The Lake is what all of the guide books talk about. And it was beautiful.

We visited the Palace Museum, and other than that just really wandered around the streets, of which all streets either led to the Palace or the Lake. So I think we pretty much covered the city off.

Udaipur Lake, the view from our Rooftop

Hand made shoes- enough to send a girl crazy!

The Palace in Udaipur

Wildlife in the streets of Udaipur

Our favourite little Daschund!

Udaipur bridge

written by  mich_and_dan_moors on April 21, 2011 from Udaipur, India
from the travel blog: mich_and_dan_moors's Travel Blog
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Unfortunately we had a horrible start to our journey as on the overnight bus that we caught into the city from Udaipur Dan lost his shorts (they myteriously went 'missing' from the bus) which had all of our money & cash cards in. So when we finally arrived that afternoon after the trip from hell- which also took about 5 hours longer than we were told - our main mission was to find somewhere to get a cold beer!

Nightmare over & we actually really loved Jaisalmer. The people were so friendly and seemed to have a really great sense of humour.
Although it was incredibly hot we did the main sight seeing of the forts & organised to do a Camel Trek with the infamous 'Mr Desert', owner of Sahara Travels. This gentleman was a mere truckdriver until somebody one day took his photo...........which led him to winning the Mr Desert competition 5 times in a row! He then became the face of a cigarette ad campaign as well as doing a Coca-cola TV commercial and eventually opened his Travel Shop.

The Camel trek we did was amazing, we got to see the Dessert at sunset as well eat fresh Indian food cooked on a camp fire (the tastiest & spiciest food to date!) Just a minor complaint was that my bloody Camel bit me! I'm sorry but I had to take a photo just to show the sheer size of my bruise. Have you seen the size of their teeth?! :-)

After much deliberation Dan decided it was best NOT to buy this for me ;-)

Nadi....our comedian chef!

Mr & Mrs Moors with Mr Desert

Our Desert Sunset

dinner by the campfire

Ouch! That damn camel

written by  mich_and_dan_moors on April 23, 2011 from Jaisalmer, India
from the travel blog: mich_and_dan_moors's Travel Blog
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We visited Jodhpur City Palace, which had an amazing vintage car selection, the Fort, and on top of all the cultural sights the guys(i.e. everyone but me, Michelle) also did the 'Flying Fox' 6 zip wires across the city- ranging from 190mtrs long to 400mtrs and goodness knows how high! About 50mtrs or so which was just too much for me.

By day 3, the 44 degree heat was getting too much for us. We were drinking about 9litres of water between us & only peeing once a day which was ridiculous. Rajistan was beginning to take it's toll but nonetheless we did have a great time in Jodhpur.

Why its called The Blue City

The City Palace

more monkeys....beware

The lovely Charlotte & Acer

A night out at 'Rocktails'!

Dan meets a taller Indian Man than him!

Another Omlette butty van.....we have a bit of a theme going on.

Yum!

Turban anyone?

Jodhpur Fort

The Flying Fox zip wire team!

written by  mich_and_dan_moors on April 27, 2011 from Jodhpur, India
from the travel blog: mich_and_dan_moors's Travel Blog
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It's a really small, quiet little place with a lot of temples all scattered around the Ghats but to be honest we only visited a few.
We did manage to walk up to one of the main temples on the hill which had fantastic views. The pics should hopefully give you an idea.........

City views

We stayed with an absolutely amazing family who were so helpful & gave us so many top tips for getting around the city, so we managed to see all of the major sights including the city Fort & Palaces, the Observatory as well as a few snake charmers on the way! We also went to the infamous 'Rajmandir' cinema theatre, which is very Grand beautiful building and watched a very silly Bollywood film. It was fab!!

Could this guy load ony more on his bike?!

The lovely family we stayed with, cooking us dinner. Yum!

The Taj was very impressive, it felt a very magical place & definitely lived up to the hype.There was no way we were coming to India without visiting and even though it was only a brief visit for us we loved it............despite the tiny gripe of having to pay 750 rupees entry fee as 'foreigners' but Indians are only charged 20 rupees?!!
It was still amazing though :-)

outside Agra Fort

A rickshaw driver taking a nap on the roadside....what a uncomfortable position?!

