Day 3: Ghorepani to Chiule

Today we got up early at 5 am to trek up 300 metres to Poon Hill, to see the view. As you just go up and down we could leave the backpacks in the guesthouse and come down for breakfast after.

So we walked up a million steps in the dark, finally reached the top after about 45 min-1 hour. Unfortunately it was very cloudy so we weren't expecting much of a sunrise - and we didn't get one. Instead we got snow. GREAT. It was still beautiful but normally you can see all the high peaks of the Annapurna region, and now we could barely see one. It cleared up a little by 6.30 but at 6.45 we gave up and went down for breakfast. Had a delicious oat porridge with apple, and boiled eggs. All the food at that guesthouse was soooo good.

We set off at around 8.30, today's trek was mostly downhill which is surprisingly hard. Shaky legs and tired knees. Going down is not great either as you know you'll have to climb back up at some point again. Reached Tadapani slightly quicker than we thought, and as we had lunch along the trail just before we decided to continue one hour to Chiule and stay there instead.

Now we're sitting by the fire again, as it is absolutely pouring down with rain outside. Hope it clears up tomorrow.

Got more bad news as well, some of the guides who are walking with some other people here are saying it has been snowing heavily at the base camp again and we might not be able to go all the way. The risk for avalanches is too high. We're going to Chomrong tomorrow anyway, and fingers crossed we will get better news there. We are still 3 days away from the base camp so if we are lucky the weather forecast will improve!

Day 1

We are now sitting on the little rooftop of our guesthouse enjoying a ginger tea after our first day of trekking!

We got the local bus to Nayapul and started walking from there. It was super hot and sunny, thank god for our trousers that zip off to shorts - yes we are looking very trendy these days...
First stop was Tikhedungga, which we reached in 2 hours. Slightly less than what our map and people had estimated so I guess we kept a pretty good pace. Had lunch there and then started ascending the infamous steps to Ulleri where we would spend the night. About 1.5 hours of steps going up up up up later, we finally reached Ulleri with very tired legs. Although the worst part was probably the mental bit, only seeing steps as far up as we could see and not knowing when they would finish.

But we made it in the end, and tomorrow's trek to Ghorepani is only meant to take about 3 hours, and we will spend the night there to see the sunset at Poon Hill the next day. So tomorrow should be an easy day!

It's breathtakingly beautiful up here, the air feels so clean and you can spot the snow covered mountains every now and then. Looking forward to see what tomorrow brings!

Day 2

Actually have WiFi here at the guesthouse so will publish what I've written so far since we've been trekking!

Ulleri - Ghorepani

After a pretty good nights sleep in the softest beds so far (no more bruises on my hips woop) we had breakfast at 7.30. Big bowl of porridge and two eggs set us up for another day of walking, and another day of too many steps.

We had a slightly shorter day in front of us, the trek to Ghorepani was estimated to around 4 hours. We left Ulleri just after 8 and arrived at Ghorepani at noon, more or less exactly 4 hours.

The walk today was more in a forest, beautiful rhododendron trees and many small streams and waterfalls. The view from the top of Ghorepani is amazing as well, you can see a lot more of the mountains now. We're currently on 2800 metres, so already pretty high.

Again we didn't have to pay for the room if we had dinner and breakfast here. We were a bit worried that we didn't bring enough money up, as we calculated on pretty much exactly 2000 rupees a day like we had been told, but so far we haven't spent nearly that much.
Feels good to have some spare money for when we get higher and we will probably need more snacks in between meals as the walk gets harder. As it gets colder we might want more tea too.

Prices here are ridiculous though, for a dal bhat (standard Nepalese meal) we paid around 80-100 rupees back in Pokhara, up here it has been between 350-500 with higher prices as we get higher. But I guess its only fair enough as a lot of the ingredients have to be transported up here by Sherpas and horses.

Tomorrow will be an early start to walk up to poon hill for sunrise, then back here to have breakfast and pick up our backpacks to head to Tadapani. But for now we're sitting down in the dining room in front of the fire heat - it's getting a lot colder as we get higher although we still trekked all day in t-shirts.

Trek time!

Today is the day! We're having a quick 'trekkers breakfast' at a place in pokhara now, with eggs, toast and porridge to try to stock up on some last minute protein before we set off. Vegetarian food in Nepal has been a bit of a challenge as most just consists of noodles or rice but not much else so we've been feeling low on energy the past few days. Not ideal before a 10 day trek up the Himalayas.
We bought protein bars, snickers and peanut butter yesterday to bring up so hopefully that will keep us going!

After our preparatory shopping yesterday, we are now fully dressed in "north face" haha, hopefully it will have some of the real quality. Thank god we brought our own hiking boots at least!

Assuming internet won't be great up on the mountain so this will probably be my last post in the next 10 days. We're hoping to finish in 9 days, if everything goes to plan! Super excited and ready to get some fresh mountain air and stunning views!
Annapurna base camp here we come!

