Nepal Galleries

My Favourites : This is a collection of pictures that make me happy. I like colour, and interesting faces, you can probably tell.

My Favourites

This is a collection of pictures that make me happy. I like colour, an ...

Updated: Sep 17, 2009 4:29am PST

Faces : Here is a selection of interesting and pretty faces and people wearing vibrantly coloured clothes - people and animals that I came across on the trip.

Faces

Here is a selection of interesting and pretty faces and people wearing ...

Updated: Nov 17, 2008 1:59am PST

Movers and shakers : I was constantly amazed and intrigued by the kinds of loads people carry in the mountains and in the cities of Nepal. From boxes of eggs, satellite dishes, whole stocks for shops, 60-80kg of water storage tanks, cut weeds for buffalo, arm chairs etc. Here is my collection of pictures of what people and animals carry - both in the mountains and cities.

Movers and shakers

I was constantly amazed and intrigued by the kinds of loads people car ...

Updated: Sep 17, 2009 4:29am PST

Katmandu City : I found the people very colourful here, so these are mostly people, not building and street shots. The buildings in Katmandu (the new ones) are not much to write home about, and I'd been templed-out by the time we got to Durbur Square here. Plus, there were festivals happening, which were much more interesting!! Page 1: Street life, buying offerings for temples etc Page 2: Second last day of Deepwali, processions and goings on in Durbur Square Page 3: Morning of day of Festival of lights (day before above), people buying marigolds etc

Katmandu City

I found the people very colourful here, so these are mostly people, no ...

Updated: Nov 18, 2008 11:58pm PST

Bhaktapur : , platformed spots where the locals could sit, play cards, or just watch what was going on around. We were here This was one of my favourite spots, we stayed a night, I would have liked more...but Phil didn't .. The streets were narrow, buildings all old-style traditional, there were small temples everywhere, and little roofedfor the last day of Deepwali, so everyone was in festival mode, and most had the day off. That evening, I wat and watched all the dressed up ladies carrying platters of offerings and food - I think families were getting together for a big dinner in celebration of Deepwali. Butter lamps were out in force that night, as were groups of kids and teens with firecrackers that night...tissue in the ear does a wonderful job at saving your hearing! One thing Buktupur is well known for, is curd - or yoghurt. It really is yummy, has a sweet, smoky taste, and has a thin layer of cream at the top..mmmm The sellers carry stacks of the terracotta bowls separated by triangles of bamboo on a stick across their shoulders. It was rice drying time, there was rice in Durbur Square, in other little non-road areas, and also all around the bottom of the town near the river. I went for an explore first thing the second morning, and found everyone laying out the rice for the day near the river, which involved carrying the bags of rice from home, emptying it onto sheets of plastic, fanning the dust out, raking it around, and generally lots of action. No-one appeared to mind me being there watching, it was really cool. It was all over by 9am or so. Hence lots of pics. Photos include: Rice drying - early morning action, portraits etc, Durbur Square, and various goings on around town, and portraits of people taking offerings and food home for the last day of Deepwali

Bhaktapur

, platformed spots where the locals could sit, play cards, or just wat ...

Updated: Nov 17, 2008 1:19am PST

Pashupatinath : This is a Hindu area, with temples that non-Hindus cannot enter. But, we get to see inside, to a large bull with it's back to us with big....see the pic. There is also a temple area at the top of the hill on the other side covered in monkies, who keep their distance for locals, but some foriegners were getting friendly, and locals were watching on for entertainment value... Along the river front people are cremated, and young and old, locals and tourists watch on.

Pashupatinath

This is a Hindu area, with temples that non-Hindus cannot enter. But, ...

Updated: Nov 14, 2008 1:23am PST

Patan : Compared to Katmandu Durbur square, I really enjoyed it here, it was smaller scale, cobble stone streets, less people, cars, motorbikes, more locals. Well, that was first thing in the morning, lunch time is a different story! They also make very good yoghurt (curd) here, find one of the small shops with the curd symbol to have a try! The walking tour in the LP was great, there was a ??Hindu temple (another bull with big balls facing the entrance) but we were allowed in this time, there were fortune tellers at work, goats, sheep, local worshippors. It had a really nice atmosphere. Then we found a mask carving spot that had fantastic ganesh and ogre masks, spent our last rupees on one of each of these - really!! We had enough for the taxi to Thamel and that was it.

Patan

Compared to Katmandu Durbur square, I really enjoyed it here, it was s ...

