Embarrassed..

Maybe I should have started a new blog...

Old posts are embarrassing to read! I feel like I've aged 20 years in four.... Good to keep yourself grounded though, right?!

First Blog In Nearly 4 Years...

Hello old friend...

So I am not usually this bad at sticking to things but I wrote my last blog way over 3 years ago... Life in 4 years has passed by so quickly, I have a few more aches and pains (all from worthy causes) but my adventure experience has just sky rocketed since we last spoke!

I'm trying to find the words to say what I have done without sucking the life from your wonderful body!

Summing it up...

Had an awesome time on my travels around the world...then....Split up from my boyfriend... (Don't worry he was a douche)...the business I set up turned into a monster and is now my full time job... I'm closer to my friends and family more than ever... I moved to Preston with my new boyfriends (Don't worry, he's a prince)... I love being creative... I've travelled to Indonesia, the Gillies, Malaysia, Sigapore, Tunisia and The Philippines since my last update.... I work 7 days a week ( I'm a workaholic).... I love baking... I'm a bit of a fitness freak AND yoga has changed my life.

No sadly I haven't won the lottery or found a Great Uncle with a huge estate in Kensington but I am happy. Happier than I have ever been.

Anyway make yourself happier with some easy tips I use every day.

• Stop wishing you have what other people have got - Some people have nothing at all so be thankful.
• Smile at strangers - Smiles are contagious, I believe they make the difference to the world.
• Try something you've never done before - You regret what you've not done more than what you've done!
• Spend time with people who love you - Life's too short for those who are never there, if they are not bothered then that's their loss... K-sera!

Hopefully I'll keep up wit this and bring you guys some updates about the business, life, travels, recipes and adventures.

Or see you in another 4 years!

Onto Thailand and Thai Curries...

On the 27th August we arrived in Bangkok after a small delay of four hours. We were ready for a beer and a good meal as we hadn't eaten at all that day and it was coming on 8pm at night. After feeding our faces and enjoying a well deserved Leo beer we had a wander up the famous Khao San Road. It is everything you expect it to be....overpriced, tacky and extremely touristy. It's interesting to sit and people watch though, all ages, families, teenagers and even people in the late 60's upward. Hippies, The suited and booted and lady boys. Anything and Everything.

There's a lot to do in Bangkok and not for to unreasonable a price although accommodation, as in any city is overpriced and shabby. We had a great day out to the National Museum which was huge and housed everything from Royal Palanquin's to Thailand arts and crafts. It had over 25 rooms of which are feet gave up at about 22! We had a good look around the city of which streets are laced with jewellery stores, I do wonder how they all manage to survive with so much competition.

On Sunday 29th August we got the worst bus of my life to Chaing Mai, a pure 12 hours of torture. When you have got use to not having air con, an air conditioned bus is like sitting in the snow naked! I was freezing all night and every time I even imagined drifting off to sleep I woke myself up with a violent shiver. Next time I will be putting my fleece on!!!

Chiang Mai is beautiful with tonnes of things to do that don't cost you anything and over 100 temples filling the center. We have kept ourselves busy but Chiang Mai is to be short lived as we're moving on to Laos tomorrow. Unfortunately we won't have the pleasure of travelling with Chris and Ellie as they can't afford the extra travel and visa expenses. We will be no doubt meeting up after we have done Laos and we wish them happy travels and to stay safe, they will be very much missed.

So bring on Loas... Luang Phabang is our first stop but we have a full 18 hours of travel first!...;

Angkor Temples, Siem Reap - Cambodia

So I have finally got around to telling you about the beautiful Angkor Temples, this was one of the things Daniel and I were looking forward to most out of our travels and was most definitely worth every penny. We went to see them on Tuesday 24th August 2010.

