Nepal - Videos (Updated)

Hey all,

Update: More videos added. We decided it best to put them in chronological order but you can see the recently added videos as they are marked with a "NEW" - Enjoy!

Over the next few days I'll be trying to upload some videos from our time in Nepal. The connection is somewhat sketchy so it takes a while. For now, I've managed to upload two (maybe 3) of the smaller ones - I hope you enjoy them!

Trail Maintenance with Dynamite! NEW
A few days in, our hiking was interupted by some minor trail maintenance being performed by the Nepali Military. Apparently, the road had to be made bigger / wider / safer / whatever... Either way, crossing the "maintained" section was altogether sketchy following explosive experiments.



Silly Kids!
While we were taking a break in a small town in Manang Valley, we were thoroughly entertained by two baby goats actively trying to decrease their number of brain cells. It was decided that the Goat in the Black Corner was the clear victor.



Life at High Camp OR (Mel is a SMELLY MONKEY!) NEW
Hanging out in the lodge after a day of high altitude hiking - needless to say, we were all very tired (and possibly smelly).



Mel is a HUNGRY MONKEY! NEW
Just watch the video...It's hilarious. Melissa had no idea she was being recorded.



Glaciers Make Cold Rivers! NEW
There were natural hot springs in Tatopani. Naturally, we decided to partake in the activity; however, after a few hours it was getting really hot and we opted to see what the river had to offer. The cold water was a bit of a shock to the system but we later discovered that if you sit down in the river bed and dig in to the sand, it becomes exceptionally comfortable. By the same process that heats the springs, the sand is maintained at a very high temperature. So hot, in fact, that you couldn't put your fingers more than a few inches deep. Unfortunately, this video only documents the shock factor of the river experience, rather than the comfortable burrowing.



Sunrise over Poon Hill
This video was taken by Neil as a 20 minute time-lapse video of the sunrise behind Dhalugiri. I was so impressed that his camera could do this - it's very cool! It takes one shot every 2 seconds and pastes them all together to make a short video.



How to Ride a Nepali Bus... NEW
Coming off of the trail at Birithanti (Pronounced BEEEER!..ithanti) we hopped on a local bus taking us to the city of Pokara for some much deserved rest. We decided to tackle a unique cultural challenge by riding the bus in a way that would likely get us in trouble with the authorities back home. It was actually a very relaxing ride (Mel managed to take a nap for about an hour!).



Paragliding FUN!
The is a video of Graeme landing near the beach in Pokara after 45 minutes of tandem paragliding. We had an amazing time sailing high above the ridges; however, not everyone's stomach survived the up/down/twirly motions of the flight...MEL :)

Nepal - We Went PARAGLIDING!

More updates from Nepal!

We went Paragliding today... and it was, like, totally awesome. For now, we're going to head to bed so you get no stories or captions; however, I promise that more shall be added to this post as much "fun" was had by all.

Neil had a pretty orange Parachute.

Melissa's was yellow.

Phil had a prefrence for red.

Phil (left) and Melissa (right)

More Phil...

More Melissa...

Even more Phil...high up in the air!

Nepal - Random Knowledge

Nepal is an interesting country. Here are some things we learned along the way:

• Pretty much all the goods on the Annapurna Circuit are carried in on mule trains (but we'll call them donkeys from now on.)
• The smelliest guy in town is the guy who carries the cages of live chickens.
• The smelliest animal in town is the donkey who carries the cages of live chickens.
• The smelliest thing around is the train of donkeys carrying the chickens.
• When to honk your horn in Nepal: You are being passed, you are passing, someone has just passed you, there is a cow in the road, the car in front of you is not moving, there is a turn ahead, etc.
• When to not honk: when no one will hear you.
• "Pizza" doesn't always mean pizza
• "Nepali flat" is actually mostly uphill.
• We've seen two traffic lights in Nepal. Both were flashing red but nobody stops (everybody just honks)
• When there is chicken on the menu, it's often alive until you order it.
• When a hotel says they have "hot showers", it usually depends on it being sunny in the last 3 hours.
• The view from high up really is amazing.
• One flight of stairs at altitude can take your breath away.
• Neil is too tall for Nepal.
  

Nepal - Photos from the Annapurna Circuit

Hey Everyone!

We made it... 18 Days. 215 km. A few blisters. One very high mountain pass (5416 m). All is well. Neil hit his head on more than one low Nepali doorway; however, it doesn't seem as though he's suffered any permanent damage (Mel managed to negotiate the doorways with relative ease) :P.

The trip was amazing. As we rose through the Himalayan landscape, we traveled through rice fields, sub-tropical rain jungle, deciduous forest, high altitude alpine desert, and glacial passes. It was beautiful and we enjoyed it immensely.

Instead of giving you a day by day breakdown, we're going to include a bunch of photos from the past three weeks along with some captions (once we get more time...it might just be the photos for now).

