The Hills are Alive

Hi guys,

What a difference a day makes, or several days in the midst of the Himalayas!!! Wow. Blue skies, v little rain and stupendous views of some of the highest mountains in the world! Amazing.

After a short time of recovery in between treks we met up with our language teacher, a guide and some Sherpa porters and struck out on our second jaunt up the mountains... this time hoping for a little more luxury, like a good night's sleep in a bed that didn't have leaches in it! And thankfully we were not disappointed.

We travelled with a new UMN family from Australia (the Young's) who have 2 boys around the same ages as our lot which was great. The first day was a gentle 3 hours walk following a river up the valley and then we headed up... straight up... 800 metres up stairs, rugged paths, past landslides and through villages and fields of rice. Fantastic. After less time than we had planned we arrived at our destination in Ghandruk. We checked into a pleasant family friendly lodge and settled in for a full day's rest in the village. It was beautiful. The clouds lifted and we were greeted with the sight of Fishtail mountain and Annapurna south, some 7200 odd metres above sea level. That night it was a full moon so we watched the mountains shine in the eerie blue night time sky. Totally awe inspiring.

Anyway, next day we toured the village and then calamity. As we were finishing off a drink at another look out spot, the boys ran into each other and Ollie split his head open. Just above the eye, which as you can imagine started bleeding terribly... Thankfully a group of German tourists had just arrived and they were well supplied with first aid kits and plasters etc so Ollie got cleaned up and plastered without any serious harm being done. He has got a ripper black eye though! His cut has healed really well although he'll have a small scar in his eyebrow. Toby survied without a scratch!

So calamities aside, the trek was great, we had a gentle walk downhill and then another night at the bottom of the valley by the river, then a short walk out to the road where we were picked up and brought back to Pokhora. In time honoured tradition we headed out for a slap up meal of steak and chips all round and then we headed back to KTM on Friday.

So now, it's Sunday night, everyone's in bed and we're getting ready for the school run tomorrow and the start of the second term at school. It was lovely to get back tot he house and we're feeling really settled into the oddities of life out here: Electricity is a luxury to be enjoyed when you have it, shops just don't have the stuff you want and things are never how you imagine they will be... but apart from that, life is good.

Here are some more photos from our trip: http://picasaweb.google.com/hopkinson.grenville/2008LOPTrek?authkey=ZzX9CYCIPKg#

Enjoy.

PS here do you like to see photos in the blog posts or be redirected to the online albums? Let me know in any comments etc. Cheers