Updated: Nov 17, 2008 1:17am PST

Bodhnath : This is a Tibetan place of worship, were it's good to make a couple of rounds of the stupa, taking in the scenery and people. People buy corn here to feed the numerous pigeons, which apparently brings good luck...I was amazed that no-one appears to be shat on. That's good luck too I think. The stupa is surrounded by beautiful buildings, and it's nice to find a rooftop spot for tea, lunch or breakfast to take in some more of the view. When we were there, they were putting up more prayer flags, and re-paining the top of the stupa with white and yellow paint.

Bodhnath

This is a Tibetan place of worship, were it's good to make a couple of ...

Updated: Nov 15, 2008 2:07am PST

Festival of Lights : We were in Katmandu for this event, where people hang strings of marigold flowers above their doorframes (homes and busnesses), light little butter lamps and lay them on their doorsteps, and make offerings of fruit, rice and flowers in circles and flower shapes outside with coloured powder and butter lamps, often with little footsteps leading to inside. We hired a cyclo for an hour, and cycled around Thamel, checking out all the different shop decorations. Children were also out on mass, singing that new year song?? to anyone that might give them some rupees. These were all taken with the 16-35 f2.8

Festival of Lights

We were in Katmandu for this event, where people hang strings of marig ...

Updated: Nov 14, 2008 12:57am PST

Swayambhunath : This is the big white stupa at the top of one of the hills in Katmandu. There's a turf-war going on between the dogs and monkies at the top, very entertaining - one dog v one monkey = dog runs away, two or more dogs v one monkey - monkey turns tail. It's a great spot to take in the sunset, with a great view of the city. Also appears to be a favourite for young local love birds.

Swayambhunath

This is the big white stupa at the top of one of the hills in Katmandu ...

Updated: Nov 13, 2008 7:19pm PST

On the trail - Pokhara to Besisar : The start of our trek began as a 3 day walk through the rice fields and crossing rivers and streams numerous times that is normally not part of the Annapurna Circuit trek. There were no tourists, and we ate tasty dal bhat at small little tea houses. My favourite, was a night stay in a little pink house at the top of the hill, where we ate freshly grown pop corn with the village teacher and his wife.

On the trail - Pokhara to Besisar

The start of our trek began as a 3 day walk through the rice fields an ...

Updated: Nov 17, 2008 1:15am PST

On the trail - Besesar to Braga : Now on the normal circuit, we saw the same groups of people most nights, made some friends, and becane somewhat used to the many hours of walking each day. The food was great, buckwheat and corn breads, fresh apple pie, curries, and yak steak.

On the trail - Besesar to Braga

Now on the normal circuit, we saw the same groups of people most night ...

Updated: Jul 06, 2009 5:11am PST

On the trail - Braga to Thorong Pass : At this part of the trek I was reminded of how hard walking at 4,000m + was. No fun! But the scenery was amazing, and it was somewhat disconcerting seeing the strong little guys lugging up the mountains big metal cages of provisions. Probably what we ate for dinner! Did you know that there are no chickens above 3,000m or so? There are even porters that carry only eggs.

On the trail - Braga to Thorong Pass

At this part of the trek I was reminded of how hard walking at 4,000m ...

Updated: Jul 06, 2009 5:09am PST

On the trail - Muktinath to Marpha : Muktina is a pretty town, where lots of Indians come on pilgrimage to an interesting temple here. And the surrounding towns and valley are really picturesque. Oh, save up (ie, wait, not $$, they are cheap) to buy your yak wool scarves, hats and gloves here to take home, as they make most of them here - for local and KTM sale. The colours, variety etc is the best here. Boys read on... The jeep road also now comes here (discontinuously) from the main drag. Ie, you are walking along a road now, where jeeps past, beep at you and cover you in dust, I can only imagine what it will be like if buses get here... Many say it spells the end of the Annapurna Circuit trek...I'm inclined to agree, unless nature and landslides create havoc with the road, a strong possibility. Going from Muktina to Marpha - this was a long, hard day, no-one mentioned the gale-forced winds in the river bed for a couple of hours to Jomsong and Marpha, and no, it didn't stop at 4pm...no pictures here, as my lenses would have been sand blasted. Marpha was also really pretty, spent a sick day here as my cold raged on, we stayed at a small place in Marpha called Chez Nisa, where the owner was really friendly, as were her daughters. Here they made fantastic lasagne (fresh made pasta, yak cheese, garlic, tomato, spinach, herbs) - it was so good, I had it for dinner, lunch and dinner...plus their apple cider, made from their own apples was to die for. Phil had 3 big glasses within a couple of hours of our arrival - I had two.

