Nepal – Kathmandu, Bhaktapur and first Trekking Days…

Exactly one week ago I came back from my Tour in Nepal and India. Everything went well (except for the part of staying healthy) and last week I was working on my pictures. Here are some of them I shot during the first couple of days in Kathmandu, Bhakatapur and during the first Trekking days.

12th of October I left Germany and flew with Air India from Frankfurt via Delhi to Kathmandu where I joind a tour group for the Annapurna Sanctuary Trek. But the first days were a little of sightseeing in Kathmandu and Bhaktapur.
In Kathmandu I visited Swayambhunath (the monkey temple), Pashupatinath (one of the most important Hindu temples in the world), and the Stupa of Boudhanath (one of the most important buddist sites). The second day we went to Bhaktapur an ancient city (Unesco World Heritage) where we stayed for the night. That was very nice, a lot of Tourists just come for the day and don’t stay for the night, and especially in the evening hours a lot of locals were around.

The following day was a very long bus ride to Pokahara (200km) that took almost 7hrs. The streets were in horrible condition, partly only on one side and it is not advisable to sit in the first row and look how the bus is overtaking other buses in corners or when there is traffic…

In Pokhara we just spent the night before going on the Sanctuary (Basecamp) Trek. Unlike the Everest area (Yaks) here only Porters carry the luggage. The first two days the route was mainly uphill (more than 2000m) to Ghorepani, which is the Town just below the world famous Poon Hill, from where you can get one of the nicest looks in the Himalays, especially for sun rise, what we did.

You can see two mountains > 8000m. Annapurna 1 (8091m, 10th highest peak in the world) and Dhaulagiri (8167m, 7th highest peak). On the picture (left of this text) Annapurna 1 is the mountain on the left.

From Ghorepani we followed the route to Chomrong for 2 days. A lot of ups and downs… and a very nice place in between – Tadapani. Such a nice view from the Lodge in the morning.
Chomrong felt like a modern place. In the Lodge they had a Internet Cafe, vacuum cleaners and even a washing mashine. And the Pizza was suprisingly good – a little change to Dal Bhat or Fried Noodles.

The Tour will continue with the next blog entry…