Holiday of a lifetime in Nepal!

 Nepal Trip - Novemeber 2008

It’s taken me a while to finally write about this trip (I went in November last year) - I think I just really wanted to make sure that I got it ‘right’.

First of all I just want to say how much of an amazing country Nepal really is - from the second that I caught a glimpse of the beautiful Himalayan mountains through the plane window, I knew the trip was going to be special.

On arrival at Kathmandu airport the hustle and bussle suddenly hits you! I was soon surrounded by a number of touts trying to offer me a taxi to ‘the best hotel in Kathmandu’ – luckily for me I already had a hotel pickup sorted by the Hotel I was booked with. The trip to the hotel was a real eye opener. One image that has stuck in my mind was crossing a large river on our way into central Kathmandu – there were people washing clothes, bathing and drinking from one of the dirtiest rivers I have ever seen in my life. I think from that moment I realised that the glamorous mountains of Nepal are only the tip of the iceberg; there is much more to Nepal than meets the eye.

The first couple of days I stayed in and around Kathmandu, taking in the hustle and bustle of the city and trying some of the local cuisine. One of my favourite foods was a local dish called ‘momo‘ (very similar to Chinese dim sum) that are usually stuffed with minced chicken and herbs, but there are loads of different variations.  Some of the street food looked absolutely fantastic – others looked a little bit questionable to say the least! That said, as long as you are careful I think eating from street vendors is one of the best ways to sample the real food of the country.

One thing that immediately hits you about Kathmandu is the amount of traffic! People were crammed into tuk tuk’s, mini buses and the strangest looking vehicles!

I think you could offer me a huge amount of money right now to drive a car in Kathmandu and I would turn you down – the drivers are crazy! In fact we saw a number of crashes while we out there, and I’m not suprised. The recognised way to overtake in Nepal is to beep your horn and go… and that includes around blind corners!

After a couple of days in Kathmandu we took a coach up the H03 road towards the Tibetan border, as we heard of an excellent little place that organises adventure sports! The Last Resort is located on top of the Bhote Kosi River gorge and the only way to reach the resort is by crossing a 160m suspension bridge! The bridge is also the main bungy jump site in Nepal for all those who have a death wish (I didn’t do it before you ask!). The main reason we visited here was to do a raft down the Bhote Kosi River and it certainly didn’t disappoint. The first day was a little slow, but the second day was continous  grade 3- 5 rapids which was just fine by me!

After a brief return to Kathmandu, we decided to move on again; this time we took the long coach ride down to Chitwan National Park, a great place to see some wildlife in Nepal. The original plan was to get a coach ride part way, then raft the final half day to the resort. Unfortunately there was a strike for 6 hours that day, so everything just stopped! That meant cars, buses, shops, people … everything. Due to this we ended up sitting by our bus in a small Nepali village, playing cards with the locals which actually turned out to be a great experience! Once we got going again we decided to travel on the roof of the bus for a while as the bus was roasting after sitting in the  blazing sun for 6 hours. It was a bit of a hairy ride around the cliff tops but thouroughly enjoyable – that was until we saw a bus 70 meters below in the river! We spoke to the driver and he says it is not that uncomon which made us nervous to say the least.

When we finally arrived at Chitwan (still alive!), it was very late because of the strikes so was completely pitch black. The resort we were staying in (Island Jungle Resort) could only be reached by canoe – something we had no idea about before we got there, so you can imagine our suprise when we were told to sit in a canoe in the complete dark! It was a great experience arriving at the forrest reteat in the dark and as there are wild animals roaming on the island, we had to stay in a large group and be very quiet. We arrived to a lovely banquet and the locals performing a fantastic local dance that made us really welcome. There were plenty of things to do on the island too. We went for a early morning jungle walk, an elephant ride, a canoe ride and bathed with elephants – all in just over a day! The food was great and everyone was so friendly and accomodating. We certainly left witha heavy heart, but we needed to move on to fit in our trek, but it was a really great experience to see a different, quieter side of Nepal.

The final leg of our trip was a 3 day trek in the mountains surrounding Kathmandu. I would have loved to have done one of the longer trek’s there; either Everest Base Camp or the Annapurna Circuit, but they were all well over 15 days long and we really didn’t have time. We started off our trek at a small village called Sundarijal and we bought some local snacks (Khaja) like Pakoda’s, Fritters, Samosas and roti breads for the journey. And what a journey it was! The asent from Sundarijal to the Shivapuri national park was very steep and I think we climbed over 1000 meters in 4 1/2 hours – not bad going in the heat of the sun. We finally reached Chisapani and settled down to a meal of daal bhat – probably the most well known food from Nepal. We spoke to our guide about the food in Nepal and he says that he will eat daal bhat every single day at least once, but usually twice – in Nepal they just don’t have the variety of food that I’ve become used to in the UK.

The next day was an equally long trek to Nagarkot which took every last inch of will power to get there – it was really tough! We had a great night though, playing cards with the owners and having a few local beers (ironically called Everest beer). The final day of our trek we walked to Dhulikhel which was enjoyable but tough. Unfortunately I’d started to get a few blisters on my feet so I was getting slower and slower – I hate to think what a 21 days Everest Base camp trek would be like!

We finally made our way back to Kathmandu for the last couple of days and we spent our remaining time enjoying Kathmandu. I made it my mission to get a decent cookbook from Nepal, and after a few hours of looking I found a book called ‘The Joys of Nepalese cooking’ which is really good – my only criticism is the lack of good quality photo’s in the book. I’ll be posting a number of Nepali recipes that I have been making over the coming weeks, including my favourite Nepali breakfast (photo below); Nepali Omelette with Spiced Potatoes.

Here is a selection of photo’s from my time there – a truely fantastic country.