Bardiya National Park

We'd intended to stay a few days with B but this turned into 2 weeks. We had a brilliant time - he treated us like part of his family. Him and his wife Shakuntala had been married for 26 years (they were both 34) and he said she was his best friend in the whole world. They were wonderful, B took us tracking Tigers and Rhino in the park - we camped in the park for three days and walked so far hunting for the elusive tigers. Footprints everywhere (even where we had been sitting) but no sight. The Rhinos were much easier to see but really scary.

Rafting the Karnali

We spent 11 days rafting down the Karnali river, camping on beautiful beaches, completely isolated from anyone. We had to drive for 24 hours from Kathmandu, pick up porters to carry the stuff down to the river and we spent a lot of time singing on the roof of the bus. On the river we occasionally we arrived at a village and had a look around. The whole place was spectacular and the Nepali river guides were superb. Eventually we arrived at Bardiya national park where we spent a few hours hunting for 'B' - a wonderful Nepali guy who we were going to stay with.

Annapurna Circuit and Base Camp trek

We spent anpther month walking up to Annapurna basecamp and stayed there for 5 days, exploring up to the second basecamp at about 5400m watching glacier ice slides and loving it. We then walked back to Ghoropani and then up to Muktinath via Tatopani and then over the Thorung La (the wrong way) spending 4 days getting altitude before we attempted it. Once over we returned and eventually flew out from Jomsom. We spent a day in Mustang wandering around after crossing the river and had a few days doing side-walks whenever we could.

Everest Region

We spent a month walking in this region. We got a bus to Jiri and walked for 10 days to get to the Khumbu valley. This was the most beautiful section, we were very early in the season and the route is so quiet that we had a great time at the few tea houses we found. Once we reached the Kumbu we walked up to Namche Bazaar and then on to Gokyo Lake. We stayed here for a week, wandering around, climbing Gokyo Ri a couple of times and then because of storms retreated to rejoin the route to Everest basecamp near Tengboche. After the emptiness and silence of Gokyo this was too much...too many people. We headed back to Lukla and flew back to Kathmandu.

Nepal - Kathmandu Valley

I arrived in Nepal with Phil on September 10th 2001, met Isa almost straight away and after trekking all over the place came back to Kathmandu and visited Baktapur for a few days.