We did get to see the incredible sights though - the River Ganges is considered as the holiest place for families to cremate their loved ones so it was a bit surreal to actually see this happening. And it's common for everyone, strangers & tourists alike just to stand by and watch this happening which in itself very strange.
It's almost more strange to see local people freely swimming & bathing in the River not caring that the water is full of human remains, as well as goodness knows what else. Holy or not, we did not partake!

The city was just heaving & bustling with people. Apparently over 40 million visit in May as its festival time so we hit it at the busiest time ever. So to us it felt as far away from 'Holy' as you could get!

The cramped train to Varanassi

Bathing with the cows in the River Ganges. Very holy....not!

a local off-licence we found!

Fancy a tipple?!

We stayed at the 'Hotel Nepalaya'....and what a novelty it was for us. We had carpet in the rooms plus a Bath!!! Get us!! Seriously, this was real Comfort for us after our India experiences. Also it was soooooo cool temperature wise in Kathmadu- only about 25 degrees which was heaven.

The main reason for our trip to Nepal & Kathmandu was to do Everest Base Camp. We'd already been in touch with a guy called Bijay from Oasis Trekking, so once we'd booked the trek we spent the next few days getting ourselved organised - making sure we'd got all the right gear, sleeping bags, hats & gloves etc plus we did a bit of sight seeing around the town.
Kathmandu is a really great place, a complete refreshing change compared to India, and it had a really nice 'feel' to it, and you'll soon find out that everybody visting has either returned from a trek or is about to do one. Us included!

Day 1- Our guide Kamal picked us up at our hotel at 4am ready for the flight to Lucklar which is where the trek began........and by the way Luckla aiport is one of the most dangerous airports ever! And when the plane truned up we know why! It was the smallest plane we'd ever been on seating just 16 people & we within an arms distance away from the pilot. Thankfully we made it it one piece (the flight wasn't too bad actually!) and the scenerey was immediately stunning. Just breathtaking.
We did just a lttle easy walk on day 1, about 3 hours and then rested our heads for the evening.

Our luxury plane. Or something like that?!

Day 2/3- So our real first day of trekking began on day 2, and to be honest it wasn't too bad. It wasn't easy, but I think at this point we were both still a bit 'drunk' on the scenery and the whole experience of making our way to Everest Base Camp (or EBC as eveybody calls it!).

Now, day 3? That was a whole different ball game.........it was truly horrible!! For me anyway, I found it really difficult as we walked about 6 hours that day & 3 hours of it was uphill, & I mean up very, very, steep hills. When we finally made it to Namche oh was I glad to rest there. I was knackered!!

The view of Namche......after we'd had our 'rest day' walk :-)

Day 4- this was our 'rest' day. But to be honest I don't call climbing 300 meteres uphill for about 2 hours a rest!!But it did the trick, we were now aclimatised to the height & neither of us were showing signs of any altitude sickness. So the next day instead of resting again we made our way up.

Day 5 - onward to Tengboche, which all considering was quite a nice walk! Here was a very ancient monastery, so after lunch we were able to have a look around & see the monks during one of their prayer sessions. In the morning we were awoken by a helicopter landing outside our room.....we heard that another group had decided to fly back down, we're not sure why but we were both thankful that we didn't need a chopper. Not just yet anyway ;-)

Day 6 - we were climbing to Lobuche today & it was now getting colder, and higher (obviously!). The weather hadn't been too great for the past few days, it was very hazy so we were a bit worried about what it was going to be like when we did finally get to EBC but we tried not to worry too much & being so close to our goal was keeping us both motivated.
We'd always start our walks early morning, about 7am and after a few hours we'd stop for a cup of tea & snickers to keep us going, so by about 1pm we'd arrived. The Tea House where we were staying was pretty horrible, but to be fair it was the first not very nice place that we'd encountered. It was just soooooo cold, and the food wasn't brill, and we weren't really looking forward to sleeping here at all. But we were knackered, so we did sleep alright. After we'd stopped shivering at least!!

