Brooke and I (Nico) are very excited to
meet our new group and start another epic adventure with Odyssey and Calypso. A
week ago we said a sad goodbye to our Istanbul to Singapore guys in Kolkata,
India, leaving them in the capable hands of Teresa & Mikkel and started heading back north to Kathmandu. We had lots to think about
and lots to do in preparation for our new expedition, and little did we know
what was waiting for us in Nepal! It is two days before meeting our new group,
and Mother Nature is proving that there is nothing certain in life.
After massive monsoon rains against
the Himalayas, there was a big landslide in the north of Nepal, taking out a
4km stretch of the only road we can take to get Calypso into China and Tibet!
What can we do, except keep calm
and carry on? We will spend the next few days fixing Calypso up, gathering
information, and speculating about the personalities of our new travellers.
Kathmandu
We spent a very busy five nights
in Kathmandu, getting Calypso ready, meeting our new group, and waiting
anxiously for news about the landslide that took out the road we want to use to
get to Tibet. After a lot of talking to locals and Pete and Kirsten in the
office, we decided to wait a week longer and see if the Nepal government could
live up to the promises of fixing the road before our Tibetan permit starts to
run out. The challenges of travelling never end!
Our new group members all got
acquainted with each other quickly (10 girls and only 2 boys!) and went on
shopping sprees to stock up on warm sleeping bags and cheap North Fake
products. Kathmandu is also known as a place where local cultures meet (and
international - hundreds of tourists everywhere!), and this makes city tours to
all the different temples and Durbar Squares very easy and a lot of fun.
As you might think, we do not
like to sit still for too long, so to kill some time we'll head off to Chitwan
National Park and Pokhara.
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| Lisa |
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| Karen |
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| Morgan |
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| John |
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| Danni |
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| Liz |
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| Zoe |
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| Marjo |
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| Nicole |
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| Michelle |
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| Monkey Temple |
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| Monkey |
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| Prayer wheels |
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| Prayer flags |
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| Zoe & Nicole |
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| Hannah, Brooke & Liz at the Monkey Temple |
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| Monkey Temple |
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| Monkeys in Kathmandu |
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| Kathmandu |
Chitwan
Chitwan is a big national park in
Nepal to protect what remains of their wild animals. We were hoping to see some
one-horned rhinos, elephants, and tigers. Our first surprise was two resident elephants
coming home after the day's work, strolling right by next to Calypso as we were
unpacking the truck! These two live right behind our lodge and woke us up every
morning with their friendly trumpeting.
The girls went on a canoe ride, a
bush walk, and an elephant back safari.
Lisa had an ice bucket challenge,
so we decided to turn it into a group challenge and challenge the other Odyssey
truck on its way to Istanbul from Beijing.
In the evenings we enjoyed drinks
on the Rapti riverbank and watched the sun set and the bats wake up.
We are all happy for the bonus to
see Chitwan.
Tomorrow we head to Pokhara.
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| Resident ellie |
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| Canoe at Chitwan |
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| Bushwalk in Chitwan |
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| Annapurna Mountains, from Chitwan |
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| Embarking station |
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| Marjo on her ellie |
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| Annapurna Mountains again |
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| Nico & Brooke getting ready for the ice bucket challenge |
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| Sundowners by the river |
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| Ellie shower |
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| Loading up |
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| Ellie's are good for everything |
Pokhara
The last time Brooke and I were
in Pokhara, we walked up Sarangkot to get a good view of the Annapurna
Mountains. It is a hill on the side of Lake Phewa, 800 meters higher than
Pokhara. This time we got some of the girls together to pack a bag and hike up
for an overnight visit and early morning clear view of the mountain range. We
made quick work of it and sat outside on one of the very basic lodges' terrace.
The other girls came up with taxis and brought the wine. We spent the evening watching
a great sunset and the lights of Pokhara coming on one by one.
The next morning we got up super
early and walked up to the viewpoint on top of the hill. We were rewarded with
a spectacular sunrise and almost completely clear view of the Annapurna
Mountains. What a great way to start the day. It was Karen's birthday. What a
great view to start your birthday with! That evening we went for a big group
dinner to celebrate.