We woke up early, 4.30am to be precise, still feeling dazed and confused I pulled on some clothes and washed my face. We heard a knock on the door which we weren't expecting. It was Chris he told us that Ellie was feeling slightly under the weather and she had decided to give Angkor a miss and do it the day after, so Chris and Ellie stayed behind and Daniel and I ended up going it alone, they were very much missed. The sky was still dark and the air outside was as cool as I had known it for quite some time. Our tuk tuk driver stood at our Guest house gate looking about as blurry eyed as us. We jumped in the tuk tuk and set off on our way in to the night that would be vastly approaching dawn within the next hour. There's something about seeing a town by tuk tuk while it's still dark and the streets are deserted, it already felt magical before we'd arrived at our destination.

After a quick stop at the ticket office we were soon arriving in the parking area of Angkor Wat. It was still pitch black out and we were pointed in the direction in which we were to head to catch the sunrise over the temple. Luckily for us Angkor Temples are still popular out of season and we followed a line of people that led the way, we hadn't thought to bring a flash light to guide our feet on the uneven pavement so it was handy to have a crowd to follow. As the sun rose slowly on the over the top of the Angkor Wat Temple it wasn't no way near as impressive as we might of hoped due to a slightly cloudy morning, however the atmosphere was incredible, the silence of so many people in anticipation, the sound of hens"cockadoodling" as the dawn broke and the tremendous presence of dragon flies each equally as beautiful and colourful that surrounded the air around the temples. The Angkor Wat Temple itself is a beautiful old building, which has been restored in parts. There are so many parts to explore and even just the first temple took Daniel and I nearly two hours to walk round. We visited about another 6 through out the day, my favourite being The Bayon. The Bayon is a building that you imagine seeing in Tomb Raider or Indiana Jones movie, a lost world of it's own. The temple has something like 50 towers on it each with huge carved faces, it has a green mould growing over the very old stone and plants that have wiggled there way through every nook and cranny. It was so hard not to be a big kid in this place imagining you'd found a lost world of your own.

The Angkor Temples are infinite with more than you could ever imagine taking in in a week, let alone 1 day! We have already said this will be an adventure for our future holidays to come!

We spent a few more days in the lovely Siem Reap before getting a bus to Bangkok, Thailand. Daniel and I did some wandering around, took in some local temples and even went up to the Angkor Childrens Hospital to donate some blood and they even gave us a free T-Shirt to say thank you. The journey to Thailand on the 27th August included a very tedious boarder crossing and a result of us arriving nearly 4 hours later than expected in Bangkok.....

Phnom Penh - Cambodia

Cambodia is a fantastic country, filled with both sadness and joy, a country that I would recommend to be visited by everyone at least once in their lives. This country has suffered tremendous loss within the last 40 years of it's life, a victim to mass Genocides and an unscrupulousness leader, Pol Pot. Visiting some of the places I have seen in this country has broken my heart, but yet the people stand strong and happy. It's a very kind country and honest in it's ways.

We visited the S-21 Genocide prison, this was the place that Pol Pot set up to torture thousands of innocent victims of Cambodia in attempt to learn any secrets from them, a pure act of evil. It was really emotional to think that all the rooms had been kept the same including the tiny sells they put prisoners in and even the tools they used to torture them. I think the hardest part of all was seeing the pictures that the Khymer Rouge had taken of all the victims. There were thousands of them, each picture you could see the true look of despair in the peoples eyes, the pleading, the longing for release. I wanted to reach out for them and save them but these peoples lives had already been wasted! So sad. We had hard work trying to cheer ourselves up but if the Cambodians can manage it then so could we. We stopped at a little cafe out on a dusty road and sat down for some vegetarian noodles, even though we didn't feel much like eating. The afternoon was rewarded with a visit to The Russian Market and The National Museum.

The following day we went out to The Killing Fields, I was not looking forward to this after my previous experience at the S-21 Museum but I went along as it needs to be seen to stop a tragedy like this happening again. The Killing Fields were tough, the mass graves were a plenty and some had still been undisturbed. People dumped in pits of up to 166 bodies, treated with the most disregard for a human life. Again it was heartbreaking. The afternoon we visited Phnom Penh temple which was nice to stroll around we needed a relaxing afternoon after the past few days.

