Nepal!

Although it's been a hectic month I have at least been spared the stress of the Christmas build up and running around buying presents!

After Myanmar I came to Nepal by plane and landed in Kathmandu. I spent a few days in the city seeing the sights and relaxing with people I had met in the hostel. We sat in the public gardens, ate great food and explored the famous temples. There was the first elections taking place for years and there were political rallies and parades on every street corner, park and from the back of trucks. With over 200 political parties to choose from it was a hard choice for a lot of Nepali people. Plus the communists were blowing up some public buildings and setting busses on fire! It was a very interesting time to be in the capital!

     

    

From there we took the bus through the mountains and rice fields to the city of Pokhara which is the place where most people who go trekking in Nepal use as a starting place. We decided to walk the Annapurna Trail which is a 120 mile circuit around the Annapurna mountains in the Himalayas. We took a jeep to the starting village along a road 3 metres wide cut into the side of a steep gorge with a river at the bottom and a 150 foot drop on the side. We started walking and followed the river along the gorge and over a number or dodgy looking rope bridges. There were massive snowy mountains surrounding us and every few miles there was a tea hut where we could buy cups of hot yaks milk to warm us up. We were allowed to sleep in the tea shops provided we ate a meal or two there. The nights were so cold because we were so far above sea level that it was difficult to sleep.

   

After 7 days we finally reached the 'high point' of the Annapurna circuit - the Thorong Pass. At over 19,000 feet above sea level its the highest mountain pass in the world. We set off at 4am in the dark so we could make it over before sunset and by about two thirds of the way up I was starting to feel light-headed due to altitude sickness. For all of us it was a struggle to keep moving and you had to concentrate on using the least amount of energy by taking small and slow steps so we were barely moving. I was dizzy, disorientated, found it hard to think straight and had to breathe about 4 times the regular rate just to get enough oxygen into my lungs but even this wasn't enough and I kept thinking I would pass out. It was one of the scariest moments of my life because I was sure I was about to suffocate. There were huge Himalayan vultures circling above us, probably waiting for us to die!

        

Instead of going back down as all the advice suggested I kept on going - there was no way I wasn't going to get to the top no matter what. As we went even higher I started to feel better, strangely, and we finally made it to the summit where we took photos and rested before going down the other side. 

At the top of the Thorong Pass - 19,000 feet up!

We spent a few more days trekking through desert areas close to the Tibetan border before finishing and staying in Pokhara to enjoy all the treats we hadn't had for two weeks such as showers, cake and decent beds!

                                                   

I am currently in village in the Chitwan National Park in Nepal where I will spending the next 3 weeks until boxing day. There are mountains as far as you can see and lots of forest and paddy fields with old houses or huts in between. I am staying with the head teacher of the school where I am teaching - everyone calls him 'Principal Sir' and his wife is 'Madam'. All of the teachers are known by their first names - I am 'Andy Sir' which I quite like!

Assembly, completing army-style discipline drills and then singing the national anthem.

The school has 800 pupils aged between 3 and 17 and they learn English right from the start. They aren't allowed to speak in Nepali except in the specific Nepali language classes so as a result their English skills are excellent. I have been teaching the children aged 7 and above which has been interesting. For assembly all the children stand in rows in the playground and carry out army-style discipline exercises and then one of the teachers plays the national anthem on their mobile holding it against the tannoy microphone and all 800 children sing along with their eyes closed and their hands on their chests.

The caretaker ringing the 'bell' for the start of the lessons.

Everyone is so friendly and im finding it hard to have any time on my own because everyone wants to offer help, practice English or just spend time with the first foreigner to visit the village. My Nepali language skills are improving every day and I can hold a decent conversation as a result of eveyones willingness to teach me. Whenever I walk around the village people call to me from far away, and at first I wondered how they knew it was me. I soon realized that I must be the only person in the district who has a head that looks more like an ostrich egg than the black hair that everyone else has. Below are some of the children's and teacher's houses -  made of mud and bamboo and typical of this area.

