Hey Everyone,
How's it going? Well, after 3 months, I'm now on my own, Gerry left to go on a 12 day trek yesterday.
When we got to Kathmandu, we decided to rest for a while, cause after China, it felt like a vacation. We could order food in english, listen to Bob Marley and Sting (everywhere I've been, local bar and restaurant owners seem to think that that's all we like), eat western food (although we did stick to local stuff). So for 5 days we did nothing but stand in lines for visa extensions, trekking permits, relax.
After Kathmandu, we came here to Pokhara for a 5 day raft trip down the Kali Gandaki. The rafting started out like a jeep trip in Mongolia, The first day, about 10 minutes down the river, the supply raft wrapped itself around a rock, It took us three hours to get it free, half of the people on the trip had to go to across the river with a rope to help pull it free, Then maybe another 100 metres down, the frame popped of the supply raft (l guess weakened from being stuck in the rapids) and so some of our supplies started floating down the river.
All of us were down river from this accident, so all we saw were tomatoes and other stuff (fortunately no beer) floating by us, not a good sign. Also all the eggs were lost (and they were all stored in the same raft...). By the time this was straightened out, it was dark, so we set up camp in the dark, probably 250m from where we had put in that morning, I figured all we needed now to complete the day was rain, it rained. Then me and Gerry made the mistake of telling everyone our Mongolia trip, so then we were blamed as being bad luck, (even though me and Gerry knew that it was the other people on the Mongolia trip who were bad luck.) But the next day more supplies were sent down, we got a new supply raft driver (?) and everything was fine after that.
The 4th day was pretty calm on the river, so I got to try kayaking for a couple hours. It was way fun, I got addicted, so now I'm doing a kayak trip from Nov 1 - 5. The first day is on a lake where we learn stuff, then we head down the Seti River. On the last day there's Class 3s, that should be fun.
On the 5th day we had a couple Class 4+'s, ours was the only raft to go over. This was after the night before when we bragged that we were the only raft (out of 4 on the trip) not to have any swimmers yet. We called our raft Mr. Wolf, cleaning up after everyone's messes, Then we flipped. Oh well.
A couple days ago I climbed up Sarangkot (about 1800m) to stay the night, cause it hs amazing views of the Annapurnas (mountain range) and of Pokhara by sunset and sunrise. It was the only cloudy morning I‘ve seen here so far. Coincidence? I'll tell you about coincidence. Gerry carried around a set of darts for 3 months from Germany to here, and finally decided to get rid of them in Kathmandu, cause we had used them exactly zero times. The next day here in Pokhara we found a bar with a really nice dart board.
Oh yeah, before I came to Nepal, I knew nothing about it, I figured I'd just do a trek or two. Now I’ll be here for around 45 days, and do everything but trek.
I need sports news! How are the Leafs doing? Better than Montreal?
How are the Raptors doing? Did Chicago keep their team together for another season?
Big Mac Combo Update:
None here. No chains at all of any kind (except DHL express)
Anyways, I'm just hanging out here for a couple days until my kayaking begins. Life's rough.
Love Eric (or Eric)
Wednesday, October 29, 1997
Tuesday, October 14, 1997
Kathmandu, Nepal
Hey everyone,
So Kathmandu is nothing like I expected. I thought it was cold and there was nothing to do but trek, but it's amazing! In Kathmandu it goes up to about 25 C (that's about high 70s for you non-metric people) in the day. There's white water rafting (we're going on a 6 day trip soon), elephant safaris, cool villages and markets. Also trekking. I could spend months here.
We seem to be giving the impression that all we do is drink. Some of you may be wondering why we just didn't stay home and do a round-the-world tour at Milwaukee's (that's a bar in Toronto that has about 150 beers from around the world). So in this message we won't mention beer anymore.
Later today we're going to a slide presentation from one of the Rafting companies. Normally we wouldn't go to boring slide shows, but they're serving unlimited rum and cokes. It should be good. Yesterday we went to a similar one from a different company, also cause they gave away free rum and cokes.
