Couple in Cleats

31/03/2020

11-12.11.19
Saying our goodbyes to Bri and Moose, we returned to Kathmandu and settled into an afternoon of tasty food and catching up on family messages, Instagram, and route planning (even on the road, the admin never stops!) at a lovely café recommended by Bri. We enjoyed meandering the tightly packed, busy streets, and with another good night’s sleep under our belts, we relished another restorative (if possibly unneeded) curry breakfast. The next day’s amusement was provided courtesy of the Kathmandu post office, from where we posted a few family birthday treats - but only once they’d all been opened and poked through by a surly customs officer, resealed, double-wrapped in linen, and secured with red sealing wax by a second chap outside the main booth. This job eventually ticked off our list, we spent the rest of the day wandering the streets again, skirting ongoing repairs from the 2015 earthquake, admiring glowing temples, and enjoying how the shopping streets came alive in the early evening as the non-tourist shops threw open their doors, streets filled with tides of bustling shoppers and motorbikes, pavements became temporary market stalls, and at least one ingenious family revealed that the front window of their home doubles up as a local butchers.
@ Kathmandu, Nepal

26/03/2020

10.11.19
‘We will remember them.’
A Remembrance Day service was held at the Gurkha Museum, just outside the British Camp on Sunday morning, preceding the annual, two minute silence at 11am. Emily donned a formal saree loaned by to match her and the other Camp wives, serendipitously finding herself in Regimental colours. Ever since they shared a room at uni Ed and Sandy have been much of a muchness size-wise, and in Sandy’s absence Ed relished the opportunity raid his wardrobe and wear a smart shirt, suit, tie and proper shoes for the first time in months, and thus thanks to S&B we both managed to scrub up and dress rather more respectfully than our tatty travelling gear would have allowed. A delicately handled, moving service followed, observed by members of the Pokhara public, current officers and soldiers alongside many retired Gurkhas and their families in the surprising heat of the late morning. The service included a sobering list of all Gurkhas lost in recent combat, including a close peer of Sandy’s, whose parents and sister had flown in to remember him personally and to open a school in his memory.
A drinks reception followed, then lunch for many of the amassed crowd in the Officers’ Mess. We were taken a little by surprise when it turned into rather a boozy lunch to reminisce about, and celebrate the lives of and raise many a glass to those lost, among other chit-chat, the best beer we’d had for a while and a wonderful treat of G&Ts. An entertaining ‘shell shot’ with an accompanying set of rules of engagement hung next to the bar: an optic of mystery whisky hidden from the consumer in a used shell casing, with the main premise being that shots were almost always free, unless yours proved to be the end of the whisky, when you’d have to buy the next bottle, whatever the price! We avoided the risk, and continued to enjoy our beers, G&Ts and the many tales being told until the early evening, when we retired to the house with Bri to ‘restore’ ourselves with takeaway pizzas 😅🍕
@ Pokhara

25/03/2020

09.11.19 Pt 3
Seats on the bus were at a premium, but while a very kind gent gave up his seat for Emily and squished himself onto a bench up front, Ed had to lie on the floor in the aisle propped against his bag 😅 With music blaring from the front and enthusiastic singing from the back, it was a fun experience - or it was, until a 5 minute tea break turned into an hour! The initially friendly conductor (of sorts) regularly dismounted the moving bus to assist when we met oncoming jeeps on the narrow rocky road. Approaching Pokhara hours later however, he tried to squeeze Ed for the same price as the jeep on behalf of us and our German friends, despite charging people further back on the bus less! Ed stood his ground however and paid closer to local price, resisting the conductor’s endless hovering and muttered requests for more cash - an effort made easier on our part by the fact that we had no more money and indeed had already had to borrow some off the German ladies, with the promise of a Paypal transfer on reaching Camp. 😅🤦🏻‍♀️
With our wallets empty, we finished our hike by returning from the bus stop to Camp on foot, much to the irritation of local tuk-tuk and taxi drivers, arriving to ’s wonderful hospitality with butter chicken ready to be devoured, comfy sofas and American trashy TV on and in front of which to pass out, and an eager Moose ready to be cuddled.

24/03/2020

09.11.19 Pt 2
Returning to our bustling hotel, we packed our backpacks (still enjoying the novelty of them not being panniers!) and enjoyed our pre-ordered, cooked breakfast and toast, complete with peanut butter ‘borrowed’ from a fellow diner despite not being on our preorder - such rebels! 🙊 We began our final descent to the south, autumnal shades aplenty in a quiet and peaceful gorge littered with waterfalls, opening out into a wider valley adorned with colourful houses, plenty of goats and sheep, more super-strong porters, agile packhorses, several thousand stone steps, and a bridge or two for good measure.
With directions acquired from a local to a bus stop area of sorts, we descended a few more (hundred) steps for good measure, and discovered a pair of German ladies also heading to Pokhara, talking to a local jeep and driver. They had negotiated only a little to no avail, so Ed tried in vain to battle the very high asking price for the jeep down to something more reasonable that we could split between four. Negotiations came to a halt however as the local bus arrived and all four of us jumped on that instead. Just before the bus pulled away, the disappointed jeep driver muttered something through the window to the bus driver & bus conductor...

