You make me feel like Tansen

We were gutted to leave behind Pokhara but had an excellent last night. Keshab invited us for dinner with his family and we had a lovely time wolfing down their veggie thali and learning more about Nepali life from Govinda. We then had a few hours to enjoy the Street Festival, indulging in street game [...]

The joys of volunteering with children at the Butterfly Foundation in Nepal

Muneeza and I decided to add a week onto our stay in Pokhara to volunteer at the Butterfly Foundation, a child day care centre set-up by Govinda, the owner of the Butterfly Lodge where we have been staying, to help disadvantaged families in the local area. We turned up on Wednesday 22nd December after our [...]

Chilling lakeside in the Himalaya, Pokhara style

Though sad to wave goodbye to the orphans in Sauraha, we were also excited to be heading to Pokhara for some mountain action (or is that mounting action?). We left Saturday 18th in the am, met a cool Belgian couple on the bus, Andy and Sarah, and hatched a plan to dig out trek info [...]

Back to basics in the jungle of Chitwan

Two weary gringos stepped off the bus at Sauraha to be greeted by the driver from the Tiger Residency Resort. Having booked an all inclusive 2 night, 3 day package from Kathmandu for only $100 per person, we had expected the accommodation to be rather primitive. However, we were pleasantly surprised to discover the ‘Resort’ [...]

Kathmandu, du, du, find a buddha hug a tree

We arrived in bustling Kathmandu after the most painful flight of the travels so far. Our flight from Cairo touched down in Doha at 21.30 and then we had to tough it out in the airport ‘quiet room’ until 04.45 for our connecting flight to Nepal. Hours entombed with a throng of sick people, topped [...]