On the trail - Muktinath to Marpha

Muktina is a pretty town, where lots of Indians come on pilgrimage to ...

Updated: Nov 15, 2008 1:12am PST

On the trail - Marpha to Tatapani : Our guide managed to take us along walking trails for most of this stretch, as there is the discontinuous road to Muktina along where the original trekking route, buses can now come from elsewhere up past Tatopani. Buses make you eat lots of dust. They grow apples all around Marpha, and down almost to Tatapani, which is great, lots of tasty fresh apple pie, fresh apples, apple juice...hadn't had much fruit for a while (can't you tell?) Just before Tatapani (will find name of village) we stopped for the night - and shortly after arriving, everyone dissappeared. Turned out later, both guide, porter, Phil all didn't feel great (fever??), so I had a great time sitting on the fence chatting to the vivacous lady guest house owner, watching the water buffalo being fed, and a group of Indians trying to haggle her down for two rooms between 9 people for less than $5 asking price. They were thankfully not successful. But oh, the theatrics. Phil had a raging fever all evening, and sat outside with a wet face towel on his head, which hopefully will be funny in the future. We did a temp check every 15-20 min after it spiked to 39 deg C. My first real meal in a day got really cold...

On the trail - Marpha to Tatapani

Our guide managed to take us along walking trails for most of this str ...

Updated: Nov 17, 2008 1:24am PST

On the trail - Tatapani to Chomrong : The walk from Tatapani to Sikha was mostly up for the first bit, then a nice walk through villages and rice terraces. We had an uneventful night (thankfully) here, except nobody remembered to tell me it was my birthday, or do anything for it, great surprise that was! The next day it was on to Derali (the non-ABC one), with a walk through the forest from Chitre. The spot we stayed in at Derali was great, the owner and her helpers were really friendly, we all sat around the pot-belly stove in the middle of the room - as it was quite cold. Our porter came down with a fever this night, so we were up tending the fever till quite late, luckily we'd stocked up on paracememol in Tatapani...I was beginning to wonder when it was my turn! All was apparently better the next day, we quietly lightened the porter's load (small heavy stuff), he quietly said 'thankyou'. The walk from Derali to Chomrong was gradually up, and some of those downdowndown-upupupup- bits, but pretty scenic, villages, rice fields etc. Then a nice hot shower at Chomrong...couldn't remember when the last one was... We had a great evening of socialising with trekkers met on the circuit, and made some new friends. We accidentally swapped dinners with a couple outside..noodle soup...vedg pasta...same diff..we were hungrier! Then just before bed time, I made some joke about no fevers tonight, then shorltly later, our porter came to us with a fever again, same idea, 39deg, water, undress, check etc. So it was decided to send him back to Pokhara - the closest hospital, and have our guide go with. Not safe to take up ABC! So the next morning, we left all but the necessities at the guest house, and set off alone.

On the trail - Tatapani to Chomrong

The walk from Tatapani to Sikha was mostly up for the first bit, then ...

Updated: Nov 17, 2008 1:29am PST

On the trail - Annapurna Base Camp : This was one of my favourite parts of the trek. We were quite fit by now, and decided to really chuff (go fast)to get back in time to do more sight seeing in other parts of Nepal. So we did Chomrong - Derali in a day, Derali - ABC - Chomrong in a day (veeeery sore feet, 30+km horizontal, 1,600m in ups, 2,500m in downs), Chomrong - Pokhara in a day with all of our stuff. Our porter had a fever again the night before going up again in Chomrong, so we sent him and our guide back to Pokhara to get him treated. So Chomrong and on, we were on our own schedule - and thankfully same way in and out, we could leave all but necessities to go up to ABC. The base camp was very spectacular, we woke at 4am, left Derali just before 5am, and were up there as the sun was rising over the mountains. Heading down from ABC to the other base camp (add later) was also very spectacular - advice...do this early before the sun kills it. The walk back to Pokhara from Chomrong was really speccy, through rice and buckwheat terraces and small villages. From Chomrong up to Derali wasn't as interesting, but it was a nice walk. Oh, and watch them not-so-cute kids throwing pebbles, and trying to pick your bags as you go through some of the villages.

On the trail - Annapurna Base Camp

This was one of my favourite parts of the trek. We were quite fit by n ...

Updated: Nov 17, 2008 1:27am PST