ANNAPURNA SANCTUARY



Are you sure the map says straight ahead?


Where: Himalaya mountain range

Where (less detailed): just a little left of Mt Everest (and a lot downwards)



Alright base camp was pretty easy, reckon we can make the summit by morning?


Weather: freezing cold at night, Rhaani "I'm wearing everything I own and I’m still cold", roasting for breakfast and torrential rain for lunch.



I swear she’s like a frickin vice


Locals: What locals? Our guide and porter were Nepalese (and awesome) but the mountains belong to the continental Europeans (Dutch, German, Swiss, Spanish).



Quite possibly the only sunrise worth getting up at 4am for


Food: Government issue menus meant food became very repetitive very quickly....most expensive chocolate bars anywhere -although in fairness some Nepal kid broke his back carrying them to 4,000m



Paul always knew his love of cock would cost him dearly one day (870=£7.90)


Highlights, lowlights: our winning run with public transport continues, our 7hr trip to the mountains takes 14hrs and includes a 3hr wait as police allow 1 vehicle to cross a bridge at a time... the scenery, just a pity it takes 100,000 steps to get there...our utter shock that climbing a mountain would require so many upwards steps... discovering Nepale flat (500 steps up, 500 steps down, 500 steps up, 500 steps down)...after conceding that we do need a porter to carry our 20kg backpack Paul’s ego forces him to share the load with the hired help, 4hrs and over 3,000steps later Paul decides the porter must be feeling upset at not being able to do his job and delegates all heavy lifting responsibilities for the rest of the trek…



Pretty bloody cool


…the utter ease at which our borderline midget porter carried the 20kg backpack...our guide turns his back for 5mins and Rhaani takes us 200 vertical feet and 20mins passed our stopping point... Paul breaks his climbing boots in while Rhaani just breaks her boots....



That’s right Greek a P-34 is winging its way to Merrell as we speak




Eat your heart out MacGiver


…overheard in our £1 a-night tea-house: "these mattresses are quite hard, do you have anything a little softer?” ... the joys of nocturnal toilet breaks: head torch, squat toilets, thermal underwear - a winning combination… Rhaani gets clamped Nepalese style, only a 20rupee note makes the child release her grip... Rhaani adopts a bamboo walking pole...Paul’s fruitless search for an iPod charger...discovering our guide uses the "girl in every port" system to select where we stop each night - no matter how much further we have to walk as a result....a Nepalese basket case....

The trek? A lot of people struggled with it but I found it pretty easy

…discovering we are goal-oriented people, the second we hit base camp we declare were done with trekking, the next 4days should be fun...a personal message to Dmitri



Dmitri, even he’d heard about your antics at Chris’ wedding


… to the man who brought his guitar on the 4am trek to poon hill, you're a cock, if you love music so much use an ipod like everyone else...to the couple who had the room next to us and brought their 18month year old along (and whose screams pierced the wafer thin teahouses walls) you're selfish and your kid won't remember any of this anyway...Rhaani discovers the dual meaning of getting high....



So this is why the porters sprint up to the top


Up next: due to our travel agent’s cock-up Chengdu, China and not Tibet. Although on the bright side the change of plan means we miss out on the 5-day “Friendship” Highway drive (so-called because you and a bunch of other tourists spend 9hrs a day stuck in a 4x4 jeep for 5 days. In our case it would be called the “Paul and Rhaani turn on each other, threatening to go their separate ways until they are brought back to speaking terms by their joint hatred of their infinitely more annoying fellow tourists” Highway. Also avoided was our much-anticipated 42hr train journey from Lhasa to Chengdu.



Thank f*@k