We got to Siem Reap a few days ago, we have explored the whole town, sitting admiring the scenery, working our way through book after book and eating at a different place every night. It's extremely touristy though so we try and stay out of the main holiday makers part as much as possible. I hate the binge drinking travellers, they ruin the travel experience for me! I would of liked to stay and write about The Angkor Temples but the Internet cafe has had an influx of "Raaah travellers" and I can't stand to listen to them F and Jeff anymore so I'll write about that another day.

The weather is still great here and despite the supposed monsoon wherever we go, we haven't had much other than sunshine filling our day! Fingers crossed it continues this way and I hope at the same time that Europe gets to enjoy some sunshine this summer.

Bye for now England or to my German family... Auf Wiedersehn
x

Good Travels..Hong Kong & Vietnam

Ok so I have more than one country now to catch up with you from as using the Internet has been low on my priorities compared to seeing beautiful Vietnam, I am currently in Ha Noi in central Vietnam. For now I am going to cast my mind back to Hong Kong and tell you the basics.

We arrived in Hong Kong on 2oth July 2010, I have to say I was very much taken back by the high-tech airport, not one piece of rubbish anywhere and every surface polished to a high shine! Incredible, especially compared to some of the airports we've been use to, that aren't much more than a wooden shed in a field! After very much enjoying and indulging in a very expensive Starbucks we headed for the taxi rank. Again this was an experience in itself. When you've been away for a while you most definitely get use to having to haggle every price, being ripped off at any opportunity and having to carefully watch every possession you own. Hong Kong however, the taxis are metered, there's very few sales attempts and you don't have to worry about drinking the tap water! Quite a treat in itself! Although you pay the price. It cost me 8GBP for a Cesar salad! Also anyone going?! No matter what you think, the little entrees that come with most meals ARE NOT FREE! Learnt my lesson once or twice. Anyway everything about Hong Kong I loved. The super sized buildings with 2 million floors (Slight exaggeration). The very expensive clothes, the great air conditioning everywhere. All contributed to an extremely pleasant stay for the 5 days we were there. We visited Museums, took a boat across the harbour, walked down little streets and checked out the markets. We saw the Light Harbour Show and I have never seen so many colourful lights in my life.. However I imagined they probably felt how I feel about the illuminations, although lucky for me it's only once a year where as the poor people of Hong Kong have to deal with that every night at 8pm!

I will have to continue on quite quickly as there's still so much more to tell you, before I do I must inform you about our mission to find the cheapest accommodation in Hong Kong. This mission should have been named MISSION NEAR IMPOSSIBLE! We traipsed up and down building with all our backpacks until we turned into a sweaty mess, climbed stairs, waited for tiny lifts that smelt of urine and had to shout at a random guy that was almost begging us on his knees to look at his place (anyone that begs can't have good rooms, right?). It wasn't great, we settled in a building that on the ground floor was full of markets and by the fourth floor we found our place for the five days. Not a touch on the clean airport we had been at just minutes ago, this huge ugly building reminded me of some really scummy car parks in Blackpool when drunks had been sleeping there, at least it smelt similar! Our room wasn't to bad but it was tiny with bunk beds and a small double, an air conditioning machine possibly from the last century and no on-suite...gutted! We all managed well though and on leaving to Vietnam we were looking forward to some new accommodation.

Vietnam, Hanoi - Arrival of Vietnam all I really picked up on was how green it was, a beautiful lush country with lots of rice fields. Apparently we have landed in this fine country in peak season, so cheap accommodation hadn't been easy to come by and tourists have been a many! Hanoi is a typical Asian City, the markets, the street food, the crazy traffic and having to dodge hundreds of scooters to cross the road! It has had the cheapest beer I've come by which has been a treat because we haven't done much drinking on our trip so far. We walked around Hoan Kiem Lake and enjoyed reading our books on the benches close by, we visited a couple of Museum and organised all our upcoming travel through Vietnam and did some souvenir shopping. We also got to book an awesome trip to Ha Long Bay which was a very good investment!