Hmm, I could use a BEvERage.
Last we wrote were in Shanghai. Life's been fairly uneventful since then, no major accidents, no one's got lost or missed trains. We've even been fairly regular. After Shanghai, we wanted to take a boat cruise to HongKong, but that service has been cancelled. (so we took a train). Then, in HongKong (China), we went to a Chinese embassy to get a visa to enter a country we were already in. Does this make any sense? Cost us 30 bucks too. HongKong hasn't really changed much since I was there last (2 years ago), but then that's only from a tourist view. One resident we met said the only thing that's changed is the colour of the mailboxes.
Next we went to Macau. We thought we would go in the middle of the week cause it's not as busy (read cheaper), we managed to hit China National Day and so it was busier than ever. We really liked Macau though. It's much more European than HongKong. Also good cheap red wine (imported from Portugal). We did the tourist thing and went to a casino, Gerry lost, I won.
Then we wanted to take a boat on our way to Yanghuo via Guangzhou, but that's been discontinued as well. So we took a bus. Then a boat. Then a bus. Ended up in Yanshuo at about 3:00am. All the hotels were booked up, there was a group of 8 people outside a bar, who were going to stay up till 11:00 hoping to get a room in the morning (they had arrived shortly before us). We decided to do the same, so spent the next 8 hours in delightful conversation. At 11:00 we got a room (don't read into that), slept a bit. Then we got up, went to the same place and had some more delightful conversation. We didn't really like the town cause there were far too many tour bus groups there (Gerry's impression of a tour group person 'Hey Frank, didja see this over here' (read it in a slow drawl)). So we got the next available train out (had to wait a day).
Three buses, a train and 48 hours later we were in Chengdu. The only reason people go to Chengdu is to fly to Lhasa (in Tibet) However, we really like the place.
So then we were in Lhasa, courtesy of China Southwest Airlines (anyone know if I can use that for Aerolplan?) (I may just send them the flight coupon to mess them up). A really good flight, new plane, even got served an in-flight meal and got english newspapers! Lhasa is the home of the Tibetan monks, or what's left of them after China liberated Tibet (that's the Chinese official description) (we would use other verbs). Our major reason to go there (to the disappointment of many other people we met) was to the do the 'once-in-a-lifetime' (LP description) Lhasa to Kathmandu crossing by land. We did see the major sights in Lhasa, then started the 3 day journey by bus to Kathmandu.
The crossing was pretty cool. We did get altitude sickness, cause we had flown in from pretty much sea level, and the crossing reaches 5200 metres at its maximum. But after the pass, it's almost a straight drop down to 500 metres in Kathmandu. That part was cool. We did get our cheapest room yet the second night of the trip, 10 yuan ($1.25 US) for a double, and it wasn't too bad.
So in Kathmandu, we ran into Eileen and Kirsty (you may remember them from our little adventures on the jeep trip in Mongolia). They have a much better story of their Lhasa-Kathmandu crossing, their driver was a litle careless/dangerous, and managed to roll the vehicle off a 20m drop (and rolled it six times). Fortunately no one was seriously hurt, although one passenger had to be taken to a hospital. We thought about doing the rafting trip with them, but we're not sure if we should wait until we up our insurance policies.
BigMac Combo research:
HongKong 17.30 HKD, 5.6 HKD = $1 US
Macau Never visited one.
We'll let someone else do the math, apparently (as pointed out by Roach) our math skills have deteriorated (I hear delightful conversation kills brain cells).
Toilet Update:
We're still regular.
That's about it, now we're off to have some delightful conversation.
Love Eric and Gerry (or Gerry and Eric)
So Kathmandu is nothing like I expected. I thought it was cold and there was nothing to do but trek, but it's amazing! In Kathmandu it goes up to about 25 C (that's about high 70s for you non-metric people) in the day. There's white water rafting (we're going on a 6 day trip soon), elephant safaris, cool villages and markets. Also trekking. I could spend months here.
