It's a Wrap!

What an amazing trip it has been with my daughter Callie.

Where to begin.  

I knew before we even left that Callie had the physical attributes and mental fortitude to be able to do just great in what we were setting out to do.  That said,  Nepal is no joke.  From a challenging travel itinerary just to get there, to just the basics of day to day functioning, all of which Callie handled with aplomb.

She was able to take things in, process and execute in a very savvy way.  I couldn't be more proud.

Did we ever argue?  Yep, but the arguements were short lived and mostly because one or both of was tired and or jet lagged and they all ended with a hug and a laugh.  This has been a great opportunity to be able to connect and bust through the early teen angst and just be with my daughter.

It was a lot of fun to see her really sprout and grow throughout the trip.  Callie isn't a stranger to travel to far off places, yet Kathmandu is a bit of an assault to the uninitiated. From the crazy roads, dust, people, cows, monkeys, smells, honking and sounds one is immediately overwhelmed.  The first morning we were there we took a stroll to get a few last minute odds and ends and after about an hour Callie was ready to go hide in the closet.  It is THAT crazy.  For the most part there are no sidewalks and streets are undefined which can lead to going shoulder to shoulder with mopeds, bikes, stray dogs, and trucks.  Throw in a live electrical wire in a puddle and a fresh deposit from a sacred cow and now you're talking!  The time change doesn't help the first few days but she did great. Throw in an airport closure because of a snow leopard on the runway and the recent memory of a devastating earthquake and a lot of people would run back rather than dive in.

As the trip progressed she found her groove and by the end of the trip she was leading the charge and wanting to go on rickshaws and visit cool temples.

Eight days hiking in the Himalayas and she said she was tired exactly 1 time.  Never complained, not a negative word about spiders, squat toilets, forgetting toilet paper, or early mornings.  She just got up and got after it.  I have no idea what life has in store for her but I know she will not be out worked by many and the sky is the limit.

I am blessed to have had this opportunity to spend this irreplaceable time with my daughter and will cherish the memories forever.

Interesting odds and ends from our trip.

1. 10 - number of flights we took.
2. 11 number of places we slept
3. 3 hair raising jeep rides with steep 1,00+ft cliffs
4. No one has change for a 1,000 rupee note (~$10 US)
5. beer is cheaper than a coke
6. No meat is advisable when in the mountains
7. veggie noodle soup is where its at
8. luggage pickup on domestic flights its full contact
9. monkeys are aggressive
10. cows sleeping in busy streets
11. Power being cut at any given moment
12. Momos - yum!

Thank you for sharing this journey with us.

Home Sweet Home!

It has been a month!

A month ago today my dad and I arrived home from our amazing
trip to Nepal. 

As I've had time to settle back into the normal
rounding there are things I've realized that I didn't think of during
the trip. I actually really love the chaos and I didn't know I would.

At first I was actually scared but I got more comfortable when I went
back to Kathmandu after trekking. Everything- the constant horns,
cars, motorcycles, rickshaws, people, cows, and dogs just walking
around. I would do anything to just be able to walk around the city.
There is just so much culture in the city.

    I was talking to my dad and he said something that made so much
sense; the first time you go to Nepal, you go for the mountains, the second
time you go, you go for the people. It's very true because there is so
much more then just the mountains in Nepal. I hope I will return
someday.

    Our flights back went well, we had one flight to Doha, Qatar, then
back to Philadelphia, then back home. When I arrived home my two
friends had come to my house and welcomed me home as well as my sister
and mom. It was really fun to see them even though I had been
traveling for the last 28 hours and I was about to fall over.

Doha Airport

Doha, Qatar

The French Alps at dawn 

Home sweet home!

    I also wanted to make this blog because I wanted to add a couple
picture that we didn't add on other posts-


Thanks to everyone who read our posts, it was really fun to reflect
back on the trip and show people what we were doing! Also I hope this
was helpful if you were reading this if you're planning a trip to
Nepal, I would highly recommend it!

