Before and After!

When we were reunited in Marpha - I didn't recognise the guy who knocked on the door for a few moments....

So after growing his beard Brian decided to get it shaved off, here are the before and after shots (as apparently there were no barbershops on the Annapurna circuit!!??)

(there are some extra photos in the last blog entry 'while brian was trekking' including a video of lorraine running off a cliff - with a paraglide!)

While Brian was trekking...

While Brian headed off for the ten day uphill hike of the Annapurna circuit, which is not exactly my cup of tea, Lorraine and I relaxed and went on a few adventures of our own before flying to Jomsom to meet Brian for the mostly downhill part, I'll come to the mostly bit in a while!

Lorraine, Emma and I at Monkey Temple, turning prayer wheels in last photo sending the prayers within the wheels out into the universe.

Chanting at Yoga Camp



We spent an extra couple of days in Kathmandu and went to visit the monkey temple, did some shopping and relaxing before heading to the lovely city of Pokhara where we checked into the 'Peace Eye Guest House', if anyone ends up in Pokhara call in and stay there, its fab. We did some sightseeing, some more shopping (one pashmina lady was delighted to see us) and chilling around town before spending 5 days at Sadhana yoga retreathttp://www.sadhana-asanga-yoga.com/index.html. Sadhana was fantastic, we met a great bunch of people there, and the owners Ashanga and Durga made us feel like part of their family, we even were referred to as 'big sister and little sister' most of the time we were there. Our days consisted of yoga, meditation, walks, chanting (singing), relaxing, eating the yummy vegetarian food and mud baths! Mud baths were an option and we managed to cover ourselves in mud almost every day! Skin felt fantastic afterwards.

Mud Bath


Nasal Cleansing!

Lorraine relaxing on the hammock outside our room

The mudbaths were on the roof of Sadhana and we watched the paragliders fly over, on day one we were thinking they were crazy, on day 4 we booked a flight. So after a morning of yoga, meditation, walk and nasal cleansing - pouring salt water through our nostrils for a few minutes, all before breakfast, we were sad to say goodbye to our friends at Sadhana, but distracted ourselves by running off a cliff!! 40 minutes in the air was great for the views, sense of awe at the strength of the wind and the skills of the instructors. It is now at the end of the paragliding season so the winds were a bit iffy for flights, I ended up crash landing after a thermal wind picked us up just before landing, all ok though! Then I looked up so I could see Lorraine land and no sign of her, her instructor had detoured to another landing field!!


Lorraine and her Guide on a detour after the great take off in the video above


Next day, we flew to Jomsom which was great. The flight is 25 minutes through the mountains and we were treated like first class, put in the front row where we could chat to the pilots who were seated just in front of us. This was a little nerve racking when they were chatting to us and we were watching the mountains just outside the window of the plane!



We did a few short trekking days before meeting Brian in Marpha. First stop there wasn't back on the trek but a Tibeatan refugee village and then an apple brandy distillery, strong stuff it was!! The trekking over the next few days was great, one day we got caught in a rain storm and I managed to fall into not one but two big mud puddles, Lorraine figured I missed the mud baths at Sadhana. One day involved a 6 hour uphill hike to the village beside Poon Hill (a hill at 3 times the height of Carrantoohill), the uphill bit of the Jomsom trek and then downhill day of 7 hours. I don't think I've walked that much in my life, could hardly move the next day, so Lorraine and I treated ourselves to a massage session in Pokhara (11euro for 1.5hours!).

Lorraine chatting to some some local kids

Brian giving me a helping hand


A nice cuppa on Poon Hill


see the chicken in his bag!!


One of the highlights of the trek was Lorraine being interviewed by a Nepalese woman as a future daughter in law, we'll get Lorraine to write about this bit!

negotiations begin for Lorraine

We were sad to say goodbye to Lorraine last week on the day of Munster's victory. We didn't get to see or hear the match unfortunately but delighted with the result. The Nepalese aren't into rugby - on one of our first days in Kathmandu we were approached by a tourguide touting his services. As an opener he asked where were we from and the conversation went like this:

TourGuide: So, where are you from?
Me: Ireland
TG: Oh, Ireland, I watched you in the World Cup last summer, you did really well
Me (a bit perplexed): Really? The rugby??
TG: No, the cricket!!!

Brian has written about the rest of our adventures in Nepal with some photos in the next post...

A Kingdom or a Republic?

First of all apologies, we haven't made a blog entry since May 3rd because...................................

we are having lots of fun in Nepal.

Secondly thanks to everyone who texted to see if we were ok, our last blog entry being from the earthquake region of Sichuan in China. Everything is fine. We had left China about 2 weeks before the earthquake occurred. Tomorrow we leave Nepal to go back to China.

We are in Nepal during historic times. The Maoist party are now in government following the elections in April and the king is abdicating his throne. So on the 25th of April we entered the "Kingdom of Nepal" but tomorrow we leave the "Republic of Nepal"!!! A strange situation to be in.

Ok, so for those who don't know Nepal is like one big adventure sport mecca. You've got the highest mountains in the world in the Himalayas, some of the best white water rivers in the world for rafting and kayaking, biking trails, paragliding, safaris and the list goes on and on.

