Hello again! We’ve come back from the mountains to Kathmandu and I picked up a nasty souvenir: a hideous vomiting bug that’s had me pretty much crippled. I’m hoping it’ll have cleared off back to wherever it came from by tomorrow. Apart from that it’s been an amazing few days – tiring as hell hiking up and down near-vertical slopes, but wonderful none the less.
We trekked up to a lovely village called Nangi, where we saw kids working on make-shift computers in wooden boxes, and a new tree plantation scheme, met lovely lovely people who made us so welcome. Every village we passed we we greeted with “Namaste! Namaste!” by hoards of kids delighted to see strangers from the West. And we were delighted to see them, so it all went very well.
We went up to around 3400 metres, at which point I went a bit odd and headachy-drunk, so we took diamox and descended to a wooden lodge in the forest.
The next night we stayed a few kilometres’ hike away in a village called Tikot, in a lovely family’s house. They cooked delicious Dhal Baat for us ( lentil broth with rice and vegetable curry) and then enetrtained themselves (and us) with local songs accompanied vy the drum. Nick took video but we haven’t uploaded yet.
Then it was a steep descent (oo, my knees) to the river and the town below befor making our slow way back to Kathmandu.
There’s so much more to say, but I am sick as a dog that’s very sick indeed and so I have to crash.
Wandering Gaia 