Paragliding and Whitewater Rafting

Paragliding sucks. There, I said it. Well it doesn't suck, but it sure wasn't worth $100. The idea of soaring like an eagle and catching thermals to rise higher in the sky sounds amazing. But when you are just a passenger, suck between the legs of an old French man who keeps asking you 'who is the boss' (yes that actually happened and yes it was traumatic), its not all that great. The upside was the amazing views, and the spiralling aerobatic decent. Overall though I'm glad I did it, if only to check it off the list.

White water rafting was great. It hadn't rained in 2 days so the river was low, very low. But although the rapids were not strong, the clown factor of our crew more than made up for it. Basically I was laughing the entire time. We actually had to get out on rocks in order to push the raft whenever it got stuck, having to quickly jump back on once the river started to take it away. Of course we all fell out of the raft at various times, in one case three of us went in domino style one after the other. Since none of us payed any attention to the 20min safety briefing (except how to straddle the safety kayak), we're lucky nobody actually got hurt.

The Motorcycle Diaries

Nepal is not a country in which civil litigation is a major concern. Case and point: renting a motorcycle. After clearly explaining to the shop owner that I did not know how to ride a motorcycle, writing my name and hotel on a piece of blank paper, and handing over my ATM card as collateral, I was off. Well not really 'off', first I stalled it a couple times in his driveway before lurching it suddenly onto the busy road. Possibly adding to the danger that first day was the shirt I was wearing (and not because it provided absolutely no protection in a fall). Though the shirt was purchased as a souvenir from a market in Lao, the hammer and sickle is the symbol of the Maoist movement in Nepal. While they are now a political party that just won majority in the latest election, only a couple years ago they were waging a civil war that killed over 20,000 people. Thankfully everyone seemed to either like it or at least find humour in me wearing it. I now have only one more day to survive before the motorcycle gets returned.

Kathmandu and Pokhara

Kathmandu and Pokhara are the only two cities I will visit in Nepal, so I feel I should write something about them. I arrived in Kathmandu on 4.20.08 from Bangkok. I had already fulfilled the day's duties by burning one pre-flight, but when I arrived in Thamel, the tourist area of Kathmandu, it wasn't long before a major currency error (wonder how that happened) resulted in my procuring a piece of hash the size of my fist (top pic). Overall Kathmandu has been the most hectic city I have been to so far, and the only place where I would absolutely never want to drive a car. This view was reinforced when my taxi hit a cyclist and the driver had to chase the victim down on foot to show him the scratch his bicycle had made, and to demand payment. Still Kathmandu has a certain charm to it, and I am looking forward to going back.
Pokhara is a smaller city located a 20min flight away from Kathmandu. The thrills started about halfway through the flight when I noticed a screw was coming loose on the wing of the plane. The pilots sounded concerned when I told them upon landing, but before I had entered the terminal they were both back in the cockpit and the engines were starting. Unlike Nepalese aviation safety standards, Pokhara is beautiful. The tourist area here is located right next to a lake with views of the Annapurna mountain range. The lake has large peddle boats that can be rented (see bottom pic). Unlike Kathmandu, there isn't anything to do at night and the town is asleep by midnight. But the hash is a little better and the power goes out a few hours less per day, so we'll call it a tie.

Everest

Shortly after arriving in Nepal, I left for a trek to Mt. Everest. The first leg of the trip was a flight to Lukla airport, which is a tiny strip that literally runs down (20% gradient) the side of a mountain. A two day hike and my guide and I reached Namche Bazar, a mountain village that is great for acclimatizing, using the internet, and getting drunk off moonshine. After Namche the we reached 4000 meters and I got a headache. The human body is not really designed to go to high altitude, and when we do fucked up things start to happen. Some people are fine, some people get headaches and cannot sleep, and other people die. I was in the middle category, I had a headache for over a week. There were two main destinations on my trek: Gokyo Ri (5350m) and Kalapathar (5550m). In between them was a hike over the Cho La pass, which is a giant glacier at 5300m. Gokyo Ri is a 'hill' surrounded by lakes. You can see in the bottom pic, 2 of the lakes and the tiny village of Gokyo, where we stayed two nights. The top pic shows the Khumbu Glacier, and surrounding mountains, Ama Dablam being the most bad ass. The middle pic shows Mt. Everest in the center, the taller looking mountain in the front is Nuptse and is not actually taller (if your not an a complete idiot you probably know that in fact, no mountain is actually taller). Both these pics were taken from the summit of Kalapatar. I also went to basecamp, which was basically a bunch of tents filled with pissed off climbers who paid $50,000 a piece to summit the mountain, but who were barred from doing so because of Chinese paranoia about pro-Tibet protests. On the last days the weather turned to shit and I couldn't see anything, but that wasn't so bad because I had seen it on the way up. Overall a great experience, and one of the highlights of my trip so far.