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Had a few days in Kat checking the scene, stayed at the salubrious Lhasa Guest House for US$5 (all money is in US$ from now on) for a twin. The room was clean is basic and had a fully functioning toilet and hot shower (you have to wait for 5-10 mins for the hot water system to crank up).

Did a couple of days of great mountain biking around Kat. In fact cycling would have to be on the must do list for Nepal. There is a great  mountain bike shop (runs by poms - still , is it good) which I rented a great bike and then one of their guides showed me some great tracks on the hills around the city. The hills at a altitude similar to Mt Kosiosco by the way! (I didn't ride up the big ones, although we did ride up about 1000m!)

Finally extracted the digit, and caught the tourist bus to Pokhara, $4 and 7 hours. The plane is better at $120 return- big price difference though. Pokhara is a small city 250kms east of Kat, and sits on the side of a lovely lake. A lot like Queenstown.  Pokhara is great. Nothing to do but sit and eat and drink tea. Unfortunately the coffee is crap at all but a few places. My advice to coffee drinkers, coming from a devoted coffee drinker, is to get over the coffee thing in Nepal and do the tea thing.

INSTALLMENT NUMBER TWO

Doing the Pokhara thing, was cool, but the trekking feet fully installed in the new Scapa treks were getting itchy. Decided to get legal, and procured a Rps1550 7 day trekking permit all inclusive (bribes etc). Thought about leaving new years day, after an expected big night - this is when Mr Flu and his mates arrive uninvited for  a new years eve party.  Spent new years eve with a very expensive toilet roll Rps 25 - did I get lucky. New years morning awoke to loud banging on the front door, as aposed  to the loud banging on every other door by the noisy ramble rouses all night long. A swiss couple we met and suggest sharing
a lift with to the start of the trek wanted to go - like right now. Twenty minutes later we struggled together, thinking the cold not to bad, we'll be fine, a quick breakfast, while Sophie went and haggled with the taxi drivers. Rps300 (divide by 63 for US$) (down from 750!!)total to Phedi about 20 mins away.

Four people plus driver, plus four backpacs piled into a a 1979 Toyota Corolla - there wasn't room to fart! Upon touchdown, we were swamped with Alan Bond wantobe's selling up walking sticks using "special wood" - like specially expensive. The starting price was Rps 120 one size fits all!

Escaping the free market economy by climbing up 600 zig zag of vertical steps, made us reconsider the whole trekking deal, anyway 1 hour later we arrived on top of the ridge to be presented with a magnificent view of Mt Matchhurapure (also called Fishtail - although I don't  know why) a molehill of 6800m. After a photo session, cruised along to Polkan for lunch of vegetable noodle soup, milk tea (pronounced milik tea - with an Indian like head movement for authenticity) and bottled water. Cruised through the rest of the afternoon by coming down the other side of the ridge - talk about questioning your sanity loosing site of Fishtail, but walking through lovely forest, and across streams. Walking down is a masochists idea of a party- the knees get that  "I'm leading a 21 with 5m to my last piece and 6m to the ground" sort of wobble. Or the "wit climbing a climb a Newns and kicking his last runner off, then saying "I think I'm going to fall" type wobble. Ask wit to give the full details
of that story for anyone that doesn't know!

Arrived in Tolka, one hour off Landrung our desired stop, too stuffed to go any further, accepted the up coming Tolka Sheridan's room rate of Rps 90 for a double, and crashed.

What will tomorrow hold?

INSTALLMENT THREE
Tolka to the Hotspings.

Downhill walk to the river. Lunch, then a hard slog up to the Hot springs, a relatively new addition to the Kon Tiki Tourist trail, (this wasn't there when I visited 9 years ago). Stayed Namaste Guess House, had electricity which was novel. Free chocolate from the swiss- hmmm excellent. All trekkers needs to find a swiss couple to tag along with. There are many fringe benefits and no FBT!

Hotsprings to Dovan 2800m
Up early at 6:30 left by 8:30. Up to Chomrong (1800m) by 10:30 a hard slog straight up. Chromorog is where the base camp track leaves the "tourist" track.  Lunch at Senure, we were be teased by constantly ever better views. Arrived at the urban sprawl that is the hamlet Bamboo to find it deserted. Bamboo is 30 mins down hill from the Annapurna Sanctuary check point. I was totally stuffed, but we wanted to keep up with the swiss so we paid three local blokes Rp200 to carry our packs
the last 1 hr walk.Great Tea house "Annapurna View", great Dahl Baht. Amzing how good fod tastes when you're really worked for it!

Dovan to Durali 3200m
Both feeling weak left at 10am and stopped at Himalayan Guest House 3400m at lunch for a long rest. We over taken by a bunch of tea shirt clad Japanese. A bit disillusioning. Arrived a Deurali 3400m at 3:00 PM and decided to call it a day. Magical sunset on the face of fishtail, also looking down over the clouds over the valley. Very pretty.

I wrote in my diary "Sunset coats the brown and white mountains with a pink and white frosting like everything is eperimal and …" I think I meant effirial.sp? Sounds very literary doesn't it.
 
Durali to MBC 4000m
Both feeling pretty fucked but pushed through to MBC hut in 2.5 hours. Only took sleeping bags and other essentials. Unfortunately the weather had turned and clouds hung heavily over the peaks. At MBC we did get a good view of fishtail. After an expensive lunch including chocolate pudding Rp 540. We walked further up into the sanctuary until the deserted hit at 4000m and turned back for Durail. I was getting headaches which disappeared straight away upon decent, taking 1.5 hours
to decend from MBC to Durali.

Got back from Durali totally rooted . Through significant physical and psychological hardness we achieved our desired goal. The physical hardness including, the infections we were both suffering, the lack of experience in bushwalking/ trekking all contributed to our suffering as we walked up., but we quickly forgot all of these as once we had rested, and only remember the magic of the place.

The track was almost all packed snow the first 1 km was much we traversed further up the valley which was quite steep in places  There were a few steep climbs which were ok as the snow was soft enough to kick steps in

Durelai to Chomrong
Raced back to Chomrong, where we stayed at the first open place the "Captains". The ex -gurkur officer Nepali has had this place for years. He must be a couple of hundred years old. He had the best vegetable soup, made from vegetables from his garden so he told us. Had a rest day - hot showers, lots of good food a good book and sleep.

Chomrong to Pokhara
The  Captain let us in on a secret track which cuts the walk back in half. So we gladly took that and cruised back to Pokhara. We got to the taxi/ bus station and tagged along with some backpackers doing it really cheap, the 40 min taxi fair cost Rs 75 each I think.

A couple of slack days in pokaha eating too much and reading books.
Bus back to Kathmandu, the trip winding down. Five days in Kathmandu, eating reading, shopping.

I remember a real feeling of lethargy after we'd achieved our desired goal, and we couldn't really motivate ourselves to do anything after that.

Flight back to Bangkok and then five days drinking and going out in Jakarta with some old cronies.
 

TIP from Nick: Write these stories while they are still fresh in your memory!!!!
 

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