So here I am, after day of our Nepalese trek, and quite exhausted, and up in the last remaining city before we really get into the mountains. The internet connection is decent here, so figured I'd sit down and have a little blog session.
So continuing on where we last were, I was blogging the one evening and my computer battery died, not a whole lot else happened that night other than our cross eyed server messing up our bill and bringing back the wrong change several times, and thus began Dave and my pun session poking a bit of fun at the fellow...he was a nice enough guy but we had to make some jokes to make up for the mess up. So after having the beers, and sitting down with another Canadian and an Irish fellow, I just ended up crashing pretty hard, as I was quite exhausted, but found that I could only sleep until 6:30 am which was rather unfortunate.
So after laying in bed for awhile, and waiting for Dave to get out of bed, we went and had a quick breakfast, and began our adventure in trying to secure motor scooters....we walked around for a good 2 hours checking out places and finding that we would have to leave a passport to rent scooters, which was a pretty big bummer since we don't feel comfortable leaving passports at random shops. I devised a plan where I would bring my void passport and use that instead, and it almost worked, except the shop keeper said there was no Nepalese visa in it, so that was a fail.....so instead of renting motor scooters and getting crazy, we decided to hire mountain bikes and head to the Monkey Temple and see what all the jazz was about....Now after walking through the streets for a few days and seeing the absolute mayhem, you can imagine the fear and sheer awesomness of renting mountain bikes and traveling through traffic...fortunately they came with helmets, so that was a good option. We managed to make our way to the Monkey Temple and snapped a few pics along the way... see following.
After adventuring around the Monkey park, or near the Monkey park I should say since we didn't have bike locks, we then started to try and make our way back to the hotel...which lead us to coming upon the sketchy Ring Road that surrounds Kathmandu....now this is very unlike any other roads I've driven a peddle bike as it is absolutely nuts on this road, the pollution is terrible, and the vehicles drive rather recklessly...I have a hilarious video of Dave trying to cross through, and surprisingly we both made it across and along the road without incident, although we did get cut off several times and nearly hit the back of a few vehicles, but that's a learning curve so no big deal! So after adventuring down that road, we decided to start side tracking and seeing if we could find our way back...we somehow managed to get back into the general area of town that our hotel was located, and returned our bikes a bit early....After returning the bikes we made quick pit stop at the hotel, and then decided to up our "Street Cred" by taking a rickshaw ride with a guy who had been hassling us earlier in the day.
We hopped aboard, without first negotiating a price ( big mistake) and went on a tour of the city...we were wearing our mega sweet Beanies that we purchased the previous day, and much to the delight or disgust of locals and foreigners alike, we made our rickshaw ride a fun adventure. Our driver was DJ and he took us to some cool temples and gave us a bit of a tour...of course what rickshaw ride wouldn't be complete without the obligatory stop at some shop where we were forced into trying to buy paintings...I've experienced this whole deal before in Thailand, so I wasn't falling for it, but Dave seemed to be pretty caught up in it, I thought he was actually going to buy one!! Fortunately he didn't, and we managed to escape without spending a lot of money on shoddy fake paintings.
After the rickshaw ride we got back to the hotel and asked what the price was...I was thinking somewhere along the line of 500 rupees?? and DJ says 3000 rupees!! I say no effin way....and Dave is already reaching for his wallet...Dave is a terrible barterer ha ha....so I eventually get him down to 1500 rupees...which is still waaaaaaay tooo much...but we pay it to get rid of DJ as he's starting to annoy me ha ha.
So after that fun adventure, we sort out some food, which turns out to be some pretty terrible chicken and both feel pretty rough...we then found a cool Shesha bar with free WiFi, so we hit that up and continued our training by drinking more beer and smoking Shesha ha ha....we met some English chicks and hung out with them for the night and then started to get pretty tired, so we headed back to the hotel....upon arrival I found a bunch of pigeons lurking on our window ledge and I decided I didn't want them anywhere nearby, so I began spitting water on them...well that was a karma fail....as the next morning the gathered around 5:30 am and began cooing and singing in unison loud enough that it awoke me and kept me awake for the rest of the morning...well played pigeons...well played... So after getting out of bed, we went on a little shopping trip, where Dave continued to display his awful bartering skills, while I was able to get several items for at least 25% less of the sticker price. At this point we had to go meet up with the rest of our tour group and have our orientation for the trek...We met with the group which ended up only being two others, a Kiwi couple. On our information forms, I made sure to make note that Dave Budd was an undergarment thief, and that others on the trek should watch out for him....take that Dave! Unfortunately, the guides never made mention of my subtle jabs...so I guess I'm not as funny as I thought.
So after that orientation we didn't really do a whole lot, just had a late dinner and a few beers then called it a night. We headed early to the airport, and lined up in the Yeti airlines line, I was pretty pumped as you can see.
Damn I love that beanie...so sweet.
So we fly into this Lukla place..which probably has the shortest runway in the world....I have a video, let's see if it will upload or not...
So remembering back onto our orientation day..our guide had suggested we don't smoke, we don't drink beer, and we shouldn't eat meat...so of course we have been drinking beer..and we stopped at Lukla for our first meal before trekking...I notice there's yak on the menu..and am curious of course...so I ask the guide if Yak is any good..he says it's awful and to not bother...so being the bad ass I am...I of course order the yak....and I must say, it really wasn't anything special...but it was an experience...
So after eating yak, and hoping that I don't yak after eating the creature, we begin our first real day of trekking, which only took 2 hours..we grabbed some decent photos along the way and settled down for the first night. At dinner time, I decide I've tempted fate enough, so I go with a vegetable alternative, and a beer of course, while Dave gets a bit "cocky" and goes with the chicken...well that was a big mistake...ha ha ha...so I'm sleeping well enough and then I hear some yakking in the bathoom around 11 pm at night...and it wasn't the semi delicious mountain based animal yak..it was poor Dave becoming awfully sick from the chicken....of course when he was about to exit the bathroom I had the camera ready, but I didn't exactly get a great photo of the man....here's a pic of him hiding in embarassment though....
So after laughing at poor Dave's expense..and hearing him battle back and forth with the toilet all night, we rise up early today and have our breakfast and hit the road....the trek today was fairly grueling as we went upwards about 1000 m...so the air is a bit thin, and we're starting to realize how bad of shape we really are...some of the highlights today were the random long bridges that we had to cross, and hope that we didn't run into any yaks at the same time, as they are a bit unruly at times ha ha...here's a good photo of the yaks crossing one of the bridges...which terrify me normally, since I'm afraid of heights....
So we continued hiking all day, while poor Dave has continued to struggle with his chicken adventures....everytime we see chickens I'm certain to point them out and mention how they are mocking his every move...he'll learn his lesson I think.
So anyways, that's about it for this blog, here's one last photo from today that I like..
Yes I look like a bit of a tool, but it's a cool background at least ha ha.
Anyways, probably last real day of internet until after Base Camp....
See ya'll soon
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