Rapid Riding

After lazing around Pokhara for a few days and feeding ourselves up on the fantastic restaruants we decided to spice things up with a bit of white water rafting. What better way is there to appreciate the Nepali countryside than hurtling down the local rivers at break neck speed? (at least it seems that fast when you're hanging on for dear life).

The 3 day, 2 night trip started out with around 20 people from various places all over the world sat around chatting on the banks of the river about how much we did'nt know about white water rafting. The safety breifing basically consisted of showing us the life jackets and teaching us some basic commands (such as go forward!), which turned out to be a tad difficult to understand with a heavy Nepali accent in one ear and water in the other.

After passing the initial rapids, which just happened to the the biggest and fastest of the whole trip, everything else was a breeze. Camping out on remote beaches to the distant sound of wooden flute music drifing in from nearby villages was awesome.

The Annapurna Circuit Trek

Ah Nepal.... the country of the mighty Himalaya. After quickly discovering that there ar'nt a great amout of places to visit that are accessable by road we decided to get off the beaten track and into the majestic mountains..... by foot.


The Annapurna circuit trek is a 16 - 20 day hike through some of the highest peaks in the world incorporating a 5400m high peak called the Thorong La. Coming from India with just shorts, t-shirts, flip flops we've been frantically running around the masses of trekking shops in Kathmandu and Pokara (the only 2 main towns in Nepal) trying to transform ourselves into alpine mountaineers.

With the bare minimum of gear (around 12 kilos between us) we took a local bus to a remote town at the end of the road and prepared to set off for one of the best and most remote parts of the world to go trekking.

The trail climbs steadily through local villages along a rocky path shared by man and beast. Constant donkey caravans guide the way and superhuman porters who carry up to 80 kilos uphill for around 70km resting on a strap that ties around the forehead are dotted along the path.

After 5 days of climbing we arrived in the snow to the slightly larger village of Manang where it's advised to rest for 2 days to acclimatise to the altitude. Unfortunatly, it was'nt the altitude that was the problem. After 3 days and half a metre of snow we began to realise why there wer'nt a great amount of people on the trek..... we were unable to go on as the pass was totally blocked by snow.

Turning back was a pretty hard decision, but to wait out the snow melt would have meant sitting around for perhaps a week in the middle of nowhere. With a quick decent of 3 days, walking for 9 or 10 hours each day we are finally back in civilization with many blisters and sore muscles....... Still, one hell of an achievement for both of us and one of the best things i've ever done in my life.