So we arrived from China on the 25th of April and the following morning we met our friend Emma from Sweden, whom we first met two months ago(with her boyfriend Chris) during our mammoth journey from Laos to Cambodia.

We spent our first few days sightseeing around Kathmandu. The Kathmandu valley has the highest concentration of UNESCO world heritage sites in the world. First stops were to see the Durbar squares in kathmandu and Baktapur.

Lorraine (Jeanette's sister) arrived in Kathmandu two days later for a months holiday and we were very excited when we saw Lorraine coming through the arrivals gate at Kathmandu airport.

Then it was off to the Bhote Kosi river to do a 4 day whitewater kayaking clinic. Day 1 we were learning to do "Eskimo Rolls" at the resorts swimming pool. Good fun but a lot of water was swallowed and the following morning Jeanette, Lorraine and myself all woke up very sick. Not good. The two girls headed back to Kathmandu to recover. Not a good start for us in Nepal.

I decided to hang around and was able to get back on the river the following day. The Eskimo roll technique was honed further and I got a chance to try out some whitewater rapids. The other thing I got to try was travelling on the roof of a bus. Its something of a national pastime here in Nepal. Each day we would kayak a few km's down the river, pull the kayaks onto the river bank and head for the road. Then its wait patiently until a bus comes along, pile the kayaks and ourselves up on the roof and away we go again. The only thing is that there are a lot of low hanging wires around so you have to watch carefully so you don't get beheaded or electrocuted! Aside from that its a great way to see the surrounding landscape.

After the 4 days kayaking it was back to Kathmandu for a short stop before I started on the famous Annapurna Circuit trek (16 days of of trekking almost 300 kilometres and climbing over a 5,416 metre high pass). In Kathmandu I met my trekking buddy Tina, from Colorado and the following morning it was off on the bus to Beisishar, the village at the start of the trek.

The trek was definitely one of the highlights of the visit to Nepal. We met so many great people along the way, saw some amazing mountain ranges, ate a lot of Dahl Bhat (dahl bhat to the Nepalis is like potatoes to the Irish), and played alot of cards. See the photos below.

Once I made it over the Thorung La pass I was looking forward to seeing Jeanette and Lorraine in Jomson. Jeanette and Lorraine flew up to Jomsom to trek the last 8 days with me. Our last day trekking began with a hike up to Poon Hill (at 3,200 metres its hardly a hill!!!) Poon hill is a famous dawn vantage point overlooking the Himalayas - Annapurnas, Dhalguri, Machapuchare etc., these mountains are huge! See more photos below.



When we finally made it back to Pokhara we relaxed for a few days. I got my beard shaved off - see before and after photos (coming soon)!

Last Saturday we thralled the town looking for a place to watch the Heineken cup final. But no joy, so we ended up finding an Internet cafe to get text updates from the RTE website. It was a bit of a surreal experience being in an Internet cafe in Nepal and Munster after winning the final. I think the two of us wanted to jump and shout etc. etc. to celebrate but it would have been a little out of place. We decided to head for the nearest pub for a celebratory drink .......... but Pokhara had closed up shop for the night so it was back to the guesthouse - in one way feeling elated that Munster had won but in another way feeling unsatisfied that we couldn't join in in the celebrations. We could only imagine what the celebrations must have been like at home.

While I was doing the first 10 days of the Annapurna Circuit trek Jeanette and Lorraine headed to a Yoga and Meditation camp for 5 days where they did all sorts of things - asanas?, chanting, karma yoga??, mud baths!!!???? I let Jeanette fill you in. They also did a paragliding flight.

Lorraine left on the 28th of May to go back home ( we miss you Lorraine!). We spent another day or two in Pokhara and then headed south to Chitwan National park to do a little safari. It was a bit of an experience. On our bus journey down we came across our first experience of the famous Nepali "Bandh" or shutdown. In Nepal if you want to protest against something you block the highway. A huge traffic jam develops and then you play the waiting game until the protesters decide to close up shop for the night. I ended up passing the time by playing imaginary cricket with a 6 year old Indian boy. We spent most of the time sitting on the side of the road for almost 7 hours waiting for the roadblock to be lifted!!! Ouch. It took us 13 hours to reach our destination!

So the following day we were delighted to get out into the national park. We did an early morning canoe trip down the trip seeing a lot of the unique bird life, and also got to see some crocodiles or "Marsh Muggers" as they are know locally. Apparently this is where the word "mugger" in the English language originates from! The crocs have been known to prey on the unsuspecting locals whilst they come down to the river at dusk to wash. The locals get mugged by the crocs!

It was great to see the crocs but lucky us got to see two " one horned rhino's" chasing each other around the park. In fact you hear them before you see them. They are huge animals and they can move at some speed. Its currently their mating season so were quite aggressive. And our two guides were carrying around bamboo sticks to protect us, not very reassuring!

Later in the morning we got to bathing with the elephants in the river. See photos below. This was great fun. In the afternoon we went elephant trekking and we were very excited to see a mother and baby rhino in the jungle.



So we both left Chitwan national park with dreams of going on Safari in Africa. It was a great experience.

After Chitwan it was off to the lovely village of Bandipur to relax for a few days before heading back to the mayhem of Kathmandu.



Next stop is China for 2/3 weeks and then its off to Mongolia.

Ok, talk soon,

Brian