Thursday, May 13, 2010

Nepal Travel Diary - Leaving

NAMASTE...I'm back. I can't believe its been a month since I've been back. It's taken awhile to settle back into normal life again and also to sort through my photos.

Where do I start....It was such an amazing trip. It was only short and sweet but worth every minute of it. So here goes....

I had a few days off before leaving which was just as well so that I could get the last few things I needed and get everything packed. As I hadn't been on a trek before it was abit hard to really know what was really necessary. I'd made email contact with Sally who was also going on the trek. We had lots of emails back and forwards about the gear we had and what we still needed to get. It had been a dream of mine to go to the Himalayas for a long time. So when the countdown began till I was leaving, I don't think I really believed it was all going to happen.

Finally the day I was leaving arrived. Duncan and Dylan came with me to Brisbane airport. The plane didn't leave until 11.55pm. I was so excited but also a part of me was scared. It was also the first time I was leaving my son for so long. I have to admit that when Duncan and Dylan left I had to go to the toilets and had a few tears before I pulled myself together and took off on my adventure.

I flew from Brisbane to Bangkok, with a 5 hours wait there, then Bangkok to Kathmandu. It took awhile to get my bag in Kathmandu airport. I was starting to thing that it had fallen into a black hole. Coming out of the airport was abit of a shock to the system. There were people everywhere holding signs up and I was confused as to where I had to go until I say a man jumping up and down with a bright orange World Expeditions sign. There were 3 other people from the trip there and we all got on a minibus and headed for the Radisson Hotel. Coming out of the airport there were police all lined up along the street with shields, batons and guns. What a great welcome! Apparently the Prime Minister was arriving on a flight.

Driving to the Hotel was a real experience. Cars, buses, rickshaws, people, motorbikes going everywhere, beeping there horns. It was absolute kaos with what seems to be no road rules at all. But the drivers are all so calm. I had my hands over my eyes a few times.

I was sharing a room with Sally at the Hotel which worked out really well. She had arrived a day earlier. I'll remember that on future trips as it would have been nice to have a day to settle in first before the trek started.

This was the view out of the window from our room on the 4th floor.

We met up with the whole group at 5.30pm. There were 9 of us - 3 from England and the rest from Australia. Bakesh our tour leader explained things to us over a drink. We ordered a Gurka Beer which was huge and ended up being the equivalent of about 2 1/2 glasses. We then all went out to a Cultural Restaurant for Dinner. We walked there. Our first experience of trying to cross the road was fun. We all ran into the middle, waited there until the next part of the road was clear, and then ran across the rest of the way. At the restaurant they put a red dot on our foreheads and we got to sample a variety of Nepalese food while watching dancing and singing. We caught taxis back to the Hotel and got our bags packed ready for the start of the trek the following day.