Pokhara Stay

Pokhara Stay

We stayed three days in total in Pokhara and it was super amazing!

Day 1:

We planned that day one would be a recovery day because we had trouble going up and down stairs because we were so sore. We ended up grabbing some breakfast and browsing the shops for souvenirs. Everywhere you go there is always little bracelets and figurine shops, pashmina and cloth shops, trekking gear shops, little sketchy smoothie makers on a bike, and cows. We are right on a lake too so it's a pretty view from our hotel.

     We decided to go for some momo's (circular potstickers/dumplings) at a place called Third Eye. 

Once we arrived it immediately started pouring then hailing marble sized pellets. My dad said it was the worst he's ever seen because the hail went on for 15 minutes nonstop. The ceiling was dripping in the restaurant and the tin roof was incredibly loud with the hail. But the momo's were still good.  After the hail calmed we decided to grab a cab back to the hotel because it was still pretty wet outside. The cab was a little sketchy in the first place but our hotel wasn't too far. In the cab we drove through a massive puddle and once we were out of it this horrible clunking scratching sound was coming from the bottom of the car. He dropped us off and a metal piece was hanging off the car. Okay then! The rest of the day we just watched shows and fell asleep early.  

Day 2:

We woke up pretty early because today we were going white-water rafting in the class III & IV waters of the Himalayas! I was a little nervous but mostly excited. It turns out no one signed up for that day so it would just be us and a couple other rafters that worked there and two other kayakers. The rafting started out pretty good, lots of getting splashed by cold water. Some crazy short rapids but the very first part was fun! Then we suddenly had to pull over from the rapids to on shore. They were a little frantic because one of the kayakers were stuck under water. Then we say the kayaker floating down river but thankfully he caught onto a boulder and pulled himself up. But the kayak was still stuck. It took four people it get it back because the water force was very heavy. We got back to rafting, amazed at how the kayaker got right back into kayaking after he had just gotten lodged in rocks then floated in the rapids. 

     After about ten minutes we hit some big rapids and accidentally got stuck between rocks. The raft started to over-flow with water so we hopped out before it could completely overflow and overturn. Thankfully once everyone but the main instructor was in the raft it resurfaced and squeezed through. My heart was pounding and my mind was racing but we still got back in the raft and continued down stream. After that 'excitement' the rest of the rapids were nice and easy but exciting enough. There were also some children bathing in the river and a couple prayer flag filled suspension rivers we went under. We got back to shore and brought back to the hotel. 

Nepali Lasagna 

     For dinner, we went down to place called Moon Dance where I got Lasagna!!!! It tasted kinda like chili, but was still pretty good after living off rice and soup. For dessert we got a brownie!!!! It was just cake but it was still really good. I saw another stray dog after dinner. It was so adorable and I named it Freddy.  It looked super happy and I wanted to take it home so bad. It probably had rabies or a disease though. (I haven't and will not pet any stray animals, I did pet a goat but it looked clean and healthy and I washed my hands right after) that was the end to day 2!

Day 3:

We woke up and planned to walk around town and maybe take a canoe out on the lake that day, but we had a VERY different day. At breakfast my dad brought up paragliding. It was a sure NO for me because to take off you pretty much have to run off a mountain cliff and I'm a worrier so it was a no. He then showed me a video of a five year old taking off and my thoughts changed.

      An hour later I was being strapped into a safety harness getting ready to take off for paragliding. In tandem paragliding the pilot is strapped behind you and you sit in front, you're connected to lines which are connected to the sail. The pilot controls where you go and where you land but the airflow effects what happens too. Once we were all ready to go the pilot told me to run. I ran for about three seconds and then I was in the air. We went high so fast and I was laughing and smiling and couldn't believe what was happening. Wanting to stay up there forever. You could see the entire Pokhara, the mountains, and the lake. So so so so so amazing! I could also see my dad at points too. We went up, down, over the city then over the lake. I could see eagles flying below me and and view of the other paragliders too. So unbelievable. I'm so glad I changed my mind about going. We circled down and landed smoothly. I was so ecstatic and full of adrenaline I could barely breathe!