Ha Long Bay, Vietnam - This is well worth doing for anyone who plans to visit Vietnam, that is as long as the weather is good! First day we met our group and travelled by mini bus to Ha Long Bay before we jumped on the boat. Our boat is what they call a "Junk Ship", an enormous almost pirate style boat with huge masts and shiny wooden surfaces from head to toe. As we climbed on board the ship had three levels to it, 1st floor bedrooms, 2nd floor for dining, 3rd floor for sunbathing. It sleeps 14 people so our group was a really good size.

Our table was made up for us and we enjoyed an 8 course meal of seafood and meats and of course they were great with the lads and made them vegetarian alternatives, while we set sail towards Cat Ba Island we all got acquainted and let our huge meals settle. The sun was beating down and there wasn't a cloud in the sky, the cool sea breeze was subtle but sufficient. The green sea reflected the sun and it shimmered like dancing diamonds. So fantastic. Ha Long Bay had hundreds of steep cliff like Islands and the view was so impressive already. We went to some caves which were beautifully lit and even got to jump off the boat that evening. The sea was as warm as I had imagined it would be. At night time our guide very kindly let us go for an evening swim, I thought this was very kind as I'm sure he was doing us a bit of a favour this was all in order to check out the Phosphorescent coral in the water. We all dived in and took in turns to wear the goggles, we headed to the back of the ship where it was really dark and in the pitch black air of the night we all waited in excited anticipation. It came around to my turn and I ducked my head under water, held my eyes open wide and as guided, I started swinging my arms around like a crazy person. This was quite incredible, at the edge of my skin the sparkle was bright and made the water shimmer with a fairy dust glow. I felt like Tinkerbell! It was insane and one of the most crazy experiences so far. It happens because the tiny coral floats in the water and when the coral is disrupted it glows and because there's millions of them it creates a really amazing effect!

I have to start getting faster at this typing...the next day we visited more caves, a shrimp farm and rented canoes. We two ed up and took them out without our guide who just pointed in the direction we should aim for. I really enjoyed it as we rowed through that beautifully green sea with the sun making it very hard not to want to jump out to cool down. We rowed for about 45 minutes until we came to this sweet little white sand beach,covered in beautiful shells. First opportunity we dived in the sea to cool down and it was like heaven.

"Dad if your reading this I got you some shells that I picked up off this beach, I thought you might like them towards the collection you already have".

The rest of the time in Ha Long Bay was equally as magical and I am filled with memories I will never forget! I would like to tell you more but I have to hurry soon as I have a bus to catch. The weathers taken a sharp turn here in the last hour and it's gone from glorious sunshine to dark moody skies, thunder and lightening and thumping rain, but still just as sticky hot. I'm glad to be moving on if it's going to rain.

We called through Hue on the way to Hoi An which was a bit nothing really. Daniel and I took a boat ride on the river and it was really nice but really Hue doesn't have much to offer so I'm glad we made a joint decision to pass through. Hoi An is awesome if you like your clothes, it isn't as cheap as it use to be so hard bargaining is definitely needed. I have invested in a winter coat tailor made with silk lining, 5 fitted shirts and 5 dresses all for about 70GBP not bad ay?! Daniel got a lovely fitted suit, a shirt and a pair of shoes designed by himself!

I will tell you more next time. Hope your all well. I miss you!

Last Days in Nepal....

Hi there,

It's going to have to be quite a quick and sloppy blog I'm afraid to say. We leave to Hong Kong in a couple of hours and I still have to enjoy my last bowl of egg thupka and momo's before we depart.

Nepal has been fantastic and my favourite country so far, I loved Pokhara which is West Nepal set beside a huge lake with beautiful mountain views and it has a certain tranquility about it especially when it's out of season!. I learnt to ride a bike in Pokhara... finally at the age of 23 and I impressed myself...although I fear I'm still shaking 6 days later!