Adventure part 2

Second half of our adventure has begun! Met up with Malin on Wednesday in Agra, after a 9 hour train journey. I was quite happy I got sleeper class in the end so that I could at least lie down and sleep and read. Although it was pretty dirty, and the train got really full after about 2 hours. Thankfully I had the top berth so had that to myself, while the bottom ones got crammed with people sitting there. Got stared at quite a lot as usual of course, as I was the only foreigner there too - but wasn't too bad.
Oh and the best part, the guest house in Agra had a working shower with lots of super hot water!! First non-bucket, standing up shower in a month! And I could even just stand in the hot water for a while after I had rinsed my hair without it going cold. Oh the small pleasures in life.

Anyway, saw taj mahal on Thursday morning, it was absolutely beautiful!! Looks like a painting even in real life. But despite that Agra doesn't have much else to offer and we were happy to leave early next morning.

The plan was to get the train to Lucknow and spend the afternoon and night there, then catch a train the next morning to Gorakhpur and then the bus to cross the border to Nepal.
However, Friday was Holi festival which means it's a holiday but what we didn't realise was that even some hotels in Lucknow were closed. After dragging our backpacks around in the heat for way too long we decided to go back to the railway station and get the train to Gorakhpur straight away instead. We were pretty exhausted and really hungry at this point as all restaurants were closed too. Had a kinda disgusting meal at the train station and got on the train, which was quite nice and relatively empty. We were really looking forward to getting to a hotel and have a shower and sleep, but turns out Gorakhpur hotels close to train station are disgusting and very overpriced. We basically ended up sleeping in our clothes and just got up at 5 to get the bus to Nepal.

Now we're finally in Lumbini, and FINALLY had a shower and changed clothes. Needless to say we've been feeling pretty gross wearing the same clothes and no shower, with long travels for the past two days.

Lumbini is really nice, this is where Buddha was born and there are just lots of temples in a kinda gated area like a national park. We are staying at the Korean Buddhist monastery, so peaceful. Very simple (back to bucket shower, and a cold one at that) but we love it. After dinner there was 30 mins worship and meditation, the monk leading it had the most stunning voice, was so beautiful to listen to him sing the chants and prayers.

Tomorrow we are spending the day here, looking around all the different monasteries and temples and just recovering a little from the past days of travelling and no sleep.

It's 8 o'clock and we have just had showers and are ready for bed. Breakfast is served at 5.50 after 50 minutes of worship and meditation. We love it here and are really hoping we can find similar monasteries/ashrams to stay in for the rest of our travels too.

Anyway, end of this long update. Will hopefully be able to publish it tomorrow as we don't have WiFi in the room.

Good night from beautiful Nepal!

End of a journey

These last few days have been an emotional rollercoaster. Crying, laughing, so much love, sadness, happiness, peacefulness, stillness, craziness, dancing, talking, sharing, fearing, friendship, connection and the list goes on.

I can't even start putting it into words. The oral exam we had on Friday was one of the most amazing moments I have ever experienced. So many people chose to tell their personal stories and experiences linked to their topic. I don't normally cry, and definitely not in public but after one of the girls performed a song we just couldn't hold it together anymore.

So much love and positive energy in the room - this will forever stay in my heart. Everyone sharing very personal stories and fears to a room full of people we had never met 4 weeks ago.

Graduation yesterday was also wonderful. A few of us went to buy sarees for the ceremony, beautiful but very impractical to wear. The teachers all had very special things to say, they all said that this was a special group and again it was all very emotional. Our meditation teacher who held the oral exam said she had never experienced anything like it before, and that she was so grateful she got to share it with us.

They are all such amazing teachers, truly beautiful people.

Again, I don't even know how to describe these past few weeks. It has been challenging, both physically and mentally but I have also never before felt so much at peace. Content and happy. Surrounded by love and happiness.

And I don't think I have ever before written a post that is this emotional, very out of character for me I know - but it had to be done.

On Wednesday I leave Rishikesh - for this time.

Exam day

The last week of our teacher training is coming to an end, absolutely insane that we only have three days left! Feel like we just arrived, and I am definitely not ready to leave yet.

Today we have our exams, and on Saturday evening we have our graduation ceremony. So by this time in three days I will be a certified yoga teacher. CRAZY.

This morning we had our practical exam where we demonstrated some different pranayama (breathing techniques) and we also had to recite one mantra each. It wasn't very serious, and pretty easy. Written exam in an hour, so just in my room trying to cram in the last bits of Sanskrit. Such a difficult language, the words are just not relatable to any language. 

But apparently the exam is pretty easy, we only have to write a few lines on each question and we have been given the questions we need to know. So I'm feeling ok about it. Tomorrow we have a 5 min oral presentation each, on a topic we can choose from a list. And then we're all done. So little time left.

I'm glad I have a few more days here after, getting the train to Agra on Wednesday morning to meet up with Malin again and see taj mahal before we head to Nepal.

Hopefully I can try some other yoga and meditation classes next week, and I really want to go to our Hatha teachers other classes that he has outside our school.

We are also doing a lot more teaching ourselves now, I really enjoy teaching even though I feel like I still have sooo much to learn. But I guess that will never change! We will always be students. Got good feedback from teachers and the people in the group I taught, so I'm happy about that!

Should get back to some last minute studying now, next time I update I will hopefully be certified!!