     We walked back to the hotel and my dad went to go get the paragliding pictures while I packed up because we're heading back to Kathmandu the next day. We then decided to have to dinner where we ate the fist night, the Italian Restaurant. Some pizza and gelato hit the spot! I've grown to love Pokhara and did not want to leave! We've had a perfect time there and grateful for all we did!

Trek Day 6

We started the day at around 7am.  It had rained last night so the stone steps we would be hiking onn were very slippery and irregular in size and shape so we had to be extra careful with each foot placement.  ARound the first half hour we reached Ulleri, a small village with lots of teachouse and on a giant downhill.  We hiked downhill for about an hour and a half and it was a killer.  We were already sore from lots of downhill from the day before.  It got to the point where it was a challenge going stairs.  As we were going through the village of Ulleri, groups of donkeys hauling loads of supplies would come stomping by.  You can get trampled if you don't quickly get out of their way.  Sometimes they slip and it gets scary too because they are so big.  One group that went by us were carrying cages of chickens, something you would never see in the US.

At one point I had to use the bathroom so we stopped at a teahouse on the trail.  It wasn;t a bad looking teahouse until we asked where the bathroom was and you had to tiptoe around a narrow ledge on the side of a building while it had just rained with a 30 ft drop and no railing.  Quite the adventure.

Finally we got don to the bottom of the mountain where we would cross two suspension bridges over a waterfall.  It was actually pretty fun and a good change of scenery for a bit.

As you can see in the pictures above, there is some donkey manure.  That is definitely a normal thing on the trail.  It is everywhere!  So you definitely have to be careful where you step and it can be slippery.  While we were hiking we even saw a chicken pecking at pooh...that in one of the many reasons we don't eat meat on the mountain.

Anyway, as we hiked longer we stopped for some lunch and I got some noodle soup.  At this point I was very tired and ready to be finished.  We had hiked for four hours already and still had two more to go.

About an hour after lunch we entered a little village and was greeted by a very cute little girl and a very cute little goat!  The goat was going nuts and would slam his head into you and run around like crazy.  It was pretty funny and made me forget about how tired I was.

We finally arrived in Nayapul where we would be picked up and have to go on the scary car ride again, but it was worth not hiking another seven hours to get down.  It was a relief to get to Nayapul and see the jeep we would be taking.  It was sad to leave the mountains we hiked on but grateful I got the opportunity to hike on them.

We took a stomach flipping jeep ride back to Pokhara and made our way to our hotel.  We said our goodbyes to our porters.  We would see Kewal again in Kathmandu.

Our hotel is very nice and comfortable. with a shower, towels, a real bed. air conditioning (its 80 degrees here) a western style toilet...everything! We immediately showered and hopped into bed unbelievably sore!

Later that night we went to an Italian restaurant and had pizza

and gelato!!!! Never tasted so good!  We headed back to the hotel and fell asleep very fast.

We will be staying in Pokhara until the 4th and will be doing some exploring and a couple of activities.  Also the posts should be more regular now that we have a fair internet connection! (sometimes when the power is on!)

Lunch with new friends 

Lazy Day and Trek Day 5

So yesterday was a recovery day, in other words, a lazy day. (: We stayed in Ghoreponi and could sleep in (even though we still woke up at five because of time change). At our tea house we have this really good egg and yak cheese sandwich (which I had three times). All day we rested, walked around town, played Uno, and had tea. My favorite tea is definitely Mint Tea. It is not too bitter but not too sweet either and I can always rely on it being the same taste from tea house to tea house. Unlike lots of food items. 

