Entry No.17 by Josh

The bus took us to Dumre from where we had to get a local bus to Besi Sahar. Adamant that I wasn't going to be ripped off by the bus owner (it was private, not government) we managed to haggle the price down to 100 rupees (90p) for the 3 hour journey. The journey was pretty dull and uncomfortable and we were feeling guilty when we got off after realising that we were actually paying less than the locals, that we had haggled too far. Oops. Besi Sahar is a small town and there isn't much to do there. Like most of Nepal, electricity is irregular so after finding a room for 2 pounds and some food, we spent the rest of the day playing cards and chilling out. The following morning we actualyl started the trek after an early start and a big breakfast. In our heads we had a rough idea as to how far we would get each day and where we woudl stop, and that was roughly the same as our dated trekking book recommended. I was carrying about 15kg and Clare had about 10kg so walking for a long time can be quite tiring. For the first three hours we were walking through pretty little paddy fields, crossing dodgy bridges and walking through villages which was really nice, and occasionally getting a view of a snowy peak as a treat that we would get used to in a few days. We arrived at where we thought we would spend the first night before midday so we stopped for a drink and carried on. The afternoon was quite difficult but by around 5pm we had arrived at Bahundana for a well earnt rest. We ate what we would go on to eat nearly eery night, Dal Bhat. Dal Bhat is basically a refillable platter of curries. You get as much rice as you like, a vegetable curry and a lentil soup thing, with a poppadum if you are lucky. It is the ideal energy food because you eat so much of it, but its very tasteless so gets so boring after a while. After a good nights rest we left at around 9am for another days walking. Much of the same sort of scenery on the second day left us in a town called Chyamche where the path was blocked due to a road being built and them having to dynamite some of the rock. Nevertheless we took the lower path to the next town thinking we only had a two more hour walk and hoping we would arrive by 5pm. After 4 hours of walking however, including 30 minutes in darkness, we finally arrived in Tal, our destination for the night. We had walked way too far that day and it turns out we had covered three days walking in only two. We made a deal to take it a bit more easily from that point onwards. The next day we only walked for around 6 hours, and the day after that for another 6. The views all along the way were amazing. The mountains were amazing and some of them well over 6,000 metres (18,000 feet roughly) and there were waterfalls all along the way. After a couple of thousand metres altitude you have to be careful how much you climb each day because of altitude sickness. However, we seemed to just take it as it came and we were fine so we were quite lucky with that. On the 5th day Clare did feel a little bit sick though so to be safe we only walked for about 2-3 hours. After arriving in Manang on our 5th afternoon we spent the whole 6th day there to acclimatise. It is more built up than some of the other towns we have stayed in, it even has a cinema room where we watched 'Into the Wild' and the power is more frequent. There are even some lodges with power in the rooms, but we couldn't afford that. In Manang, I had to get my shoes repaired as I was doing the trek in some cheap fake Hi-Tec trainers, and it was much cheaper to get those fixed, than to buy some boots in Manang. We also bought some walking sticks for when we crossed the pass, as we both we wearing only the cheapest equipment we could find and our shoes had no grip at all. The following day we left Manang and because of the altitude climb we could only go to a village three hours away, where everyone on this trek makes a stop. The town was called Yak Kharka and surprise surprise had a lot of Yaks. We tried some Yak cheese which was very good and chilled out playing cards with some friends we had met on the way. The next day would be our last stop before crossing the 5,500 metre pass. We stopped in a town called Throng Pedi where the winds were so strong and the temperature so cold that we had to stay inside for the day. At this point we hadn't showered for about 5 days so we were feeling pretty grim and defintely ready to cross the pass even just to get to a proper town where we could wash. We woke at around 5am on the big day thinking that we would be early. After eating breakfast we started the km climb uphill at around 5.45am. Typically, we were actually last to leave the town so got caught behind a French tour group who were so slow climbing that they had to strart walking for the day at 2am. We overtook almost everyone who had left before us, even though the walk was very tough. It took about 3 and a half hours to get to the top but the last hour was especially difficult because it was just so steep and we were freezing our bollocks off. The pass itself was a little overrated but the walk up to it was beautiful and we took some amazing photos of the sun rising over the peaks. Clare was a little bit sick at the top, and not wanting to risk it getting worse at this altitude we decided not to stay at the top for too long. The long descent down takes around 4 hours and at some points you can't help but run because it is so steep. The sticks we had bought were so helpful, despite making us look ridiculous. By the end of the day it was a really nice relief and felt like a great achievement when we arrived in Muktinath. After checking in at the Bob Marley guesthouse we had a cold shower (not out of choice) and a good dinner. It was our new found friend Phill's 55th birthday somehwere in town but we couldn't find him so we just relaxed by ourselves. The next day we walked another double day, and ended up getting to Jomson, quite a big stop, by the late afternoon. We actually found a place with a gas shower so we decided to stay there and shelter from the shitty weather that had followed us that day. We also walked past a YacDonald's that day, which sold only Yak Meat as a fast food restaurant, quite funny at the time. From Jomson, and on our 12th day, we walked a long way to Kalopani where we spent the night drinking and playing cards with Chris and Joke, a dutch couple we had spent some of the day with and had met earlier on the trek. This turned out to be the last night  of the trek as we made the decision to get the bus to Pokhara the next day. We had seen most of the good points on the trek and Clare's blisters were becoming unbearable and her shoes broken so the decision made sense. Clare could no way walk the next day so it would seem like a wasted day just hanging around in some small town hoping her feet would be OK the next day. It turned out that most people don't even walk as far as we did so our 12 day trek in what the guidebooks say should take 17 days was a good achievement anyway considering all of our equipment was the cheapest stuff you could find in the country. It took a whole day of travel to get to Pokhara because the roads are just winding round mountains on stones and they feel like a death trap. At one point, Clare even suggested getting out and walking on her bad feet, rather than sitting on the bus. Arriving in Pokhara at around 8 o'clock after our bus broke down and us having to get a taxi for the last 10 minutes, was definitely a relief. After finding a cheap room we went out for some drinks. We have been in India and Nepal for three months now, and since my Mum and brother left, we haven't had much to drink. So these few beers we had definitely took their toll on us and we were absolutely hammered by the time we got home. We have spent the next two days exploring Pokhara, which feels like a nice place. Its very laid back, but also very touristy, which for once isn't such a bad thing after trekking for two weeks and feeling millions of miles away from home. We are just going off to meet our friend to have a late birthday celebration and will spend the rest of our time in Nepal relaxing before going to Bangkok on the 1st. Overall, its been an amazing country, and their government adverts are actually true when they say 'once is never enough'.

