Alright, I'm well rested and well fed for a change. So Nepal is an interesting place for a solo traveller like myself. Plenty of people see fresh meat written on my forehead. When I fist arrived it was quite the experience. First of all, as per usual the airline lost some of my luggage...nothing too important, just my sleeping bag. So I had to stick around and fill out some papers and such. A Nepali guy helped me with my bags, even though I was perfectly capable and wanted to be left alone. I asked him where the atm was cause I needed some rupees as opposed to aussie dollars, and he told me he'd show me. As soon as I stepped through the metal detectors and out the glass doors there was trouble. I was the last (of like three) tourists. There were about thirty Nepali travel agency people and taxi drivers waiting for me and they all rushed at me at once. I believe when I realized they were rushing towards me, my last words were something like "Oh shiiii-" "DO YOU NEED TAXI? WHEREYOUSTAYINGGOING TREKKINGEATHISBRAINSATM?!!!" They all grabbed me and started fighting over me, so I wrenched my arms free and backed out of the crowd. I yelled back to the guy with my bags. "where's the atm?" The hoard all answered at once and started dragging me to the atm. I didn't feel good about leaving my bags so I went and grabbed them from the guy then trudged through them again towards the atm, got in past the glass and closed it behind me. Safety in a small booth. I looked behind me and they were all waiting and watching. I turned back to the atm. The sign said "out of order". I sighed, turned around and was swallowed up by the mob. I soon found myself in a taxi hurtling down bumpy dirt roads, through narrow alleys and over suicidal chickens, and almost people. The cabbie was honking constantly. I was laughing all the way. The travel agent in the front seat introduced himself and started talking at me as I looked out onto the chaos. Too much for the eye to take in at once. The second atm at which I arrived didn't take my card, but the third worked, so cash in hand I made it to some hotel, bargained for a better rate, shut the door and took a deep breath. That was a condensed version of my arrival.
So having been there for a few days, I almost got screwed over several times by people wanting my money. The travel agent hounded me from the moment I got into town, until I told him I didn't want his damn services. The bastard tried to rip me off for over 100 dollars for my trek. Even worse than that, I almost fell for a diamond exporting scheme that would have cost me 2000 dollars. Once again, I almost fell for it, but after the third cup of tea, I got the hell out of that place...after telling the guy that I knew it was a scam....so basically I ripped them off for three cups of tea. If you want to know that story more in detail just ask me. Can't be bothered to write it all now.
So finally I met another guy who screwed me over, but showed me the town and such, so it wasn't all bad. He also got me to the travel agency where I hired my guide Bochin for my 7 day trek. We left on the second of March and got back yesterday.
It was really an amazing experience. Like taking a time machine back to the middle ages, with the occasional western slogan thrown in here and there. I'll post some pictures soon. Anyway, the first day we stopped right at the beginning of the trail because it started raining. Stayed with some locals in the mountains. I bartered some goods off of an old Tibetan refugee that night, but that's another story. The next day we had to make up for lost time, so we did the equivalent of two treks in one day. I was also suffering from dysentery at the time, and had thrown up the night before, so that and my heavy pack made trekking uphill over rugged mountain terrain a bit difficult. At lunch I was beat. My guide saw that and asked if I wanted to stay where we were for the night (which was where we were supposed to be the day before). I said I'd think about it, and after a good long think, I decided we would press on another 4 hours to Gorepani (our intended destination). I ended up living...sorry to ruin the story by skipping the tough bit, but I survived and collapsed on my bed for a good long while. Then ate hardly anything cause my stomach was being a jerk, so I decided to punish it. I got up to go to the washroom at night and found my legs could hardly move. I wondered how I was going to finish the trek...only another 5 days.
Again, I ended up surviving, and made it the whole way. There were hardly any tourists, I ate with the locals in the kitchens, drank their wine (which is quite nice and made with millet) and took lots of pictures. We saw some mountains too. The highest I climbed was around 3500 meters. Twas a nice view of the surrounding mountains. We were at that altitude at around 5:30 am, so it was really cold and snow filled...especially compared to Australia.
On day 4 we ended up at the hot springs, and that was great. I felt almost fully rejuvenated and was ready for more days of steep uphill and downhill climbing...the Nepali aren't too fond of flat ground I've found.
Well, in a nutshell that's about it besides dodging stampeding sheep and goats and my guide and I doing a lot of falling while climbing downhill on a snow covered Forest path.
On day five I couldn't even feel that I was going uphill anymore and felt like I could go on forever without taking a break. Really a change from the first day.
Anyway I've written more than enough. Hopefully I covered most of it. I'll post some pictures later.