Daniel and I are currently sat in the Kathmandu Guest House using their computers as they're the fastest and cheapest we've found in Thamel (it still takes an hour to upload 15 photo's). We fly to Hong Kong this afternoon but have a long wait at Delhi airport before we get our connecting flight. I'm intrigued to see what Hong Kong has install for us, the only thing I do know is that in the 5 days we stay there we'll probably spend more than we did the whole time we were in Nepal! So it's just a quick one to let you know that we're all well and enjoying our fantastic adventure!

x

Tamang Village Trek - Nepal

Day 1:

It was an early start of 6:30am, the butterflies were already doing somersaults in my stomach in anticipation of the trek. Binay met us at Siesta Guest House and we started our journey to the bus station. We walked through Thamel and the quiet streets that are usually manic any later in the day. After 15 minutes or so we came to the disorganised chaos that is a bus station. Transport of all shapes and sizes crammed in wherever possible and the intoxicating fumes of the old chundering engines made you feel dizzy! I'm so glad that Binay was leading the way as there was no way of knowing what bus to catch and it seemed that everyone just wanted to pull you onto their bus for the extra money...even when they were going in the opposite direction. We climbed aboard and found ourselves a seat, we were safe at last. The first bus was no way near as bad as I expected it to be and we stayed seated for an hour and a half before reaching Banapour where we we due to change after a small break at a cafe some samosas and milk coffee.

We shortly boarded the next bus that had a huge queue and I can only presume Binay must of tipped the bus driver a bit extra to reserve our seats, even then an older man headbutted Ellie out the way to get on the bus first... Don't worry it wasn't hard but a bit of a surprise never the less! We finally sat down and started to relax when even more people started to pile on, I thought the bus was full already as all the seats were already packed with adults and children sat on knees, the isle had people standing and even the roof had people on it but apparently that's no way near maximum capacity in Nepal as what seemed like a full class of school girls boarded, 10 large bags of rice piled up at the front of the bus, 3 huge baskets of tomatoes and even more people that clung to the side of the bus, including an elderly women in a sari who joined the rest of the people on the roof! Ellie and I had a quick estimate and bet on over 200 people! Impressive. Our porters then joined the bus with all our camping equipment and food! Just when you think it couldn't get any more packed!!!

We finally arrived at a town near Dulikhel in the Central Valley of Nepal east of Kathmandu, the weather was a sweltering 36 degrees and we were sat in what I can only describe as a shaded bus stop until the porters and cook were ready to sit us down to dinner, this is when the staring from the locals began, they were all very intrigued with us. We sat down to lunch in a stable type room on a plastic sheet in the corner out of the sun. Our guests for dinner included a lazy dog, a hen with 6 little chicks and a drunken man who wanted some tea. It was a very strange experience. After we joined the rest of our team, a group of 10 that were there just to look after us. Binay was our main guide and a very good friend, Raju - the secondry guide and a wonderful dancer, Basanta - Fantastic Chef and very charasmatic, Yoube Raj - Boisterous 15 year old commie chef, Bhim - Smiling kitchen helper and porter, Ramesh - Head Sherpa and excellent drum player, Ram & Laxhu Man - Happy twins and very hard workers and the last two were the youngest they couldn't be much older than 12 Ngama & Amrit who were also Porters. We were a bit gobsmacked that we had 10 helpers to just 4 people but on seeing all the equipment we needed we all understood why!

We had our first 3 hour walk with Binay and Raju along the rice fields, the weather was very warm even at 4pm and balancing on little mud walls in between paddy fields was a challenge to say the least. We walked for what seemed like miles until we came upon a very stoned holy man sat outside a Hindu Temple he was called Baba which means father in Nepali. We walked along a river and enjoyed the last part of the sun before heading part way up the mountain where the team had set up camp. It was a hard first day walk but nothing compared to what was to come, at dinner we sat on the mountain watching the clear stars and fighting off rather large flying bugs while we ate a home cooked pizza and enjoyed banana fritters for dessert. Our first nights sleep was horrendous filled with strange callings of the jungle, a hard ground and waking up half way down the tent due to the slant we had pitched on.