Entry No.16 by Clare

We arrived in Darjeeling around 10am after about 20 hours of travel, we found our homestay run by a lovely Indian couple Wan-chuck and Doenka (his wife) which we stayed for about 3 days in their home, they were very sweet making us tea all the time even in bed! Our first day we were still very tired so we went exploring, Darjeeling was so good looking, lush tea plantations and beautiful crop fields down the valleys. There was also a nice english couple staying at Wan-chuks homestay and two Spanish ladies, we spend our first night up talking with them. The following morning we went out early to the 'Happy Valley Tea Plantation' which supplies Harrods Knightsbridge exclusively first flush tea. The plantation was really nice and you an walk around for free for as long as you like. We made some photos into disc and had lunch. In the afternoon we took the 'joy ride' train for a 2 hour round trip across the towns and villiages. We stopped at Ghum and visited the trains museum. After we returned we went to a pub called Joey's for a drink, weird to be in a pub. The next morning we were getting up at 4.30am to visit tiger hill for sunrise but Josh felt a little sick so we couldn't go :( Instead we got up later and went to the Zoo (best of India and highest alltitude Zoo in the world) which was great, for about 1 pound we saw lots of great animals such as red pandas, tigers, brown bears, yaks, tibetan wolf etc. There was also a Himalayan Climbing Museum which was very interesting, we found out Everest is named after an English man. Later we went tea shopping, Josh tried some of 'the best tea in the world' but probaly was wasted on him a bit. We got up the following day to leave India, Wan-chuck and his wife made us a lovely breakfast before we set off looking for a jeep. We arrived at the border to Nepal about 3pm, it was very easy to cross and fast. The bus to Kathmandu left the boarder and 5pm and we arrived at 10am after some shockingly bad roads and slow travel. We met a guy who took us to his hotel which was nice for 5 pounds per night, unfortunetly Nepal has unpredictable power which is an issue for light and hot water. We needed to start planning for our trek we intended to do of The Annapurna Circuit so we sold our India Loney Planet and brought a 15 years old Nepal trekking guide. The next morning we went to get our trekking permit and TIMS card. This took a while as nobody seems to know where to go, this cost us 40pounds which was more than I expected. We also went out looking for walking shoes, Jackets, gloves, thermals as it is very cold this time of year and we only turned up in Nepal in shorts and flip-flops. We pretty much spend the next day  doing the same thing and we booked our flight to Bangkok for 1st April too. We leave tomorrow for Besi Sahar to start our 16 days of walking!