We seem to be giving the impression that all we do is drink. Some of you may be wondering why we just didn't stay home and do a round-the-world tour at Milwaukee's (that's a bar in Toronto that has about 150 beers from around the world). So in this message we won't mention beer anymore.
Later today we're going to a slide presentation from one of the Rafting companies. Normally we wouldn't go to boring slide shows, but they're serving unlimited rum and cokes. It should be good. Yesterday we went to a similar one from a different company, also cause they gave away free rum and cokes.
Hmm, I could use a BEvERage.
Last we wrote were in Shanghai. Life's been fairly uneventful since then, no major accidents, no one's got lost or missed trains. We've even been fairly regular. After Shanghai, we wanted to take a boat cruise to HongKong, but that service has been cancelled. (so we took a train). Then, in HongKong (China), we went to a Chinese embassy to get a visa to enter a country we were already in. Does this make any sense? Cost us 30 bucks too. HongKong hasn't really changed much since I was there last (2 years ago), but then that's only from a tourist view. One resident we met said the only thing that's changed is the colour of the mailboxes.
Next we went to Macau. We thought we would go in the middle of the week cause it's not as busy (read cheaper), we managed to hit China National Day and so it was busier than ever. We really liked Macau though. It's much more European than HongKong. Also good cheap red wine (imported from Portugal). We did the tourist thing and went to a casino, Gerry lost, I won.
Then we wanted to take a boat on our way to Yanghuo via Guangzhou, but that's been discontinued as well. So we took a bus. Then a boat. Then a bus. Ended up in Yanshuo at about 3:00am. All the hotels were booked up, there was a group of 8 people outside a bar, who were going to stay up till 11:00 hoping to get a room in the morning (they had arrived shortly before us). We decided to do the same, so spent the next 8 hours in delightful conversation. At 11:00 we got a room (don't read into that), slept a bit. Then we got up, went to the same place and had some more delightful conversation. We didn't really like the town cause there were far too many tour bus groups there (Gerry's impression of a tour group person 'Hey Frank, didja see this over here' (read it in a slow drawl)). So we got the next available train out (had to wait a day).
Three buses, a train and 48 hours later we were in Chengdu. The only reason people go to Chengdu is to fly to Lhasa (in Tibet) However, we really like the place.
So then we were in Lhasa, courtesy of China Southwest Airlines (anyone know if I can use that for Aerolplan?) (I may just send them the flight coupon to mess them up). A really good flight, new plane, even got served an in-flight meal and got english newspapers! Lhasa is the home of the Tibetan monks, or what's left of them after China liberated Tibet (that's the Chinese official description) (we would use other verbs). Our major reason to go there (to the disappointment of many other people we met) was to the do the 'once-in-a-lifetime' (LP description) Lhasa to Kathmandu crossing by land. We did see the major sights in Lhasa, then started the 3 day journey by bus to Kathmandu.
The crossing was pretty cool. We did get altitude sickness, cause we had flown in from pretty much sea level, and the crossing reaches 5200 metres at its maximum. But after the pass, it's almost a straight drop down to 500 metres in Kathmandu. That part was cool. We did get our cheapest room yet the second night of the trip, 10 yuan ($1.25 US) for a double, and it wasn't too bad.
So in Kathmandu, we ran into Eileen and Kirsty (you may remember them from our little adventures on the jeep trip in Mongolia). They have a much better story of their Lhasa-Kathmandu crossing, their driver was a litle careless/dangerous, and managed to roll the vehicle off a 20m drop (and rolled it six times). Fortunately no one was seriously hurt, although one passenger had to be taken to a hospital. We thought about doing the rafting trip with them, but we're not sure if we should wait until we up our insurance policies.
BigMac Combo research:
HongKong 17.30 HKD, 5.6 HKD = $1 US
Macau Never visited one.
We'll let someone else do the math, apparently (as pointed out by Roach) our math skills have deteriorated (I hear delightful conversation kills brain cells).
Toilet Update:
We're still regular.
That's about it, now we're off to have some delightful conversation.
Love Eric and Gerry (or Gerry and Eric)
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