Day 2:

No rest for the wicked with a sharp wake up call at 6:30am after a sleepless night. A warm bowl of water was brought to our tents, this would be the only form of a wash for the next 4 days, good thing I showered just before we left! We sat down to breakfast at 7am and enjoyed some apple pancakes with honey and hot black tea. The local children had obviously heard us camping and had come to stare from a distance, this was something we very quickly got use to. This day was the hardest day by far as we had to scale the steepest part of the mountain. We set out at 7:30am in the extreme heat my face soon turned an interesting scarlet colour and many breaks had to be had accompanied by large gulps of water. Part way up we stopped at a locals house which literally consisted of one room, a bed, a table and a side table and we all sat down and tried the local drink "Chang". Chang is made from fermented flour and local plants and is very slightly alcoholic, it taste very sour and personally isn't my drink of choice but Daniel managed to guzzle down a whole bowl of the stuff! We carried on until we couldn't go any longer and took a lunch break at about 12.30pm.

We carried on up hill shortly after through jungle, corn fields and rice fields and an almost vertical angle. We climbed across small ledges with sheer drops by them but kept close to each other and took little breaks to take breathtaking pictures at every opportunity. After a very emotional and agonising 10 hours throughout the day we came to our camp for the night on top of the first part of the mountain top. It was really strange as you could look down at different mountain ranges either side of the mountain that we were already on top of and also easily see the walk that was in due course for the following day. The little village where we were had a small pond full of frogs and at night time the frogs covered the grass that we had camped on, one even jumped at Chris and Ellie's tent...."Well that wasn't there last night".... A better night sleep was to be had but unfortunately I wasn't feeling very well.

Day 3:

I woke up dazed and confused feeling awfully sick, as soon as I opened my tent I had 10 kids stood staring at me to watch my next move. The next move was grabbing the wash bowl quickly emptying it and throwing up a fair few times....I wasn't good this was followed by visits back and forward to the toilet tent much to my embarrassment and I very quickly became dehydrated and unable to stomach water. Everyone thought I must have got sun stroke the day before but I really can't remember much about the first part of the day apart from feeling extremely weak and really having to concentrate to put one foot in front of the other. Lucky for me it was an easy day of what was suppose to be a 2 hour walk.... this very quickly turned into 5 hours! Along the way Binay paid a medicine man to do a healing ritual on me, different but worth a chance. The old gentleman took a home made incense stick stuffed with herbs and spices, grains of rice in his right hand and a strange clay type soil in which whilst preforming a repetitive chant slowly poured it over me. Well a few hours later I was feeling much better although I think more than likely it was due to the Imodium and copious amounts of water that was more likely to be my healing medicine....who knows!

We set up camp this time in a small schools playground, which we were now wrapped in the white clouds that hovered near the summit. We sat in the schools classrooms to get out of the rain. The class room was nothing more than mud walls and an earthy floor and a couple of pictures pinned on the ceiling. We sat down to eat that night and Daniel ate an impressive 11 large momo's as well as dessert. The temperature being much cooler I finally got a decent nights sleep as well as the well needed rest.

Day 4:

Friday was my favourite day, I woke up refreshed from a good nights sleep and feeling back to my normal energetic self. We did the usual morning routine of wash, breakfast and then set out on our way. I wondered why this time Binay and Bisanta were carrying long wooden sticks with something in material in the end tied with rope. When I asked Binay what it was he simply said "It's the medicine stick"... "Medicine stick? For what?" I asked, and then there it was the word I could only describe as the worst possible word I could imagine to come out of his mouth...."Leeches" he said it so innocently...yeah just bloody leeches...blood sucking slugs! GREAT!

The rain began to pour down which brought the leeches out in force, I had by this point covered every inch of my clothes and exposed legs in deet and salt in hope to fend of the disgusting creatures. When we finally summitted I totally forgot about the leeches and we all sang and danced on top of the mountain, we were all so proud of ourselves and all we had to do was go down from there. We quickly headed off and carried on through the narrow pathways of the jungle where leeches stretched off every leaf in hope to catch a ride and a free meal, luckily Binay was never far behind with the medicine stick! We arrived at the cheese factory and sat down to eat, I saw the hugest worm of my life (3ft long or so) and thought to myself what mum would do if she saw it!!! After lunch we quickly moved on and I was glad to know that the rain had stopped and we were out of the leech territory, we had also acquired a couple of very loyal dogs that walked us to the next stop, Binay's Village!