I have become good friends with a younger teacher called Bhim who lives in the next village. After school I have been going with him on his motorbike to his home which he shares with his parents and spending time with his family who treat me like some kind of prince! The house is a small cottage on one of the dirt roads between the paddy fields with a fire outside to cook on and cows and goats in the stable next to it.  They are very proud that the first foreigner to come to the village is at their house and a constant stream of neighbours come by to look at me, and asking me all the same questions (How old are you? Are you married? Why not?) They have been teaching me how to eat curry and rice with my hands (so much harder than you think!) and how to cook Nepali food and cups of masala tea. Each morning we have to milk the three cows and take the buckets of milk to the government collection point where it is measured and they give 35 rupees per litre for it.

Bhim's family's kitchen with the cows in the stable behind. 

We all go to bed by about 8pm and get up at dawn. Im getting to the point where I can tell the time in the mornings pretty accurately just by looking at the sun because its such an important part of life. We have electricity for a few hours each day and usually spend the evenings around the fire or going for walks avoiding the areas of forest where the bad spirits live and no one will go near. Its a very basic and idyllic existence and I love it. Everyone is so happy and kind and its making me appreciate money more when no one has any and it's a struggle to find enough cash for the days rice for the family, even though its only $1 (64p -what can you buy for that in the UK!?!)

The village shop.

Over the next few weeks I will keep teaching and we will go into the forest where you can have elephant rides and try to see the rare rhinos and tigers. I will leave here on the 26th December to go to India, though I can't imagine ever wanting to leave this place. I don't think I could live here permanently though - I earn more in 3 weeks of teaching than the teachers at this school earn in a year which puts my life (and spending) into perspective... Maybe I don't need to buy that iPhone when I return home!

Vietnam and Myanmar (Burma)

This has been another incredibly busy month. Its amazing how much you can fit into such a short amount of time and the experiences that can be gained!

Since my last post I have been all through Vietnam from Ho Chi Minh City up to Hoi An which is a fantastic riverside town with great architecture and a relaxed feel. Whilst we were there they were having a lantern festival on the river which made it look amazing.

          

 In general I have found the country to be quite rude and unfriendly, with the people seeing tourists as potential cash cows rather than people who want to enjoy seeing the beauty of where they live. It seems so westernized and lacking in its own traditions as a result.

During my final week in Vietnam we headed up to the north to Hanoi, stopping for an evening in DaNang. As it was the weekend the famous dragon bridge was putting on a show. It's a bridge that has a dragon in its structure and every Friday and Saturday night it breathes fire. We were ready to watch it at 9pm with all the locals. It was so hot even from a distance when the flames were coming out.

We spent a couple of days in the old city of Hue exploring the old capital the the palace, which although impressive, was just a reconstruction of the one from hundreds of years ago after the original was destroyed in the Vietnam war.

From there we went up to Hanoi and then further north to the mountain town of SaPa where we met a local guide and went trekking for three days up in the mountains, staying at local houses along the way. The scenery was amazing and the local ladies wore beautiful traditional costumes and produced local handicrafts. It was an amazing experience to eat traditional food and try the homemade 'firewater'. Never again!!! We also went into the market where there were sections for vegetables, horses, caged birds and buffalo.

                           

 This is the view from the local's house that we stayed at with the material that she had woven on the loom and dyed drying.

After SaPa we went to the coast to see Halong bay which had amazing limestone outcrops. After a quick return to Hanoi to pick up my passport with my Myanmar visa it was a quick flight to Bangkok to meet up with a friend ready to go into Myanmar the next day.

Myanmar was called Burma until recently and has only started letting tourists in over the last couple of years. We wanted to go there for that reason. The rest of Asia so far seems so packed with tourists and westernised that we didn't feel that we were getting a true flavor of what its really like. Myanmar should be untouched and uncorrupted by tourism. We were told stories of how there were no ATM's and you had to take enough US dollars to last your trip and they had to be crisp, unmarked and printed after 2006. The transport system would be next to non-existent and a recent civil war left the country virtually paralysed...so we got our crisp dollar bills and prayed!!!

We flew into Yangon (formerly Rangoon) and were immediately struck by how friendly everyone was. It was full of people who wanted to stop and say hello and practice their English and offer us assistance whenever we looked at our city map. Everyone smiled and seemed desperate to help us whenever they could. Not what we were expecting at all in a country which is 'so hard to get around in!' We went to see the palace on the city lake and the pagoda that Yangon is famous for and then returned after dark to see it lit up.

           

                              

We went to the tourist office where the two old ladies working there stayed an hour after they were supposed to be closed to help us plan our time there. We went to the park to relax and spent ages talking to people wanting to speak English and suggest ideas for how we should spend time in the country.

