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...