    Some of the types of food is Dhal Bhat, which is rice with veggies- pickled and fresh, chicken, and curry sauce. That is what the porters (ones who carry loads up and down the mountain) and guides eat. They also use no utensils only fingers. Other popular things for lunch and dinner is- fried rice w/ veggies, soups, soups with noodles. For breakfast is usually eggs, gurung bread- sweet circular bread, and toast. While us is all really tasty it kind of gets repetitive after seven days. So a pepperoni pizza sounds pretty good now. Also, tap water isn't drinkable so we rely on bottled water most of the time, we have to brush our teeth with the bottled water too which is okay most of the times. I look forward to getting tap water at home. But all of this is definitely worth it.

     

      Another thing I'm looking forward to having is a nice bathroom with a toilet, a sink with soap, a warm shower, towels, and toilet paper. Only three out of the six teahouses we have stayed at have had a working and warm shower. It's definitely something we take for granted at home, so is a towel. Not one bathroom in a tea house has a had a towel for drying hands or after a shower, and we lost our one towel too... whoops!

   

      One of the best things about Nepal is the people. They are all very nice and are willing to go out of their way to help you. They almost always say hello (Namaste) and I always feel welcomed and comfortable even in a place so far from home. It's so so cool to hear them speak Nepali, it's a beautiful language and almost sounds like music. During our treks Kewal our guide has been teaching me a very small amount of Nepali, I can count to ten and say mountain, up, down, fast (which is cheeto) and slow. I am also working on animals- dog, cat, monkey, mouse, and rabbit. Ask me when I get back and I can show you. 

     Anyway, today we woke up well rested at 4:30 AM to hike to Poon Hill which is supposed to have really good views. It is an hour hike up and a mix with just waking up, altitude, and walking in the dark,  it was not easy. But finally we made it to the top where unfortunately it was a bit cloudy. But in five minutes the weather had completely flipped to crystal clear just in time for sunrise. We saw the sun, a bright orange color, peak from behind the mountain. It lit up the mountains and was the most amazing sunrise I've ever seen. You could see the entire Annapurna mountain range and the snow capped mountains. Breathtaking. We even got a view of a couple of the highest mountains in the world. It was also the highest up we would be on our trek. As we were watching the sunrise we met a woman from Iowa, small world. It's crazy how many people you meet and what there story is. 

      We hiked down, and got some breakfast, an egg sandwich and got hiking.  In total we hiked about seven hours today. 

     

     Before I came to Nepal I expected the treks to be amazing but look mostly the same. I was right that is was amazing but definitely wrong that the terrain would be the same. We have gone through forests, next to rivers and waterfalls, over bridges, on the sides of mountains with no trees, downhill, uphill, valleys, and ridges. All very pretty. We arrived in the village, Ulleri, to spend the night. We are the only people her so it's kinda fun. The power has been out for a while so we go by candle light at night. 

     Tomorrow is our last hiking day and we will arrive in Pokhara tomorrow. We are planning to go to some good restaurants, walk around town, and look at some shops. We will be there for a couple days before heading back to Kathmandu. 

      Thanks to everyone who has been reading so far, it's really nice to reflect on what has happened and a good way to remember what happened. Also thanks for reading all of this, it's a lot! (:

Trek Day 3-4

Sorry for the delay in blogs, the wifi has been very very bad but hopefully we should be able to post more regularly.

We left our tea house at about 9:00 AM and started to trek to Tada Poni (which means hot water in Nepali; there are hot springs there).  The start of our trek was a little hot but was okay.  We soon entered a forest which was cool, shaded, and very beautiful.  It was mostly just us the whole time too, except we ran into the couple that we played Uno with the night before!

We hiked the forest for about 2-1/2 hours until we reached Tada Poni.  We got into our tea house and had some lunch.  I had fried rice, but for some reason they put ketchup on it and it was really bad.  It was also very cold and everything was wet.  I felt so damp and chilled.  Not fun.  We wrapped up in our sleeping bags to rest and about an hour later I felt nauseous and uncomfortable.  For the next couple hours I had a little bug but we got it fixed with some meds.  It left me a little weak and not hungry at all.

