Nepal

A brief recap in Nepal...

Basically i had to do 14 days of trekking along the Annapurna trek, and 2 days of white water rafting. The first memorable thing happened after stepping out of the airport in Kathmandu. We were greeted by a lot of locals who will literally try to snatch your luggage to put them on the bus, after which they will pull you one side and demand for tips. Under these circumstances i will just ignore them completely.

Trekking days were long and boring, climbing up and down the mountains. Heights vary from 1000 to 3000 metres above sea level. Bukit Timah is like only 100+ metres above sea level. Some parts of the paths were pretty dangerous too, almost like you were walking along the edge of the cliff. And some parts were slippery. Hence footwork proved to be pretty much a challenge, especially when it comes to avoiding all the dung. It's really amazing to see so much dung of all sorts of shapes and sizes everywhere. One of my squadmates even gave each dung we came across different names to relieve the boredom we had while trekking. Fortunately we had inns to sleep in instead of tents as tents were more costly and labour intensive. Imagine all the equipment you got to carry up the mountains. Anyway some of these inns do not have lights in the night, and if you want to bathe you might have to buy a bucket of hot water. As for me, i found wet tissues sufficient. Food was not too bad though. Most meals will contain potatos, garlic, onions, and mushrooms. If we want meat, we really have to kill the animal on the spot, which we did anyway, but i dare not witness it in fear that it might ruin my appetite. Maggie mee was the norm for lunch everyday, so i'm abstaining from it now. One thing that i never dreamt of was having pizzas in Nepal. I had 9 doses of pizza in total, some good and some not too bad, either way it is a good morale booster for me. Scenery was beautiful with all the snow mountains, but it was all similar after a few days. In order to pass time, we actually came out with an interesting variation of Taiti (Big Two) that was more fun and addictive. We named it after the place Jhinudanda where it was first crafted. Soon, Jhinu was the game everyone talked about. We even had our own championships in each province that we resided in. The most beautiful scenery however was during one night at a place called Ghandruk where i saw snow mountain peaks over a sea of clouds with the moon shinning big and bright, and the sky was filled with a wide array of star constellations. Absolutely stunning!

Some mishaps occurred along the way. As it was the end of winter, the snow on the mountains were melting. Hence we could not go all the way to Annapurna base camp which was about 5000 metres above sea level. Changing the route was good in a way that we could avoid getting altitute sickness which usually occurs after 3000 metres above sea level. However when we found the new path too icy and slippery to trek on, the only route left was to go back the way we came from. Things got worse when Mr Nivens fell into a drain and was evacuated via helicopter to the hospital. And another of my squadmate was also hospitalised due to stomachache. Thankfully both of them have already recovered and are now back in Singapore.

Rafting was a whole different experience. The rapids felt like roller coaster rides. My whole body was soaking wet each though i was wearing water proof clothes. But it was fun rowing the boat through those rapids for the first few times. After a long while, it will definitely get boring. For the first and only night of rafting, we slept in tents. These tents were very cossy and comfortable, having 2 layers of tent cover, with sleeping bag and mat inside. We also started a warm camp fire with the firewood provided.

Blackouts were frequent in the cities, and internet connections vary depending on electricity. In the hotels, TV channels were plentyful and a lot of movies were being screened everyday, the only problem being the frequent blackouts. Shopping wasn't that interesting as everywhere sells similar items. After this whole trip, i'm really thankful for what i have in Singapore. Glad to be back!