On arrival at Binay's village two little boys crabbed Chris' hands and lead the way to Binay's home it was really sweet. Everyone was so lovely and welcoming and we sat down and shared what little words we could put together and Binay kindly translated the rest. Dinner was fantastic with some authentic Dal Baht and a massive cake for dessert which Bisanta our chef had baked especially to give us a goodbye send off! We spent the rest of the night singing and dancing before going to bed in a real house!

Day 5:

The trip down the rest of the mountain was tough, we all were covered in blisters and poor Chris barely had any shoes left as they had been shredded on the descent! We were totally miserable and ready for a cold shower by the time we hit the bottom, every part of our bodies ached and worst of all the lads and the porters hadn't even broken a sweat!! The bumpy car journey back went reasonably quickly and we were glad the we didn't have to injure another 5 hour bus ride! The shower I had when I got home lasted 1 hour and I am still aching total and no doubt will be again tomorrow! All in all a fantastic experience that I could never capture fully in a blog!

Patan Dubar Square - Nepal

Hello! I am doing quite well with all these updates, one of the advantages with the pictures taking so long to upload is that I have time to kill in-between! Yesterday we went to Patan Dubar Square which is just on the outskirts of Kathmandu and was highly recommended by the lonely planet. An early start of 8am for the coffee run before being picked up by our driver which is costing us a mere 2.00GBP a day each! He has this very sporty looking black car which seems extremely out of place in the dusty city of Kathmandu, arriving with his music blaring through the speakers, music such as Akon and Jamie Bieber...not exactly to out taste but hilarious never the less! A super nice guy as well, with little English but good interpretation!

We arrived in Patan with the sun beating down on us...not quite the monsoon season I was expecting after India. Patans Dubar Square is beautiful but very similar to all the other Dubar Squares with exception of it's incredible museum, a converted temple. We spent a few hours wandering round chatting and getting hassled by touts before jumping back into the then boiling hot black sports car to travel back to our guesthouse.

We spent the rest of the afternoon lazily soaking in the sun and enjoying browsing the shops before going out for a lovely dinner at the Yak (I hear it's Gary's favourite). Daniel also tried a traditional Nepali dish called Tungba, it's made of Millet and is brought to you in a huge wooden jug where you then have to pour boiling hot water over it and wait 2 minutes then repeat once empty...I personally thought it smelt and tasted a bit weird but the lads seemed to enjoy it!

Today we are preparing for the trek, packing, organising etc. Also I want to say a HUGE Happy Birthday to my wonderful friend LUKE! HAPPY BIRTHDAY PAL...sorry I couldn't get on line to say it yesterday!!

Goodbye for now....

Slow Internet!

The Internet here in Nepal is sooo slow! It's driving me completely insane! So anyway I thought I would have a quick rant on my blog about it...the pictures might take us several days to get anything near the amount we have taken and each day we are taking more. Please don't think it's my laziness.

Meeting Ellie and Chris at the airport and seeing their faces made my day on Wednesday! They were totally shocked! As a wise man said "it was executed with perfection". We are staying in the Siesta Guesthouse in Thamel, I love it, we are treated as family and everyone is so friendly here. Already I know I will be visiting Nepal again!

We have done the usual site seeing around Thamel and Kathmandu, the temples here are beautiful. The people are beautiful and the place....other than a bit polluted is beautiful.

On Tuesday we set out on a 5 day trek around the Kathmandu Valley where we visit local schools and local people, on the 2nd day we embark on a hardcore hike up a large hill and camp in the jungle in tents with Binay, cooks, Sherpa's and guide. I can't wait!

So far I have uploaded 15 photo's in 40 minutes! Just another 300 to go then :)

Nepal is more expensive than expected but that has been the same with everywhere and I can honestly say it has been 100% worth it's money!

Anyway I'm going to get back to the uploaded in the hope that only having one page loaded at a time may shorten the upload time...

x x