Thankfully I fell asleep at 7:30.  Then at around 4:30 someone directly above us yelled then fell out of bed which was very very loud, and a tiny bit funny too!  I couldn't fall asleep afterwards but I wasn't really tired either.  We woke up and had some breakfast to get ready for a big day to Ghorepani.

Trek Day 4
We started our hike at 7:40 AM.  The hike consisted of lots and lots and lots of stairs next to a river, and through the forest.  About half way through we saw a wild monkey!  It looked kinda mean though.  We got to one part where there were lots of stacked stone statues and it was amazing.  We made one too.  Around then, we saw a lot of other trekkers coming down.  it was cool to see all of the different ages and nationalities.  We stopped in Durali for lunch.  As we ate, we watched a goat eat a mattress.  Yes, a goat eating a mattress.  It was pretty hilarious AND alarming.

The rest of the hike was on a ridge in the clouds.  Unfortunately it was cloudy so we didn't any view.  We arrived in Ghoreponi after 7 hours of trekking and are sitting in the tea house waiting for dinner now.

Five things I've learned about Nepal and trekking:
1.  You need patience - for trekking, airports, getting food in tea houses, internet, etc.

2. Do not expect bathrooms to be nice at all.  Most of the time it is just a hole, so bring your own toilet paper.  In one, there was a large clump of daddy long leg spiders.  it makes me shiver when I think about it!

3. No matter where you go, there is always Pringles and Coke - everywhere!

4. Trekking is easiest when thinking of how far you've gone, not how much farther you need to go.  It makes it so much more enjoyable and fulfilling.

5.  I prefer to go uphill instead of down.  Downhill is way more tiring!

Trek Day 2

We started the day in Ghandruk where we got to sleep in to about 8:00 am.  Unfortunately it was overcast so we only got glimpses of the mountains.  I had Gurung bread for breakfast, which is a bread that is sweet.  Very tasty.

We started to trek and about ten minutes into the trek, kewal brought us to a museum that showed us what a traditional Nepalese house looks like.  It makes me grateful for all of the modern appliances and tools we have today.

We hiked for 2-1/2 hours, mostly up stairs.  We saw almost no tourists, and unlike yesterday it was mostly just us the whole way.  There were many mules coming down though, it's funny, there are usually about 7-10 mules in a group and one mule just follows the path and all others follow it.  The human guide just stays back and keeps all the mules on track.  I bet if you just started the mule down the mountain they could make it the whole way alone.  We ascended about 1,000 meters today and finished our trek at 12:30 in a town called Kota Danda.

We are staying at a lodge with only two other tourists.  Thehotel owner has a daughter and she is about three years old.  Super adorable!  Her name is Gupsana.  She greeted us and I colored with her.  She loves to repeat things you say or do so you have to watch out.

Gupsana showing me some bunnies

While we were eating lunch she came and ate with us.  She ate half of her rice while she threw the other half on the floor.  Another time she was walking and decided to close her eyes.  She tripped on flower pots and fell.  It was scary at the moment but she was good 30 seconds after.  A good laugh.

We ate dinner with a young couple from Austria.  They are on a trip for three months starting with Nepal.  It was fun to hear their plans.  We also played Uno with them and my dad won every time!

So our original plan was to head up to the ABC (Annapurna Base Camp).  But Kewal has told us that there has been lots of snow whih leads to avalanches and rockfalls, He said he has also talked to groups coming down and ABC is just too risky to be worth it.   Instead we are going to Poon Hill which is supposed to have really nice views and we might even get to Pokhara a day early!

~Callie

(Photos to follow - can't upload great from the mountains :()  Posts may be slow too - like the internet!)

Trek day 1!

So today was a very very crazy day.

    We woke up in Kathmandu at 5:50AM to catch a flight to Pokara (only twenty minutes long)  Kewal,  our guide picked us up from our hotel to go to the airport. The plane was a propellor plane and could hold maybe twenty people. In the air I've got to say it was a little nerve racking because of turbulence but not too bad because that's when I got my first glimpse of the Himalayas. I saw one of the 8,000 meter peaks Mansulu. There are only fourteen 8,000 meter peaks (the tallest ones in the world) so that was cool. 