The next morning we got on the bus to Mandalay which was the most luxurious bus we have had in all of Asia so far. It was on time and the brand new road went straight through the country without a single bend... So much for poor transport links!

When we arrived in Mandalay we found that our bags weren't on the bus but had been sent to Bagan about 300 miles away. When you're traveling for over a year then your whole life is in your rucksack. We were so worried! Everyone was so desperate to help us so phone calls were made and our bags were located and put on the next bus from Bagan. We were taken to a hotel and the next day we went on a motorcycle tour of the city on the back of the bikes of two locals seeing temples and all the city had to offer before going to see the sunset at the 'teak bridge' - 1.2 km of bridge over the river which we walked over before going to the bus station to be reunited with our bags. We had a good couple of days in the city, even though the streets of Mandalay weren't paved with gold and the city itself was very modern which wasn't what we expected.

 

From Mandalay we took the night train to Bagan. The train must have been built during the war and the tracks not repaired since then either! It had no windows and was freezing all night. Luckily we didn't get sea sick considering the way the train was rocking around. We thought it would leave the track at times!

We arrived in Bagan and rented bicycles to explore the area. This is the area that is covered in pagodas and is the main symbol of Myanmar. There are 4000 pagodas in total in an area of about 3 square miles. Everywhere you look seems to be a view worthy of being a postcard. It was by far the most beautiful place I have ever been and we spent days looking around them, especially the derelict and overgrown ones with paintings on the inside of the life of Buddha. We climbed up onto the top of one to watch the sunset which was incredible because of the view over the whole area.

    

The next morning I got up early before the sun came up and cycled out to the temples and climbed up one to watch the sunrise which was made even more spectacular by hot air balloons passing above.

From Bagan we took a bus (yes, we had learnt our lesson about trains) to the mountain town of Kalaw where we had heard you could go trekking to Lake Inle which was our next destination. We set of early with a local guide for two days of amazing views, food, local people and much-needed exercise! After a hard days walk we spent the night in a Buddhist monastery where we met with an old monk who dispensed gems of wisdom!

                           

We stopped at the house of the village teacher and saw his play for that week - a table with vegetables on it donated by the parents of the children! I've never even been given a turnip!

                         

We kept trekking until we reached the banks of Lake Inle, home of wooden houses on stilts, floating vegetable gardens and fisherman that use their feet to paddle their wooden dug-out canoes so their hands are free to throw their nets. This is also the place where the ladies use brass rings around their necks to stretch them, making them more attractive (!!!)

        

We spent 6 days at the lake instead of the 2 we were intending because there was so much to do and see. We went to a local cooking class to learn how to make traditional Myanmar curry and rented boats to explore the lake. We also rented bicycles to visit the local winery up in the hills (and had to get a tuk tuk back, jamming our bikes in with us!)

One night we went to a neighbouring village to see the balloon festival. This was one of the best experiences of my trip so far. There were easily 7000 people there and we were the only tourists. This was a chance for the locals to get together and release balloons that they had been making all year in their communities. The release of the balloons is not only a chance for that group to win the prize money, but sending the balloons away also sends away the evil spirits. Each one costs $4000 to make and can have designs on them, candle lanterns or fireworks attached. 16 balloons are set off each night for a week making nearly 120 balloons over the course of the festival, each the size of a house. As they rise the fireworks are set off from a frame hanging underneath into the crowd below. One even went up 200 metres and then came crashing back down and burst into flames! Safety first kids!!!

                              

           

From Inle Lake we took the bus back to Yangon and flew to Bangkok. Myanmar was the most amazing country witth such great people and traditions. Im glad that I have been there in the early days of its tourism industry because maybe in the future it will change and become more westernised with the increase of visitors and the people become corrupted in the pursuit of money. The transport links are good, there are plenty of ATMs and the people will do anything to make your trip enjoyable. If you're going then go soon. You'll love it!!!

                                    

I'm now in Bangkok to resupply ready for going into Nepal tomorrow. Hopefully I will spend a few days in Kathmandu then hike for 10 days in the Himalayas before going to a village in the national park to teach in a school there until just after Christmas. Then into India for a bit before heading home for a break towards the end of January. After that...Africa!!!