The Beauty of trekking in Nepal

Written by Amanda Hudy - GapBreak 2009, Nepal

Our trek was amazing - even though the bus ride there and back was much to be desired. 7 hours going and coming would have driven anyone mad, but when we eventually did arrive we found a nice place called Buddha Guest House, which provided us with a lovely breakfast to start our trek off. We also met up with some other travellers. There were Russians and Israelis, Americans and even and English doctor who we met along the way. But boy, was going up and coming down difficult. Ultimately it took us 3 days to reach Kanjin Gompa from where you have the most perfect view of the Himalayas. It was amazing at the top and we got really good weather as well, all clear, which really capped off a wonderful trek when we scalled a 5000 m peak to get an uninterrupted view of the Himalayas. I took so many photos, it really was beautiful although quite difficult to get up there. At the top, we enjoyed tibetan bread with jam.

Another thing I loved whilst being up there was in the afternoon, when the clouds finally did descend, you felt like you were in Heaven - I got quite emotional at one point just sitting outside and looking at it all. It really gave me a great opportunity to reflect on things up there and I take from it a lot. Now as I write this, I can say that my cough is slowly going away, but the pollution here does little to help. We have also just realised that in a week we will really only have a month of this placement left, what with all the things we plan to do in the forthcoming weekends - time will definitely fly. Although I am not eager to get home, I'm excited at the prospect of returning and sharing all my photos and stories with you. My travel diary only has about a weeks worth of entries left in it, so there will be lots to say.

As for my upcoming plans. When we return to the village the lower secondary school, where I teach, will have opened properly. They had this big fiasco concerning failed math marks and teacher's getting ousted which really affected my ability to teach properly as you can imagine. Next weekend we will be going to the Tibetan border and then to the Bhoti Coshi river where me and Noirin and Tim plan to bungy jump weather permitting! It's all well and safe - it's like the second highest bungy jump in the world so we should have really good safety measures :). After that we return and teach for another week, which puts us into June. On June 20 the plan is to come to Kathmandu and help out in an orphanage. I think this will be a good thing as it will give me a chance to help out in a different setting. Then on June 30, I will stop teaching and take the remaining 2 days off to explore Kathmandu - perhaps do some Yoga, before I depart on July 3!!! See not long now, and we have been really good at keeping ourselves entertained by doing really cool stuff.