 

     We landed in Pokara and grabbed our bags and went to a jeep that that would take us to where we would start hiking. We also rode with our two porters that would carry most of our things to tea house to tea house. The car ride would be three hours long and here comes the 'fun' part. 

 

     The first part of the ride started low and paved which was okay, minor bumps, etc. We drove higher and higher and it was kind of scary looking down because at some points you were kind of on an edge of a cliff. Then about half way through the ride we turned to a road that was not even close to paved and was ridiculously bumpy. From there we drove higher and higher and the 'road' was very narrow. At points a big passenger bus would drive past us and it was very scary and unbelievable how it could fit. Keep in mind that on one side of the road was going up the mountain, a wall, and the other side was most of the time a steep drop. We were that way for about an hour and a half. We were rocking back on forth constantly. I was so thankful when we got to a little restaurant where we would stop, scariest car ride of my life. Also thankfully I did not get one bit car sick, if I was I would've been completely miserable.

    Once we got to the small restaurant this cute puppy followed us around and I named it Lunu. I wanted to keep it, so adorable.😍 I ordered fried rice and while we waited we taught Kewal how to play UNO. While we were playing five other Nepalese people came over and watched us and helped Kewal play. One of my favorite parts of the trip so far. The restaurant had nice views too. 

 

      We started to trek and today would be short, only about two hours. We walked on a stone path and climbed stairs most of the time. I saw cute chicks, mules, cows, dogs, a cat, and tiny birds. Very fun to watch. I also watch the locals literally run up the hill in flip flops, wow. We took two breaks and the views are incredible. Everything is just so big and tall. We then arrived In a villiage named Ghandrok and are staying in a tea house called Peaceful Lodge. We arrived at only 2:00pm, crazy day and it's not even over yet. Then that's where I am now, it's pretty amazing to finally be here!

 Porter carrying three duffel bags

~Callie

Day in Kathmandu

     This morning we woke up and ate some breakfast at the hotel. Afterwards Suvani, who works with the Book Bus / Quixote Cove project picked us up so we could go and drop off the books we had brought. We went to her office where we met others who work there and we talked about what the Book Bus organization was doing and what it had done. It was very cool to see what they are doing and I hope the books we brought are helpful!

       After the Book Bus went went to the office of the Himalayan Glacier (the company we are trekking with) to get everything ready. After we needed to grab some things so we got to walk around the street and WOW they are super chaotic and crazy. No sidewalks, dodging cars, motorcycles, and people. You need to be very aware of what's happening or something could go wrong. Most roads are the size of a large side walk and  cars, buses, motorcycles, bikes, and people all have to fit. There are many small shops with clothing, food, pashminas, souvenirs, electronics, etc. Also always honking going on, not really a mean kind of honk just a, 'I'm here', or 'go' honk. In the busy parts you can't go five seconds without hearing the high pitched honk, yes I counted. :)

     As we're we're driving in town I was looking around and I was very surprised when I looked up and a monkey was perched on the power lines. Also someone had hung there dripping wet laundry right over a crazy power line post. Another surprise was I was again looking out of the car window and saw a cow just sitting in the side walk, not expecting that.

      After waking around, we went back to the room to relax and nap. I actually woke up and asked when we should get ready for breakfast thinking I had slept through the night, it was only 5 pm, whoops. There is an eleven hour time change for you!

 

 

     For dinner Naba, who helped us get ready for our trek, his wife Goma and daughter- Jasmine, who is my age, and three other hikers (from Hungary, Dubai, and Poland) met at a pretty place in town. We watched traditional dancing and had Dhal Bhat- rice,veggies, and chicken or fish. It was tasty and really cool to talk to Jasmine and experience the dinner. When we were driving back to the hotel there was a lot of lighting and thunder and it started pouring as soon as we got inside. And that's where it leads to now!

~Callie

Jasmine and I