Guest blog by Matt: Up a mountain, down a valley and over a dead body...

Ok, so I’m no longer in Nepal. Wish I was rather than being back home freezing to death with the happy prospect of work. And yes, I have been nagged to write a guest blog so here, in brief, is a review of my fortnight away…

Trekking: so there we are with our guide and porter venturing forth into the Himalayas. Whilst their names escape me already (Lima? Larma? Darma?) they were very friendly. In fact, they even offered to carry our bags and narrate our journey! How lovely.

As our Nepali and their English was a little restrictive gestures became the main source of communication (not easy when the conversation moves on to discussing Phd in Psychology and the rights and wrongs of Marxist theory). Alas we did manage to gather that, unfortunately, we were told that the weather was the worst it has been since the beginning of time. Not so lovely.

None the less we were assured that some snow-capped mountains lay beyond the thick grey clouds.


Can't completely complain as the poor weather did abate on our way back down and we were left with some really amazing scenery. The landscape in the lower parts of the valley resembled fish scales. It looked really quite surreal.
And yes, I have now got a taste for more trekking - Tibet perhaps?

Kathmandu and Bhaktapur both fantastic: a maze of temples, medieval-like streets, self-assured cows, rubbish and non-stop noise of horns. I particularly enjoyed watching Josie negotiating such items on the busy streets and even more entertaining when dark and using a headtorch to light the way. Needless to say the pavements were vastly inaccessible but quite an adventure!

When off exploring on my own I visited potty-posh-not (Lonely Planet's phonetics??!!) aka Pashupatinath. An ancient Hindu temple, flanked with shadhus, praying temples, burning bodies, cows and beggars. At one point I found myself straddling a dead body, surrounded by mourning family members. Obviously I hadn’t intended to get so familiar with the locals, it was simply a poorly calculated short cut to avoid the wailing family. Apologies!

Obviously there are many more memories; Everest flight, becoming slightly obsessive with prayer wheels at Boudha stupa, Bawarchis veggie and paneer wraps (Mmmm) and so I just want to give a BIG thank you to Sheila and Roshan for allowing me to stay and for arranging so many unforgettable activities. They are both stars. But we knew that anyway!