Our Travel Blog
We are gearing up for our 24+ hours of flights home but we thought we’d do one last blog to show some more pictures of our time here. We hope you have enjoyed reading robodawno as much as we’ve enjoyed writing it. Our next blog will come to you in mid-July from Quebec City! It’s time to travel a little closer to home.
We’ve enjoyed the last couple of days around the Kathmandu valley. Yesterday after the Holi excitement died down we did a walking tour of Kathmandu. It is amazing to go down all of the little alleyway streets and run into so many thousand year old temples!
Today we ventured on the local bus to a neighbouring city called Bhaktapur. It is a medieval city that is filled with even more ancient stupas. What drew me to going there is a place called ‘Potter’s Square’ where they make, dry, fire, and sell pottery.
From what we have seen, the Nepalese people live simple, peaceful, and happy lives.
I’ll include lots of photos, including some of our more artsy shots from the past couple of days. Enjoy!
We have arrived in Kathmandu, the capital city of Nepal. As soon as we arrived we ran into our nemesis that we made in Pokhara, so we switched guest houses. For more info you can ask us about it when we are home. This morning we got our Indian visas handed in after quite a frustrating process that frankly made us never want to return to India, ever. But enough of the bad stuff, and on to the positive.
Today is Holi, the national celebration of Spring! People flock to the streets to throw water and different coloured powder all over each other and shout “Happy Holi!”
DawnO was fortunate not to get bombed but I took it in the face a few times.
We also took a taxi to Swayambhunath which is a Bhuddhist temple that sits on top of a large hill that overlooks the entire city. This “monkey temple” has a lot of beautiful buildings that I’m sure have a lot of interesting and important history, but I like my blogs like I like my reading books… full of pictures.
Over the past 2 days we have done 3 different types of safaris: by jeep, by canoe, and on elephant! There were definitely benefits to each of the methods.
By jeep we were able to go deep into the park and had the luck to see a leopard! We also saw numerous rhinos, 4 different types of deer, wild boars, peacocks, and had a brief visit to the crocodile breeding center, where we saw baby crocs! The downfall of the jeep was when it started monsoon raining and hailing and we had an hour’s drive in the open top jeep to get back. Did I mention we broke down too? If you come here (and you should), we would recommend a half day in the jeep.
This morning we went by canoe. We saw numerous crocs in the wild, as well as many different birds. We ended at the elephant breeding center, where we saw a 15 day old baby elephant and numerous other little guys. I could have stayed there watching them all day. The cutest was watching the new baby learning how to use it’s trunk – much like the first time a human baby uses pincher grasp for Cheerios.
This afternoon we did an elephant back safari. OK, I guess there weren’t really any benefits to this. It is really uncomfortable! But an experience none the less.
We have 1 more day to explore Chitwan, then on Sunday we’re headed to Kathmandu for our last few days.
We had an eventful morning that made the top 5 experiences of our lives. Today we bathed with an elephant. I went first and DawnO went next. What a cool experience and cost us each $1.25. You can’t even buy a decent slushie for that back home. We were the first ones there to bathe her so we avoided the huge crowds that eventually form. Afterwards we even got to feed her some bananas. We may go again tomorrow! I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.
Ps- Her name is Myah
So what do a couple of sore legged Canadians do the day after finishing a trek in the Himalayas? They go paragliding and rent a canoe to row around the lake. Throw in some amazing Indian cuisine and you have yourself a perfect day. Awesome.
Hello all,
We have emerged from our trek and can once again blog!
We had a great time during our trek through the mountains. With our hired “expert”, Lok Raj, we got to see some pretty amazing things and I (RobO) got to give him my ridiculously large backpack to carry the whole way. Too bad we can’t hire him for the rest of our trip.
Highlights include: bamboo forests, seeing the mountain range as the sun rose, and spectacular views from each guest house. As for the food, it was pretty great. Dal baht is quite good after all, especially after a long day of climbing stone steps. I know what you’re thinking… Weren’t we supposed to be gone for 9 days? Well, unfortunately we had to cut the trek a bit short to sort out Indian visa issues which have now been resolved. We’re looking forward to the rest of our trip which will include the bathing of elephants and paragliding! For now enjoy the pics we were fortunate to capture.
P.S. Terry WTF if you’re reading this, I’m happy to report that marathon training is back on due to 5 days of alternating stairs and eccentric squats, with a 35 lb pack on! -DawnO
We love Pokhara. It’s kind of like a mix between Banff and Cuba, as weird as that seems. We were right at home in the lakeside area, where there are lots of outdoor adventure shops and great little cafes.
We rented bikes today and cycled to a Tibetan settlement just outside of town. We had an amazing lunch right next to a suspension bridge. We had the opportunity to listen in on the Tibetan monks chanting in their temple. We also secured our porter and plans for our trek that starts tomorrow.
RobO is being a champ at catching up on his sleep and curry consumption.
We likely won’t be able to blog for the next 9 days as we’ll be trekking in the Himalayas. But when we do blog, it’s gonna be good!!