Melissa & Phil - Goofing off before heading out on the trek.

A small Nepali girl wanting to hike along with us. She was very cute. More photos & videos to come :)

Nepali kids loved Graeme's sunglasses!

Prayer wheels for good luck - We found these in every village in Nepal.

Entrance to a Buddhist Monastery in Upper Pisang, Manang Region

Melissa posing before the Manage Valley the day before our rest day.

A small acclimatizing hike during our rest day in Manang. We hiked up to 3800 meters (about 400 meters above Manang).

The group (Stu, Melissa, Phil, Neil, Graeme) posing before Gangapurna peak & glacier.

The view from the top of the ridge above Manang.

Phil is a lazy monkey! But it's not a bad place to take a nap...

Cairn constructed above Thorong La high camp at 4850 meters.

Sun rise on summit day, as we were making our way
up to Thorong La pass.

Stu, Melissa, Neil - Hiking is a lot of hard work!

Melissa, Stu, Phil, Neil following our Sherpa. Mila.

Dozens of Prayer Flags at the top of the Thorong La Pass.

Melissa enjoying a Mars bar at the top of the Thorong La Pass.

Looking east from the top of Thorong La Pass.

The Cairns and Prayer Flags of Thorong La pass, as seen from 100 meters above.

Cairn built on the highest point on Thorong La, looking east.

Village of Muthinak, the day after the pass.

A small village in the valley from Muthinak to Jomsom.

We had pitty for the mute rooster we found just outside Martha.

Beautiful green valley between Ghasa and Tatopani.

Dhaulagiri mountain as seen from the top of Poon Hill. 8201 meters, 7th highest peak in the world!

Dhaulagiri mountain, again... We hiked 3.2 vertical kms in 2 days to get these shots, so you better enjoy the photos!

Hong Kong - Part 2 (Just pictures for now)

So we're in Kathmandu right now and we'll be leaving tomorrow morning for our Annapurna trek. However, we've been really slow to write our blog posts. In the mean time, here are some of our favourite pictures from out last two days in Hong Kong.

I hope to get the rest of the Hong Kong story finished off before we go; however, I don't know how much I'll be able to get done :)

Here is a picture from Happy Valley Raceway in Hong Kong - we had an amazing time watching the horse racing.

This picture of Mel and Phil at Lantau Peak on Lantau Island just outside of Hong Kong. As you can see, we managed to find ourselves way up above the clouds.

Hong Kong Central taken from Victoria Peak at dusk.

Hong Kong Central taken from Victoria Peak at night.


While walking over a bridge I figured this intersection would make for a pretty cool photo - I hope you like it :)


-- more to come --

Hong Kong - Part 1

Okay – so Melissa's last post was epically long and she was only writing about two days. Given that Hong Kong was one of the most lively and activity packed cities I've ever seen, you'll have to forgive me if our 6 days in Hong Kong take up just as much space. Here we go...

Day 1 – Arrival

We got in to Hong Kong around 2 pm and ventured up to our super-sketchy hostel room. Deceptively named “The Mirador Mansions”, the building contains a vast array of 1 star Guest Houses. Though we were fortunate to get a private room for the three of us, it was roughly similar in size to a walk-in closet (with no windows...).

Given that our room wasn't exactly the Hilton, we ventured out straight away. With Tripple G in tow, we went for lunch at a fairly lousy Chinese fast-food restaurant. Following lunch, we parted ways with our Gaelic friend and headed off to explore. First stop was the Star Ferry, which takes passengers across the harbour from Kowloon to Hong Kong. It's actually the cheapest way to get across to HK, costing a total of about 25 cents per person...Good deal! From the ferry we went off to find the Bank of China building so that we could go up to the 45th floor and get some views of the city. Sadly, it was Sunday and the building is only open to the public on weekdays. Still in high spirits we wandered in to HK Park in search of the famed Aviary. However, we arrived at the gate at 5:25 only to find that it closes at 5. Blast! Batting 1 for 3 in terms of tourist sights, we headed back to the hostel to shower - it was around 28 Celcius out, and HK is by no means a linear city... Our last attempted tourist activity for the day was to witness the Hong Kong Symphony of Lights from the Kowloon waterfront. Success! We arrived just in time and managed to get some prime seats right along the pier. From there we had amazing views of the choreographed light and laser show as it played out across the harbour. For dinner, we rejoined Tripple G for Hong Kong's famous Indian food. Although Melissa found it a little too spicy, we were utterly amazed at how good everything tasted. After a few beers in a side street bar called “The Watering Hole” and a few games of Foosball (at which Melissa and Phil truly destroyed Tripple G and myself), we called it a night and went back to our broom closet to sleep.

