Trekking!!!!

Alright, I know these pictures have been a long time coming....but hopefully they are worth the wait! Before school started, I was able to get in my first trekking experience in Nepal. My roommate Pat and I went trekking on the Helambu circuit which is just north of Kathmandu. I was very, very happy to be trekking with someone who had already been out on the trails. Figuring out the transportation and lodging was a little intimidating, but Pat handled it like a pro, which made everything work out great. The trek took us 6 days and to be honest, it kick my butt pretty good. But, no matter, the sweat was worth it, the views and experience were great, and I can't wait to do another! So, let's get right to the pictures....


After taking three micros and a bus we arrived at the start of our trek and were met with a decent set of stairs (which I later realized was nothing compared to he next day). The start of the trek cut through the Shivapuri National Forest.

After trekking for most of the day, we made friends on the trail with a family walking up to their village. Let me preface this picture by saying that women in Nepal are awesome. They do most of the work in the fields and work incredibly hard. A teenage girl was carrying this bag of rice on her head up the hill to the village....we were told it weighed 30 kilos! Carrying heavy loads with a strap over the head is how almost everything is transported here....vegetables, wheat, bricks, dirt, and rice, and notice the huge pipe being carried by the Nepali man in the background whose load wheighed something close to 50 kilos. Pat wanted to try it out and carried the load for the last few hours of our hike...up a very steep climb! I barely made it up with my backpack and after a full day of walking was very happy for a rest.

We stayed with the family with who we were walking. Most of the village was related somehow. Chipling was just a small group of houses up on top of the hill surrounded by terraced fields. Villages on trekking routes usually have "lodges" like the picture here. The family usually has a few extra room in the house for trekkers. They provide tea, dinner, and breakfast...and you can usually negotiate a price around 200 or 300 rupees per person.

These are the kids of the family we stayed with. The oldest girl with the blue headscarf was the one carrying the bag of rice up the hill! The whole family was really nice, and we sat with them to share our rice and some very tasty meat with spinach!

The view out our window on the first morning. We had climed up through these fields the day before!

The next morning we set out for another long day of walking. After having a little confusion finding the trail, we reached the top of one of many hills and found this small temple, which I think is called a gumba surrounded by prayer flags. The prayer flags are Buddhist, but some places of prayer seem to have a mix of Hindu and Buddist symbols here.

After hiking out of the Shivapuri Forest, we were inbetween two different park areas. We reached the Langtang National Park during our second day, and our trek took us through the southern most part of the park. We did get some good views, but further north in the Langtang Park the Himals are really impressive.

We hiked on into the late afternoon on the second day, and I was beat! This small lodge we finally reached had never looked so good! I even fell asleep before dinner, but the lodge was nice and we had a good sleep.

Waking up to a view of the Himals the next morning was well worth the extra hours on the trail the day before!

Helambu Trek - Part II

Sorry to leave you hanging....here are more pictures to finish off the trek!
Alright..... our third morning on the trial got a some great views of the Himals. Although they were short live it was well worth it.

Beautiful!

This little lodge/stop was the highest point on our circuit...I think was over 10,000 feet. We did walk through some snow to get there. But, after a quick snack we headed on down to the next village for the night.

Taking a break on the descent down....although the hikes up the hill were tough, the downhill was pretty rough on the legs, knees, and feet. This is a good view of the village we stayed in.

The suspension bridges were pretty cool, but also a little scary. I didn't look down for too long!

This was one of the nicest places we stayed. The food was great and the town was in a beautiful setting. They also had an adorable puppy that I think they would have let me take home! I could even see the straw through the floorboards and smell the cows that stayed under the room we slept in....almost like home, but we usually only smell the cows when we are outside.

Some awesome prayer flags on our way out the next morning.

One of our only signs that gave directions. We were headed to Timbu, but unfortuntely the arrows pretty much pointed in random directions. At least that's what it looked like to us!

I don't have any pictures of our last night on the trail, but it is probably better left forgotten. The people weren't so nice, and our sleep was accompanied by rats. I never saw one of the little (well, I'm hoping little. the rat we found in our attic could have eaten a cat) buggers, but I definitely listened to them all night. Needless to say, we were out of there more than early the next morning, but this was the view from the next little village were we stopped for breakfast.

A cool looking part of the trail on our last day going down.

Most people use water buffalo here for farm work and we saw a lot of peole plowing fields on our last couple of days. It is all done by hand. So the man is using his weight to push a wooden or metal rod down into the mud (the fields are flooded first) behind the buffalo.

Well, that's all for the trek! We are heading out tomorrow for a reatreat in Lumbini - famous as the birthplace of Buddha. It is supposed to be hot and full of mosquitos this time of year but we are still looking forward to the rest and days off from school. We just finished our Term 1 exams and Pat and I both spent the last few nights correcting well over 300 tests!

Happy 4th of July!!!!