Back to Nepal soon

This blog has been dormant for some time. The last I blogged it was about my first trip to Nepal in April. After that, I had a short trip to Japan in July. But I am going to blog my upcoming trip instead, and it is back to Nepal again in about one month’s time. This time, I am not going as a tourist, I am not hiking, not sightseeing, and not trying the interesting items on the menus. This time, I am going to volunteer in the Nuwakot district, 4 hours away from Kathmandu. It is one of the most damaged regions by the 7.8 magnitude earthquake on 25 April 2015. I will be fed and provided with a roof over my head albeit without mattress. To mentally prepare myself, I have googled diligently about the place and am expecting my temporary “home” for the two weeks to look like the place in the photo above (but with mountains), which I had taken on the way to a small and somewhat secluded church in Kathmandu where a friend was doing evangelism work with.

Kathmandu to Lukla

Panorama view of Tenzing-Hillary airport aka Lukla airport.

Two weeks ago, I went on my first trekking trip in Nepal. It was also my first time to Nepal, and first time seeing glaciers. We arrived in Kathmandu late at night on Sunday and had to wake up early on Monday to catch the first flight to Lukla where our trekking will begin. We were let in at about 7am and there was already a big crowd of people, amongst which, many carried the same duffel bag, probably heading to EBC together. Behind us in the “line”, was a grandpa from the USA who was heading to Lukla to take another plane which will fly over the 8848m Mt Everest (Chomolungma – Goddess mother of the universe) to offer a close-up look of it. 

Vientiane, 2015

My last bus ride in Laos was from Luang Prabang to Vientiane, for my flight home. I had no more time to break up the journey in Vang Vieng. I had booked a morning VIP bus ticket and surprisingly, the pickup came earlier than scheduled. I asked the driver for 2 minutes and ran back to the dorm to bid farewell to Park, who was also getting ready to check-out and travel to a rural area to visit his friend’s friend. Then I was on my way to the bus terminal for my whopping >10hrs bus ride. My fellow commuters and I were pretty amused by the VIP bus. It certainly didn’t look like it was for VIP, but there was a cool crack on the front-screen. We went into full-fledged tourist mode and took photos of it. Anyway, we were early and there was nothing more exciting to do.

Nong Khiaw, Laos

I spent a lot of time on the bridge staring at this.

My original plan was to go to the South where there is nothing but hammocks, kittens, rivers, and waterfalls. But I didn’t have the luxury of time. So I decided to go up 4 hours north of Luang Prabang to sleepy town Nong Khiaw. It turned out to be my favorite place out of all which I’ve visited in Laos, but also the most physically painful one right from the start. As usual, the mini-van was overbooked and as a solo traveler, it made sense for me to volunteer to exit and wait for the next one – twice. When I finally secured a seat, I realised my hostel didn’t issue me a ticket. Luckily, the attendant verified with my hostel over the phone and let me get on the road.

Luang Prabang, Laos

Mount Phousi for sunset.

The ride to Luang Prabang from VV was pretty good. There were only 4 of us in the mini van so I had an entire row to myself and the scenery was great. I approached the other lady in the van, B, from Chile, and asked if she had any accommodation arranged because I didn’t reserve any. She has booked a nice guesthouse that was probably out of my budget but had a hostel to recommend and kind of brought me there because her guesthouse was nearby. It was actually the highest rated hostel that I saw on hostelworld the day before. It was a looooong walk.I was put into an 8 bed mixed dorm which price was definitely within my budget but I would totally pay more for a slightly more spacious one with aircon that actually works or a fan. But anyway it was just for 2 nights, it was ok. Could have been a lot worse.