-- To be continued --

Shanghai - Part 2 (no more day numbers)

Wow, has time ever flown! There is so much to do, and so little time. Our last 2 days in Shanghai were quite interesting and packed with activities. Here is a small snip-it of what we did (it's not that short, but it is really only a couple of activities).

-- Pictures to come --

Our hostel is located in a kind of sketchier place of town, and is a fair distance from the downtown area, but that means the food is much, much cheaper. We finally found out where the BEST breakfast in the city is (at least based on our experiences) and it is located right on the street as we exit our hostel. We have eaten there for the last 2 days in Shanghai, and they cook up the food right in front of you and there are so many delicacies (but for some of them, we haven't a clue what they are. However they are very tasty). Sweet sticky buns, round pastries rolled in sesame seeds that are filled with random dark sweet filling, and the best of all, a pancake-omelet type thing. It started with a pancake like batter, then some scramble eggs, topped with cilantro (which is on every dish here!), spicy sauce, and a deep fried pastry is then added and the whole thing is rolled up like a taco. It was my favourite dish being served there! Street vendor eating is very tasty and super cheap, and is always fun to try and communicate what you want. The street vendors did not speak English, and we can't speak Chinese , except for the necessary “hello”, “thank-you”, and “No, I don't need” (to ward off the people selling their knock-off Rolexes and Prada hand bags), so the game of telling them what we want and how many is always a game of charades which ends in us holding out our hands with random amounts of change and the vendors picking out the necessary amount. We hope that we don't get ripped off too much, but since it is so cheap to eat there, it wouldn't make that much of a difference. The three of us ate breakfast for 6RMB (= about $0.90).

As you will be able to tell, our China part of the trip revolves around food... and lots of it!

Later that day we walked through the French Concession, and indulged at a French Bakery. Two fancy coffees and a chocolate sponge cake later, and our pockets are 87 RMB (7RMB = about $1) lighter, which is quite expensive for a snack here. But was it ever good! And there are no regrets. This area of town is quite swanky and there are lots of tourists milling about. Right near the French Concession was a small and beautiful park with a large pond. We were enjoying the landscaping from under a tree on beautifully manicured grass, until we heard a whistle coming from across the pond. There stood a man in a grey uniform, with white gloves pointing at us and waving us off the grass. What is a park if you can't sit on the grass? We then found a hard cement bench under a tree to sit on, which was near to the grey uniformed park officer, and during our stay on that bench, the officer whistled at anyone who was on the grass, near the pond (across the yellow line that was painted on the walkway 1 foot from the pond), touching the water in the pond, touching the grass, looking at the grass, and pretty much anything else that condoned having fun in a park. If you have ever seen the Seinfeld episode with the Soup Nazi, this guy was deemed the Park Nazi for his over ambitious attempts to keep the park in pristine condition.

-- Ivy & Julie, we found you the location of the PWC Shanghai office. It was across the street from this park, so if you go on exchange to this office, avoid eating lunch in the park. You will probably be whistled at! --

One of the neatest things that we experienced in Shanghai was the fact that the young Chinese people enjoy speaking English, and they love to practice. I guess three Caucasian people stand out in Shanghai, since whenever we were just relaxing in shade, young Chinese people would come up to us and want to chat. We met very interesting people, and got to learn about where they are from, what they are studying in school and their likes and dislikes. One lady asked us what we studied at university, so we replied “engineering” and she proceeded to inquire about what we would be doing for work and we replied that we would be working in the software business. Her first response to our answer was “So that means that you would all be working at Microsoft?” We chuckled on how accurate his question was... How did she know?? I also found out the three dreams for a Chinese male... 1. Get a Chinese girlfriend 2. Work in America 3. Buy a German car (BMW was his choice). I guess his dreams are very similar to many around the world!

Later, met up with our Austrian friend who was teaching English in Shanghai (we met her at our hostel in Beijing) to have dinner with. She brought along one of her students to have dinner with us, so that we could understand the Chinese menu. We went to have dinner at a Hot Pot restaurant. This Hot Pot restaurant is very popular with the locals, as there was a line up of about 40 people, and usually you have to wait about 45 minutes to get a table (as per the Chinese student's description). However, when we got out of the elevator, the restaurant's hostess asked us to wait on the side. About 3 minutes later, we were sitting at a table for 5. An example of the great hospitality that China shows to guests. We were the only non-Asians in the entire restaurant and that meant that our table got lots of stares throughout the evening. Hot pot is similar to a fondue, but you order many, many dishes of meat (beef, lamb, chicken, sausage), seafood (fish balls, squid, shrimp), veggies (cilantro, lettuce, potato, mushrooms), and many other thins that we didn't know what they were, such as a dish that was called “Kiss the intestines”, “mushroom tribute pill”, “wacke kean noodles”... I guess many things got lost in translation. And many dishes didn't get ordered, as were were very afraid of them (“pig's brain”, 'fish's bamboo ikeel”, “nam intestines”). You then proceed to cook the food in a pot on the table which is filled with boiling broth (spicy side, and not spicy side). The dinner was amazing, and there was so much food! The best part about dinner was that it cost 156 RMB for 5 people (= $23 and that included 4 beer and 3 coconut milk... What a deal!)