One of the locals at Lobuche

Day 7 - Today was EBC day! So were were up early, at about 6am - & what a view we had! It was just gorgeous, the sun was shining (Hooray!!!) and it was breathtaking. We could actually see Everest & teh whole mountain range in full view so we were really looking forward to walking to Gorakshep.

Our beautiful morning view

We had about a 4 hour walk so as soon as we did arrive we had food........egg & chips! It was great!! They were the best chips we'd tasted so they really set us for the day. After a few hours rest we kept our eyes on the weather because it started to look a little hazy again. Today we had a choice of either walking to EBC or up to Kalapathar which was 5545m and THE mountain where we'd get the best views. So we opted for EBC as the weather really wasn't on our side.

We could see EBC in our views, it actually looked quite close. And that was the first of many challenges we faced that day! The trek was tough. It was up constantly up/down, up/down, over rough terrain, plus it started to snow a little & I think also because we could see it so clearly the deception that it was actually miles away was just too cruel!!
Both Danny & I found it tough, but after about 3 hours............WE MADE IT!!!!!!!!!!!
To this day I can't believe we have actually done it. But we have! And it felt great!!!

Everest Base Camp.....we made it!!!!

To say we were knackered when we got back to our Tea House was an understatement. But the buzz, speaking to others who had either just completed it too, or were on their way, was great. We couldn't celebrate too much though as we had to get up at 4am the next day!!!

Day 8 - up & up & up & up we walked!!! And it was soooooooo steep. And sooooooo early!!
The only way I could keep myself motivated was to keep on walking & not stop. I kept on marching so hard that I actually left Danny trailing behind me a little. And I reached the top first!!! Not that it was a competition ;-) It was 1 1/2 hours of pure hard slog, but to say the views were worth it is an understatement. I think this is my most favourite sunrise I've ever experienced!!!

So to quote a song 'What goes up, must come down'. And we did.
It wasn't so easy, especially after only about 3 hours starting our decent I fell over & sprained my ankle. To say I slowly hobbled for the next 5 days down was an understatement.
To say that we were supposed to be on our way don there were actually quite a lot of annoying ups ......we went a slightly different route down going to Pheriche instead of Lobuche (which was far nicer) and we also did a little detour to Khumjung to visit the Sir Edmund Hilary School which was great to see.

The Sir Hilary Edmund School

Another bonus was we were now able to have a few tipples of whisky to celebrate- seeing as though we'd practically done the hard bit. I think we deserved it!!!!

written by  mich_and_dan_moors on May 12, 2011 from Kathmandu, Nepal
from the travel blog: mich_and_dan_moors's Travel Blog
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Pokhara was beautiful. So quiet compared to Kathmandu and it was very green & lush. But what neither of us were expecting was the trek to be so tough. The first day wasn't too bad but on day 2 we walked up 30,000 steps!!! And they were not just steep, I'm really not exaggerating when I say they were practical vertical.

This practically wore me out, both physically & mentally....and to say I was in a bit of a mood was an understatement. So much to the extent that Danny & I had a 'heated debate' about going down an alternative/easier route & I'd just about had enough ;-)
However we kept on going and on Day 4 we got up at 6am to climb up to Poon Hill. It was an incredible view and from here we see the full Annapurna range of mountains.

The full trek was amazing. It was totally different to EBC, and in many ways it was a lot tougher. We're not sure if we'd done this before Everest that we'd even have attempted to do EBC.
But we didn't. And we did. And it was incredible!

At the Top!! Poon Hill

A stroll around the lake. Beautiful

Just one of the sights we saw in Pokhara!

After a full week of totally relaxing & doing nothing more that eating & taking in the sights of Pokhara we returned to Kathmandu & met up with Bijay & Prem - the guys from Oasis Trekking, who by now we'd become really good freinds with. So much in fact that they kindly offered to cook dinner for us at their home.
Their family are beautiful & it was such a lovely night and one which we'll never forget.

Danny & the boys! (Bijay, left - Prem, right)

Me & the girls!

The Oasis Trekking family!

The yummy home made food

written by  mich_and_dan_moors on June 2, 2011 from Pokhara, Nepal
from the travel blog: mich_and_dan_moors's Travel Blog
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