Monsoon Fever

Well during the monsoon season the views may not be the best around the Himalayas, but never the less the countryside of Nepal and it's people managed to take my breath away. Unfortunately we had to head back to Kathmandu cause our visa was ticking again as visas tend to do.


This is Gorkha, the town that supplies the most ferocious mercenarie soldiers to the British army. The picture was made by the entrance of the Gorkha palace.

C'mon sisters isn't it beautiful to be a woman?!

The Maoist are quite active in the region as we can see on several buildings.

Om the edge of Bandipur.

This is Bandipur, a ones busy mountain town just off of the Rajpath, today a quite place. The special feature of this settlement is it's "No motor vehicle policy" that makes it unique in the whole of Asia. I can dig that :-)

We have always manage to find good spots for our tent. Sheltered from the monsoon rain in a buffalo barn.

The local girls where giving us constant entertainment.

After the big trekking we where ready to take a good rest before making our way back towards the capital. The nearby Begnas lake was just the right place to pamper our wrecked bodies.

This is the interior of a local house that like all houses 'round here can also function as a restaurant.

We continued our trekking hence all the rain and the thousands of leaches that raided our legs every day all day. Like so we got to Bhadaure.

Well the monsoon season proved to be sufficient in covering all the breathtaking views of the chain. This was probably the best shot Gabri could take of it after being on constant lookout for days.

When there is no monsoon season, from this point one can observe the whole Annapurna mountain-range that contains around 15 peaks out of which Annapurna One is the tenth tallest point of the world with it's mighty 8100 meter height.

The peak that's peeping out of the clouds is Machapuchare with it's modest 6993 meter peak.

After a looooooooong hike we got to the little hill station on Panchase that consist of these few houses.

We stayed with this gal, her mother and grandmother for over night. She played drums and sang lovely folk songs for us, the mother made us the best dal-baat (Nepal's national dish made of white rice, soupy lentil sauce and a green vegetable stew) and the grandma'... well she was just radical as hell!

On our strenuous hike up the Panchase we passed by villages too sweet to be described with words. These places are only reachable by walk, so medieval tranquility is guaranteed.

This good ol' shepherd man was real welcoming and allowed us to put up our tent on his land as long as we wanted. He also made us homemade salty lassie from buffalo milk.

This mountain area is believed to be an ancient "holy mountain" that used to be a sacred meditation and yoga haven for babas in the last few thousand years. This quote is from the Vedas and according to a Canadian researcher it is referring to the Panchase mountain itself.

The villagers invite you for a good cup of Nepalese tea which is a strong milk tea with salt and sugar. The houses they live in represent state of the art village architecture with neat and clean patios like this one with the two smoothly spinning grain-grinders.

The local kids around the villages are always happy to see some foreigners and of course they demand the mandatory photo.

We started our trek by climbing up over countless layers of rice terraces that where ready to embrace the new batches of rice being planted.

...and here it goes.

The mountain area around here is barely penetrable by motor vehicles, but when there is not too much rain, the bus comes around ones a day. So here it comes...

After a few days we started to get ready for some serious trekking. Paddling a rowing boat was part of the exercise.

In Nepal this time of the year is the season to plant the rice. It is quite a scene watching the women parade around the rice fields.

We've found a lovely lakeside guest house, so for a few days just kind of hung out drinking good tea and giving some gentle exercises to the hammocks.

Because Nepal supposed to be the world's hiking and trekking paradise, we decided to take a trip to the countryside. Few hours on the Nepalese "highway" (it's quite high 'cause of the altitude, but that's all that lives up to the title) and we arrived to Pokhara lake which is the perfect base to start some splendid trekking around the Annapurna mountain range.