Beautiful views, driving towards the Indian border, south Darjeeling..

Cornbarn

Lunchbreak on top of the mountain

Charlottes Farewell


This is Tibet! (above)

One of the deepest gorges in the world to Jump off a bridge ... 172m...


I did it - the Canyoning
Enna in action


Quick visit into the cockpit, overlooking the Himalayas..




Yeti Airlines


Getting picked up after an amazing morning River Rafting!!!


Walking down Sarangkot Hill towards Pokhara







The Annapurnas! Surrounded by 7000´ers



Rice paddies



... Seen in the middle of rushhour..



Riding around Pokhara on the Bikes - pretty hilly!


Chitwan National Park - Sauraha: producing paper out of elephant dung (above), Michael Ballacks football shoes in our hotel (below)


Dat Häz vun der Welt ja dat is Kölle! The heart of the world is in Cologne ... Or in Nepal, in our Hotel Parkside, in Chitwan National Park!




Rhino Mama and Rhino Baby


On the back of an elefant for four hours...ebing one with mother nature, even being in the middle of the heaviest monsoon rainfall, on top of the elefant...he didn´t mind getting wet....



Playing in the river with Buddha, the hotel pet!


Second part: spotting the wildlife on foot: Rhino-shit! Other than that I have only gotten lots of bites, stings and allergic reactions..


First part of our Jungle Safari: Sunrise-boat-cruise

Stick dance show in the village


Visiting the park ranger elefants

Being chased by the kids and weird pink chicken...



Rice


Nepal

Everything just seemed to be better today, on our border crossing day to Nepal. Nobody minded the super early start towards Lumbini, Buddhas birthplace in Nepal, at 7am. We had a long way to drive before we would finish off our first leg in India, nothing new to us. The further away we got from the bigger cities, the cleaner the places got. We imagined the reason for that to be the fact that we got closer and closer to Nepal. But truth was, when we got to the border it was still just as hot and sweaty as before. Border staff asked for their bribe, but did not get lucky with me.
We met our new guide, Yadu, and drove on to the hotel which was only about 20 minutes away. Nice surprise after about 10 hours on the bus.
Another nice surprise was the good equipped hotel bar. G & T, Vodka, Whisky, they got it all and we got happy. And did not even mind the regular power cuts – except for when they happened at night and noone was there to turn the A/C back on. I was tired enough though and managed to sleep all the way through.
Chitwan National Park was first on our agenda. Nepals first National Park, in the south of the country. Founded in the early 80s and home to lots and lots of tigers, Rhinos, Elefants, Crocs, monkeys, birds birds birds and so on. We stayed in a wonderful lodge with elefant pet Buddha in the backyard and our own rooftop terrace. And moskitonets in the rooms..
We started our stay there with a lunch that actually contained vegetable (which was included in our package, so for free as well, which made it even better!). Our guide for the time being took us around the village Sauraha, some unreal looking place where everybody was happy, children were smiling at us from every corner, asking to get a picture taken, animals running around freely, no rubbish to be seen, and weed on the side of the street as far as the eye could see.
We were so excited to be there, away from all the horn-beeping, and busy streets of India. We visited a museum of the Tharu people and wandered to the National Park headquaters, where the rangers kept their transport, the elefants. Several Kodak-moments later we walked back to the hotel, ready for a nice dinner. The evening program was a hilarious traditional stick-danceshow. Highlight for me was the peacock-performance, where the peacock dancer chose to gave the rose, that was part of his dance, to me.
Happy and looking forward to the nexct adventure tomorrow, we went to our moskito-infested rooms and went to slepp, accompanied by the neverending humming and buzzing of junglelife around us.
The Chitwan-Safari day started off with choosing the right clothing. No red colours to keep elefants and tigers away (note: Georgia wore a red cap. She did not want to wear her sunnies and did not realise the irony of it. Funnily enough, her group was the one to spot the rhino later on...) I thought I was pretty well equipped anyways, with all my super outdoor stuff, longsleeves against bracnhes and shrub, long trousers with zippers to be flexible in case it got too hot, moskitp spray, sunscreen and the full story. How mistaken I was I would find out soon, more precisely when I got struck with a branch on my neck, whilst walking through the thick foliage, that had a nasty poisonous caterpillar sitting on it, ready to attack. Or maybe when I walked through a swarm of wasps and got stung into my elbow. Or maybe when we went for a swim with the elefant Buddha after the walk and all these moskito bites, wasps and caterpillars reacted together with elefantwater and produced and nice full-body rash...But at least I was able to fight off the two leeches that tried to get me. Well done.
The boattrip along the river early in the morning was very nice as well, we saw some monkeys, Kingfisher and lots of other birds and a crocodile.
Anyways, while the others still jumped up and down the elefant, clibed up on the head and all that, I ran home to cure my wounds. Some of them were to stay with me for the next couple of weeks, to make sure I would not forget this day.
A bit of a relief was the hotel manager who spoke fluent german thanks to his godfather who supported him by inviting him to study and live in germany. I was able to whinge freely and he told me about all his projects in return. First of all, all the orphanages in the village were more or less tourist scams. Families sent their children away to there, and they would come and beg which is a pretty nasty thing to do. The hotel also supported children and families from the village, so they actually knew who they were helping and where axactly their support would end up. We decided to donate all our clothes, the Pakistani football and whatever we had to spare to them. Him and his brother were very caught up in lots of projets, and one more notable one is their elefant dung paper factory. Basically, they make books out of shit. They had the idea after thinking about how to get rid of the uncountable amounts of Buddhas remains in their garden and worked out this very elaborated technique of turning it into pretty diares. Of course I had to buy one.

