouse that I had already checked online prior to my flight (one of the only things I managed to pre-arrange) I was transfixed by the sights, sounds and smells.
flickr li
It was a world unlike anything a little lad from the safe green rolling hills of the English countryside had ever seen. The dust, the unstable tightly squeezed buildings shoved up against one another in no recognizable fashion, the ridiculous roads riddled with potholes and crazy drivers who know them all off by heart and drive with reckless abandon on any side of the road they see fit.
Well anyway, I managed to find myself a safe bed in a rather Westernized establishment, somewhere I wouldn't stay now, but on my first day I was in need of a little comfort. Three days were spent in Kathmandu, hanging around visiting temples and soon meeting a few other travelers much like me.
I won't go into big descr
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Taken at Swayambhunath (Monkey Temple). Right after I took this the cheeky little monkey stole a necklace and ran into the trees with it.
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So i'm not much of a city guy and after 3 days I felt I needed to escape the mayhem. Myself and two other guys decided on making the trip to Pokhara, the second most popular travelers destination in Nepal. Pokhara is much nearer the mountains than Kathmandu, and well known for its rather lapse laws and all round chilled-out-ness... so yeah we decided to head there. Stopping off for a few days half way through the horribly cramped 8 hour bus journey and then continuing the rest of the journey sat precariously on top...
flickr li
...we arrive in Pokhara.
Here we relaxed for perhaps five days. The third or so day in was the Hindu festival "Holi". I won't claim to know the religious meaning behind it, all I know is that all day kids in the street throw dry or wet paint at one another and passers-by. Of course all the young travelers joined in too, and it turned out to be an all day party.
flickr li
So the days in Pokhara pass without you really knowing about it and inbetween witnessing the day to day strange sights of Asia....
flickr li
...I was starting to get itchy feet and wanted to begin my trek. One evening in a bar I got chatting to an Austrian girl who was planning on starting the same trek as me in a couple of days time with another girl from Switzerland that she had met. So it was as simple as that, and as always in traveling, things just worked themselves out and I had trekking companions.
The Annapurna Circuit trek circumvents the Annapurna mountain range in a horseshoe shape, which consists of numerous mountains. Of course these mountains are huge because we're in the Himalayas... infact they dont get any bigger. The whole thing is marked as taking roughly 21 days to complete and 277km long reaching a maximum altitude of 5416m. Due to the fact I was spending two months in Nepal I had barely any time constraints as I had only been in the country for just over a week by this point.
Anyway we started the trek, luckily on the first day we meet a Canadian dude and so we now have a merry band of four. The first four days being in hot tropical region, which wasn't so pleasant to walk in and when we finally started seeing the white peaks of the Himalayas on the horizon it was a relief.
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This was the first time we relatively were up close to the snowline and cliffs, the size of these mountains was pretty overwhelming at first.
flickr li
flickr li
On the fourth day we walk round the corner to see what was probably the most impressive mountain i've ever seen. I monsterous rock wall called Heaven's Door that has been carved out by glacial erosion causing a gaint ampitheatre like effect. The size of this thing was huuuuuuuge and the evening after we passed it the snows fell for us for the first time. We woke to see this entire wall plastered in white. That was a great sight.
flickr li
So by now we're at around 3500m or so. The weathers cold at night and when the sun is fully out in the day its extremely hot due to the thinner air. Most evenings it would snow and by 11am the sun would burn most of it off, but that meant that every morning we had beautiful pristine snow covering the ground. Walking through the valleys often to the sound of avalanches rumbling high on the Annapurnas...
flickr li
You could notice the visible differences, not only in the landscape which was slowly becoming more barren and also in the clothing of the locals, but also in the houses and arcitecture of the buildings. Everything had a rough Tibetan feeling to its design as we were getting closer to the border.
flickr li
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So we get to around 3800m and the largest town on this side of the valley. The town is a pretty key place on the trek because its when a lot of people start to feel the effects of altitude sickness. Sadly the Swiss girl got pretty sick and had to turn back. The Canadian guy had a flight to catch and moved on quicker so it left just me and the Austrian girl, neither of us really having a time limit and both wanting to explore the area as much as possible. The following day after our friends departed we both got food posioning for about three days, running back and forth to the shitter every five minutes - good times!
Once we were feeling a little better we hatched a plan to visit the third highest lake in the world - Lake Tilicho...
flickr li
It was around a five day trip off the main track. The whole thing was probably the highlight of our trek. The route there was littered with cliffs and very loose rock causing regular rockfall from above onto the path. I know it sounds fucking lame but at one point we were kinda seriously lucky to escape unharmed from football sized rocks that were flying down from the cliffs above us. If anything happened we were in the middle of the Himalayas with few people around, it wouldn't have been a great situation.
flickr li
Anyway my friend (understandably) decided to sit out and I reached the lake by myself. Though it wasn't the same without her, being up there in the middle of the Himalayas by yourself is a magical feeling and something i'm not going to try to put into words. The lake, as it turns out, was frozen. It's at 4946m (I think) and so theres only a couple of months when you can see it's blue waters.
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Here is an interim of some arty farty shots of abandoned villages, mountains and all that sort of stuff. Not much left now, I promise!
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Another avalanche
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So about two or more weeks into the trek we get to the pass and cross 5416m. It was a bit of an anticlimax after such a huge build-up and having it loom over you the whole time. It was much easier in comparison to our adventure to the lake.
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5am on the morning of the pass (Thorung La)
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After crossing the pass the first thing you notice (other than the horrible 2000m descent) is that suddenly the landscape has changed. Its barren, with little snowcover above 4000m. This is not far from the Tibetan border and it really shows. At about 10am everyday a hot wind picks up and blasts up the valley making walking not much fun.
flickr li
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This is looking back at the pass we crossed. The photo is deceiving, it's about 1000m higher than the height I took this.
Well, i'll cut this half a lot shorter. We spent about another 3 weeks on the trek from this point. Going back down the second valley (remember its a horseshoe shaped trek). Slowly back down into the tropics. We made many a sidetrip, none longer than a day. After a week we reached a fork in the path (which convienently had hot springs nearby). We both had time to kill and decided to visit Annapurna ba
flickr li
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Macchapucchre - My favourite mountain and its completely off limits, noone has ever or will ever be granted permission to climb it.
flickr li
flickr li
By the end of the trek we had been walking for 39 days and were both really mentally and quite physically tired. Carrying huge backpacks and doing fuck knows what in altitude. We spent the remaining time in Pokhara just relaxing and enjoying being able to shower and relative civilization. We said our sad goodbyes, and after being with someone 24hours a day for 39 days in such an enviroment you really get to know one another. It made tom sad :(
I said my own farewell to Nepal. I experienced many new things, saw crazy sights so often that it just became part of normal life. If I were to write every increadibly bizarre thing that happened to us I think my fingers would fall off. Anyway Nepal taught me much, but most of all it taught me that no matter what you when traveling (and perhaps in life too, maybe thats a bit deep (?)), things always seem to work themselves out for the best, and thats a good thought because tomorrow i'm catching a flight to Canada and spending 12 months out there; first traveling and then finding somewhere to snowboard and work for the winter. It'll be fine and awesome, i'm sure.
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Edited by tom at 00:05 CDT, 10 June 2008 - 32156 Hits
tom