23/03/2020

23/03/2020

09.11.19 Pt 1
Waking at 04:15 for the dawn hike up P**n Hill was entirely worth it. Ascending in the pitch dark with our head-torches on, we enjoyed the sense of camaraderie with the other view-seekers sharing the climb up the many tourist-friendly, stone steps. Reaching the top just ahead of sunrise, armed with cups of delicious milk tea, we were met with breathtaking view after breathtaking view of Annapurna South and its friends. Utterly spectacular, a once in a lifetime experience, and our photos really don’t do it justice.
The hill’s namesake, Major Tek Bahadur Pun, a British-Indian Gurkha, was an inspirational gent who loved sharing the views from this hill with as many as were (and are) willing to join him - see text in the final photo. It was a pleasure to know we were sharing the views with someone who had such an impact in Nepal.
@ P**n Hill

18/03/2020

We finished our misty descent, emerging from the fog into the village of Ghorepani under its colourful welcome arch, and the clouds finally parted very briefly to give us a small taster of the Annapurna (or Dhaulagiri - we didn’t know which!) mountains ahead, before we inhaled a delicious dinner with a couple of local beers and enjoyed a game of Pass the Pigs, borrowed from Sandy and along with all of hiking our gear, before passing out ourselves.

#🐷🐷 @ Ghorepani

18/03/2020

08.11.19 (2)
Crossing over the highest point of the trek, Deurali Pass at 3,200m, we enjoyed an ethereal descent towards Ghorepani surrounded by opaque white mist that made the walk feel eerily similar to walking in the UK’s Lake District rather than central Nepal - or would have if it weren’t for the beautifully colourful prayer flags lining our route, fluttering in the wind.

18/03/2020

08.11.19 (1)
Rising early, Ed tried to take some dawn photographs of the mountains, but disappointingly the clouds didn’t quite play ball and so he had to join Emily in waiting for the next day, from further along the trek. Following a filling hikers’ breakfast, we set off early (ie. before 8) descending steeply down winding cobbled steps to the adjacent valley and then up the hairpins on the other side. Any complaints of fatigue felt a bit daft in light of the passing porters’ efforts, who carried gas canisters, supplies, other trekkers’ large backpacks and other bits and bobs, all strapped together in packages of what looked like 40kg+, and then hung only from a head strap with the weight borne by bending 45 degrees at the hip. One man even had two large, wheeled suitcases strapped up and slung on his back! Deeply impressive strength of both body and mind.
We climbed all morning through pretty gorges cut by mountain streams, stopping once for ginger, honey and lemon tea (somewhat alleviating Emily’s new, pre-COVID19 cough.) Lunch was demolished at a small mountain cafe, where we left the rucksacks to climb to the small Hill Tower View still in the hope of finding a sneaky peak of the mountains but sadly, being after midday, the clouds blocked the best bits - earlier would have been better apparently. Discovering four Broadband engineers playing ‘Gangnam Style’ from a laptop at the top, and two rather sweet buffalo calves on our descent to retrieve the packs, were at least a small recompense.

30/01/2020

(Nov 2019)

Cylindrical prayer wheels which, according to the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, have much the same effect when spun as orally reciting the prayers, and which are used to build good karma and get rid of bad. Apparently they were also used “to facilitate those illiterate to chant the sutra” and get the same benefits the literate enjoyed through reading the sutra. Ed on the other hand was simply too tired from hiking to read. 😂

30/01/2020

(Nov 2019)

With Sandy having slipped away to Eastern Nepal for work and with our trekking permits in hand, we were ready to head to Annapurna for a few days hiking to burn off the relative excesses of the previous three days. Hopping first into a taxi led by one of Sandy’s peers on a motorcycle, we transferred to a local shared jeep and jumped in, taking up the longitudinal bench seats in the boot. A bumpy 4 hour ride on wonderfully shoddy, muddy roads and tracks took us to Ghandruk, the start of our trek. After a quick lunch of the local roll specialities, we were temporarily lost in the maze of alleyways and steps but managed to escape and hiked the 6.5km up a steep track to Tadapani, with only a few goats, sheep and their shepherds for company, reaching the top just before sunset. Sandy had made it clear how much to haggle down to for our beds for the night, but the price was already good enough as we had arrived late enough that the owner was happy to take anything, especially as we promised to eat dinner in his 1st floor dining space. Taking a seat on two of the long benches lining wooden tables and with Emily’s back to a wood burning stove, we enjoyed some simple yet calorific food, in preparation for day 2 of our 3 day trek. Tucked inside sleeping bags in a very simple stone-built, white-washed room, and with tired legs, we were quick to fall asleep.

29/01/2020

The next three days were a holiday from holiday, with a comfortable bed to British comfort levels, with correspondingly good sleep, delicious breakfasts, safe tap water, vegetable markets, time with Moose the resident golden labrador, cups of tea, buckets of red wine, local fermented millet-based Tongba with sides of buffalo, 5* dal bhat and Bloody Marys at ‘Tiger Tops’ restaurant overlooking the valley, pesto panini and outdoor evening cinema in town, film nights and Netflix slobbing on the sofa until late, oh, and more wine. They even laid on heavy rain for us - we felt so at home and had a marvellous time catching up with Sandy and !