Our stay in Shanghai ended too quickly, and it was sad to say good-bye to our newly found friend, Sabrina. However it may not be a good—bye, but only a see you soon... We hopefully will meet up with her in Austria/Germany at the end of our trip. Hopefully see you then Sabrina, and thanks for all your help!!

Our next destination is Hong Kong, and our mode of transportation is train. We have come to love train rides as they provide ever needed rest and relaxation. The train ride is especially comfortable in the soft sleeper class (4 beds to a cabin, which allows a very restful sleep on the long rides... China is HUGE!). The train ride from Shanghai to Hong Kong was 22 hours. This was plenty of time to catch up on some needed R&R. We even had enough time to meet a new friend over dinner on the train ride. This new found friend was a fantastic person to talk to, and had some interesting tales of his travels, experiences, and life in general. We chatted over dinner on the train (which was disgusting... Never order a dish called Fish and Spicy, it will be deeply regretted by all) and found out that he was from Ireland and his first language was not English, but Gaelic (which is wicked), that he's been touring around India, Thailand, Singapore and China. Since I've never spoken to a Gaelic person before, I had a hard time understanding him with his accent. I misunderstood him many of times, the worst being during a conversation about Easter. He asked us a question, and I interpreted it as being “Is it a bacon holiday?”, and me being confused about the question, I sat there with a dazed and confused look on my face. I was about to reply “No, I had ham...”, but Graeme quickly interpreted the question as being “Is it [Easter] a big holiday?” I guess I have to brush up on my ability to understand accents. :) Some interesting things that we learned about him, and interesting conversations we had:

1. He doesn't pronounce “th” sounds, so three comes out as tree (which makes it even harder to understand)

2. He was enthralled about Canadians, and was curious about how we say about & out

3. That he's never been to Disneyland or Ikea but was very excited to learn that Hong Kong had both.

4. That he was fairly gay... and will hence forth will be known as Triple G...Gaelic Gay Guy...(We never actually got his name)

Days 3 and 4

Day 3 of our journey was our last day in Beijing. We decided to take in some more of the popular sites in town. We started the morning off with the Lama Temple, home of the world's tallest Buddha carved out of a single tree.

We then slowly made our way to the Temple of Heaven, an enormous green space (see below) with gardens and buildings throughout that political and religious leaders would use to chill out when they needed some personal time.

We then made our way to the Pearl Market, somewhat of a Chinese shopping mall with hundreds of tiny stalls selling everything from groceries to electronics, clothing and jewelery. It's just like a North American mall except the stores are tiny and their owners yell at you to buy their stuff.

We then had to travel on an overnight train to Shanghai. We returned to the hostel, grabbed our bags and bid farewell to our newly made friends. We then went out into the street to get a taxi to the station but none of them would take us. In Beijing, taxis are cheap. 10 yuan ($1.50) for the first 3km then 2 yuan per kilometer thereafter. As a result, drivers prefer to take a lot of small fares and none wanted to take us half way across town in traffic. We eventually waved a 100 yuan bill ($15) at one of the drivers and he agreed to take us. When we finally paid him, he wouldn't accept our bribe and gave us full change.

The train to Shanghai was wonderful. We were in soft sleeper class. The rooms had 4 bunks so we shared with one other man who was certainly not a bother. There were nice white sheets and they had placed some fresh flowers in a small vase in the room. Needless to say, we arrived in Shanghai the next day well rested.

In Shanghai, we had a day of touring around, walking out to the very crowded Bund, riding the Shanghai Maglev (431km/h) and exploring the city.

It's incredible how much of a contrast there is between Biejing and Shanghai. We also checked into our new hostel and they pretty much gave us a suite. We have two double beds, a small kitchen area, two TVs and two swanky bathrooms all for less than $20/person/day.

In the evening, we went out to the Shanghai Acrobatic show. It's like cirque but without the million dollar sets. The show was great but somehow, I got pulled up on stage for the "throw knives at one of the audience members" part of the show. Now, we were sitting in the third last row in the theatre so I don't know why they picked me of all people to go up but they did and I nervously volunteered. On stage they covered my head with a jacket so that I wouldn't twitch and then threw 5 knives at me. The first two on either side of my head, then two more by my legs and the last one in between them. Turns out the joke was on me. I couldn't see what was going on since I had my head covered so I didn't know that they weren't actually throwing the knives, they were just getting placed there. I suppose that's why the audience was laughing so much. Ha ha.