Anyways, back to the Safari-day. After a good rest I was more or less fit to join the others again and jump on the back of an elefant on our 2-hour elefant-treck in the afternoon. Nothing new to me I said, but this time it was actually better than any other time I´d been sitting on one. Peter, Jason, Tony and I shared one back, we got soaking wet during one of the first monsoon rains, fought succesfully against all approaching leeches, videoed a hell-of-a lot and took perfect headshots with rhino mummy and baby!

To round up a day full of adventures, annoyances, pains and laughs we joined an open air party in our garden organised by a group of Pepsi-Promoters from Kathmandu with a music, dancing and a Pepsi-raffle...

Goodbye Chitwan and off to Pokhara, outdoor-paradise for every traveller. A quick goodbye and foto-shoot of the beautiful place, newspaper articles with the skyline of my hometown Cologne and Michael Ballacks football-trainers.
We arrived during another monsoon-rain in our wonderful hotel by the lake, nice rooms with balcony and a restaurant that did not mae it hard for us to just sit down and relax for a bit. Gathering some energy for the days to ccome with full schedules:
Paragliding for some, Sunrise walk to Sarangkot Hill with views over the stunning Annapurna Moutnina Range, Hatha Yoga Session, Mountain Bike ride around the area and first visit to a ladies nightbar in Asia was waiting for us. All but the last a great success!
We had two full days there, which was an absolute luxury for us. We saw more Westerners then during the last month and got a bit of a teaser of the shopping opportunities yet to come. I was very determined to buy a new backpack, but that had to wait until Kathmandu.
Our highlight of Pokhara might have been the Rafting trip on the way to Kathmandu. Great fun, and we also capsized once.

During our stay in Kathmandu I challenged one of my biggest fears and went to the Last Resort, near the Tibetan border, to do a day of Canyoning. Abseiling down waterfalls, the highest one being around 40m!
The others stayed for one night to do the highest Canyon Swing and second highest Bungy Jump the next day, but that would have been a bit too much for me. Always know your boundaries and this was definately mine. Who knows, there might be a day when I will jump off a bridge with a rope attached to my legs – this is Samurai Spirit!

Back in Kathmandu we had to say Goodbye to our dear fellow passanger Charlotte, say hello to our newcomers Catherine, Penny and Betty, celebrate the football and go to our first nightclub in ages. Goddamn cheap Gin and Tonic!
It was a great place, I hope I will go back one day.

The next couple of days were mainly spent on the the bus, on very very bumpy roads. Spirits were still more or less high, as we were getting closer to Thailand (never mind the stretch through India in between...)