We are in a valley north of Mt Annapurna, the 7th highest mtn in the world, halfway thru our trek. we did not write last week because we had to postpone our trip to chitwan park. this was due to a protest by the local inhabitants about a govt caste designation policy. hopefully we can go there after our trek. we have been trekking up a valley for the past week and a half. we have gone over 100 km and 1800 m vertical. we have to ascend another 2000m over the next 3 days!! to get over the big pass, which is 17,500 ft. we are at Manang, which is the last big town before the pass. we have been spending 2 days here to acclimatize to the high altitude, but we are feeling fine so far because we have been taking out time getting up here. the scenery here is fantastic with all of the huge mountains, which are about 22,000 ft tall !!. we will try to post some photos after the pass.
Hope everyone is well.
Bridget & Patrick
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Friday, March 6, 2009
Good bye.
I am done volunteering now at the child centre and helping the teen ageers at the community centre with their english. I am emotionally exhausted from it all. But it was an amazing experience and I would do it again. The kids are beautiful and some have so much potential and I really hope they succeed in life. or else they will inherit the selling bananas on the street business. To see their smiling faces everyday and their little accomplishments made it worth while. when they all memorized 'may i go to toilet' and 'good morning miss' (that's what they call all their teachers)it made me so happy! And i wouldn't let then go to the bathroom if they didn't say it, we had a couple tense moments there! =)
I moved out of the Nepali families house and it was a bit of a tearful good bye. They are my Nepali family forever and i had to promise to come back very soon! I really loved living like a local. buying food at the market every morning, having tea all the time! Walking to work and saying 'namaste' to people i see every day. But there is so much more to see in Nepal. So this coming sunday we get on a bus and go to the jungle!
So good bye Kathmandu! Hello Chitwan!
I moved out of the Nepali families house and it was a bit of a tearful good bye. They are my Nepali family forever and i had to promise to come back very soon! I really loved living like a local. buying food at the market every morning, having tea all the time! Walking to work and saying 'namaste' to people i see every day. But there is so much more to see in Nepal. So this coming sunday we get on a bus and go to the jungle!
So good bye Kathmandu! Hello Chitwan!
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Here is a bit of news from Pat:
I have had a couple of very interesting weeks. Hired a guide who took me bird watching in the hills south of Kathmandu. He was very good and very nice, so we had a great day. He picked me up on his motorcycle in the dark at 6am and we zoomed thru the city and countryside as it woke up - great fun (& freezing!). The day in the hills was very good. We identified over 30 birds; very few of which I had seen on our last trip here. It makes such a difference when you are with an expert! We also had a bonus of a huge view of the Himalayas. Even at such a distance, it was obvious that they were much higher than we were!
Spent a morning with the Tibetan family which runs 'our' hotel. They said I was like part of the family, and I felt very honoured to be invited (I stayed at their hotel for a month on our last trip here, and have been almost a month here this time!) It was Tibetan New Year, which has great religious significance to Tibetan buddhists. The Dalai Lama had asked Tibetans to NOT celebrate this year, in protest of all the Tibetan protesters who were killed last year by the Chinese govt. So it was a quiet affair, just following them around as they prayed in a couple of monasteries, and did the circuit of the 2 huge stupas in Kath. I was blessed by the head Lama of one of the monasteries. We also visited the Dalai Lama's representative in Nepal.
Spent about 4 days so far working with the local consultant which is doing an engineering and rehabilitation plan of the rivers in the Kath valley for the Nepal govt. Most rivers are very badly polluted and there is no planning control on new building along their banks. I have been on 2 field trips: one to a site inside the city which has a Hindu temple and cremation site, and the other to a rural area upstream of all the pollution. The villagers there showed me around and explained how they wanted to divert the river back to its earlier course and then relandscape it. I tried to convince them to leave it in its present alignment because it would cause less damage and take less work, but they were adamant. Their property lines do not move with the river like in Canada, so the land owners want 'their' land back!
B has already described the day we spent with one of her family's relatives, a little girl who went through a coming of age ceremony. The day ended with a party to which only their closest relatives were invited (about 300!!) We were the only foreigners, so again I felt very honoured.
I have also been busy arranging the rest of our trip: a lodge in the middle of Chitwan Park - a dryland jungle, permits for the 4-week trek around Annapurna, and a whitewater rafting & camping trip down the Sun Kosi River.
I am living the life of Riley here: sleeping in, having breakfast on the hotel roof, doing day trips to the valley's 7 world heritage sites (which can be an adventure in itself!), and trying to communicate with the locals with my very rudimentary Nepal!
I hope everyone is well back in Canada.
- Pat
I have had a couple of very interesting weeks. Hired a guide who took me bird watching in the hills south of Kathmandu. He was very good and very nice, so we had a great day. He picked me up on his motorcycle in the dark at 6am and we zoomed thru the city and countryside as it woke up - great fun (& freezing!). The day in the hills was very good. We identified over 30 birds; very few of which I had seen on our last trip here. It makes such a difference when you are with an expert! We also had a bonus of a huge view of the Himalayas. Even at such a distance, it was obvious that they were much higher than we were!
Spent a morning with the Tibetan family which runs 'our' hotel. They said I was like part of the family, and I felt very honoured to be invited (I stayed at their hotel for a month on our last trip here, and have been almost a month here this time!) It was Tibetan New Year, which has great religious significance to Tibetan buddhists. The Dalai Lama had asked Tibetans to NOT celebrate this year, in protest of all the Tibetan protesters who were killed last year by the Chinese govt. So it was a quiet affair, just following them around as they prayed in a couple of monasteries, and did the circuit of the 2 huge stupas in Kath. I was blessed by the head Lama of one of the monasteries. We also visited the Dalai Lama's representative in Nepal.
Spent about 4 days so far working with the local consultant which is doing an engineering and rehabilitation plan of the rivers in the Kath valley for the Nepal govt. Most rivers are very badly polluted and there is no planning control on new building along their banks. I have been on 2 field trips: one to a site inside the city which has a Hindu temple and cremation site, and the other to a rural area upstream of all the pollution. The villagers there showed me around and explained how they wanted to divert the river back to its earlier course and then relandscape it. I tried to convince them to leave it in its present alignment because it would cause less damage and take less work, but they were adamant. Their property lines do not move with the river like in Canada, so the land owners want 'their' land back!
B has already described the day we spent with one of her family's relatives, a little girl who went through a coming of age ceremony. The day ended with a party to which only their closest relatives were invited (about 300!!) We were the only foreigners, so again I felt very honoured.
I have also been busy arranging the rest of our trip: a lodge in the middle of Chitwan Park - a dryland jungle, permits for the 4-week trek around Annapurna, and a whitewater rafting & camping trip down the Sun Kosi River.
I am living the life of Riley here: sleeping in, having breakfast on the hotel roof, doing day trips to the valley's 7 world heritage sites (which can be an adventure in itself!), and trying to communicate with the locals with my very rudimentary Nepal!
I hope everyone is well back in Canada.
- Pat
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