Today was for relaxing, visiting
the International Mountaineering Museum, and checking out the Devil's Falls.
Tomorrow we will head back to
Kathmandu to get some updates on the situation with the road to Tibet.
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| Rivers meeting |
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| Zoe |
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| This boat house was wiped out by a landslide |
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| Sundowners on Sarangkot |
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| View of Pokhara at sunset from Sarangkot |
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| Hannah, Liz, Lisa, Nicole, Nico, Marjo, Brooke, Karen, Morgan and Michelle |
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| View of the Annapurna Mountains |
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| The brave hikers - Brooke, Zoe, Morgan, Nico, Nicole & Liz |
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| Enjoying the view |
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| The brave taxi passengers - Marjo and Michelle |
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| Top of Sarangkot |
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| The International Mountaineering Museum |
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| The western climber |
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| Devil's Falls |
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| Marjo & Nico at Devil's Falls |
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| Karen's birthday dinner |
Kathmandu
Yesterday we got back to
Kathmandu in good time. There were lots of small landslides to dodge along the
way. The monsoon rains are definitely taking their toll on Nepal's roads and
villages, and we cannot help but feel sorry for the locals trying to make a subsistence
living. Brooke and I had a dinner date with our local agent and go-to-guy and
two guides we know that crossed the landslide area a day before. We were hoping
to get some good news from our friends, but our hopes of getting Calypso to Tibet
were slowly fading. The meeting confirmed our fears - the road is still only
passable by foot. It meant quite a big change for our expedition. Plan B came
into effect. The plan that excludes Calypso.
Luckily things like this do not
get us down at Odyssey. We have all been working hard to make arrangements and
keep things going. A landslide will not stop us. We will walk across it. Not
having Calypso will also not stop us. We will take trains and hire buses. The
show will go on. We see new unchartered adventure!
This morning we broke the news to
our group, and everyone got busy to lighten their loads. We will now have to
carry our luggage between 4x4s and buses and hotels and trains and taxis (and
over landslides!). We all had some things to send home, making us think about
how much you actually need. Tonight we went to Sam's bar for our last drink in
Kathmandu.
Tomorrow we will start our new
adventure into the unknown. Exciting!
The Last Resort
We took a bus from Kathmandu to
the edge of the landslide. When we stopped we couldn't see it yet. We were all
curious and excited and anxious at the same time. We were venturing into the
unknown. We organized some porters to help us with the heavy bags on the
uncertain terrain. These people astonished us. They are the people that lost
everything in the landslide - houses, farms, family, neighbors - everything.
The only way to make a living now is to carry trucks' cargo and tourists'
luggage over what used to be their homes. Again, it made us think about what we
really needed to carry with us, and how much we have.
We walked over a small hill and
saw something that Lisa explained as a movie set for Indiana Jones. It was
something else. Destruction of epic proportion. The landslide came down a big
mountainside into the valley. It completely dammed up the river, forming a big
lake above it. Lines of porters were weaving up and down on small single-track
lanes above working bulldozers and digger-loaders. We took some pictures and
got to walking. It was 4km over the site of destruction, through rice paddies,
and on a new muddy road they are constructing. It started raining and we picked
up the pace to get to our new bus waiting on the other side. We all got there
in about two and a half hours. A short bus ride later we arrived at The Last
Resort, where we had to cross a suspension bridge 160m above a raging white
water river. We had enough excitement for one day. We had a wonderful buffet
dinner and everybody crashed early and went off to bed.
Today some of the girls went
canyoning, some went for a hike, some went for a massage, and some went for a
session in the sauna.
Outside the rain is drizzling and
the lighting is thundering. We are all in the lounge chatting about nothing and
everything. Soon we will enjoy another big buffet. A good last day in Nepal.
Tomorrow we cross our first
border. We are going to Tibet, the autonomous state of China!
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| Porters waiting in line to load up |
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| New lake |
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| Site of destruction |
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| Destroyed house |
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| Long line of porters and tourists |
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| Lisa and Zoe on the bridge to the Last Resort |
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| Liz |
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| John, Danni & Marjo |
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| Morgan |
