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2024 Adventure

February - September 2024
A seven month trip around Asia and Europe. Full blog at twobackpacks.co.uk Read more
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  • 2024 Adventure
    Day 87–89

    Taiwan part 2

    April 30 in Taiwan ⋅ ☁️ 26 °C

    Today, we planned a day trip out of Taipei to go hiking and visit some scenic towns. So, we donned our hiking boots and took the train to Hutong Cat Village. It was previously a booming mining town, but when the mines shut down, visitors began feeding the cats, causing the cat population to boom. Now, they have shops selling cat food to tourists and cat cafes.

    When we arrived in Hutong, we first picked up some small cat pellets and then tried to feed them to the cats, as a pretext to letting us pet them. It worked fairly well, but as they get fed so much, a few of them were a bit snooty about our dry food. The cats were cool, just lounging around in the middle of the street or asleep by walls, but the sound of a bag shaking quickly stirred them.

    In the village, they also have a huge free mining museum, which used to be the processing factory for the coal. It still has a lot of the old rusted machinery in it, and the exhibition is built up around it.

    As we wandered around outside in search of friendly cats, it began to rain heavily, so we took shelter inside a nearby cat cafe where we had lunch while watching the rain. It felt super cozy.

    Given the amount of rain, we gave up on our plans for a hike and decided to go straight to Jiufen, which has amazing street food and lanterns decorating the town. It's said to have been the inspiration for the town in Spirited Away.

    It was beautiful, and the narrow winding streets had food and tea stalls and trinkets, which was a feast for the senses. We walked up and down and then realized how tired we were, so we decided to head back to Taipei for the evening. We stopped off at a local fast food chain called Mo Burgers where I got a shrimp burger and James got a rice bun fish burger.

    On our 4th day in Taiwan, we decided to rent city bikes and see the town. The bikes cost about 20 cents for 2 hours, and the cycle lanes through the city and the parks were perfect, making it irresistible not to keep riding for hours. We cycled up to the National Palace Museum where we ended our cycle and bought tickets and looked around at some of the precious artifacts held there. After lots of days of walking, our little legs were too tired to do anything else, so we spent another quiet evening resting and doing any last bits of laundry ahead of our flight the next day.

    On our 5th and final day in Taiwan, we spent the morning apart in search of different things. We were catching our flight at 9 pm that evening but still had a whole day to fill. So we left our bags at the hotel, and I headed off to a bookshop in search of a guidebook for SE Asia, and James went to an Electronics plaza. After a couple of hours and success on both ends, we met up on the metro and headed out of town to the city zoo. It was £2.50 (!) for both of us to get into the zoo, which is insane and such good value. The zoo was huge and hosted a vast array of animals, some of which were more local to Asia than what we usually get in Western zoos. The enclosures were pretty big and well-stocked with structures and vegetation for the animals. The highlights were the aviary, where we finally managed to see the national bird of Taiwan, the mandarin duck, and another colorful pheasant that is the closest relative to the dodo. My highlight was achieving my trip objective of seeing a sloth! As they're only native to South America, a zoo version was the best I was going to get, but it was still pretty amazing seeing them in person and so close up. After we'd seen as much as we could at the zoo, we headed back to collect our bags and get to the airport. The airport was very quick and easy to get through and very empty. It only had one food outlet which played the same track on loop which basically only consisted of a chorus, that went '...I'll be happy tomorrow, so let's be happy...' 😵‍💫 The flight was thankfully smooth and pleasant and was a great way to start our time in Thailand.    Read more

  • 2024 Adventure
    Day 85–86

    Taiwan!

    April 28 in Taiwan ⋅ ☁️ 31 °C

    Sun 28 April

    Upon arrival at Taipei Airport, the first thing we noticed was how busy it was. Lots of people seemed to be arriving from other flights. Before reaching border control, we had to go through meat and veggie screenings to ensure we weren't bringing anything in. We then walked past a dengue fever and illness screening desk. Although I had researched that we didn't need a visa to enter Taiwan, waiting at the border made me nervous that I'd missed something or that we needed to fill in some form in advance. Thankfully, we didn't, and they just gave my passport a pretty cool stamp, and off we went.

    After retrieving our bags, we picked up a pay-as-you-go card for transportation and a phone SIM card. We were super surprised by the fast data speeds we were getting.

    After taking a beautiful train ride into the city, which carried us high above the lush hills, we decided to grab some food before checking in. James found us a highly-rated but fairly traditional restaurant where we ordered a traditional Taiwanese beef noodle soup. It had the softest beef I'd had in ages and jelly bone marrow as well, which I personally wasn't as big a fan of. Then we checked into our private room at the hostel, which was wonderful for the price. Even without a window at £37, it had a private bathroom, towels, shower gel, a tea/coffee kettle, and it was very clean and well-maintained, which is a lot more than I can say for some places we've stayed.

    We then spent a wild night doing ALL our laundry and basically washing everything because it all now had a whiff of the Hong Kong dungeon on it. Like an answer to my prayers, the hostel had washing machines and dryers. I forgot how long dryers take though, even at low heat, and even though we started at 7 pm, it didn't finish until 10 pm. I was so tired I fell straight to sleep.

    DAY 2

    I awoke with a headache and didn't sleep as well as I thought I would, considering how tired I was, but I took a painkiller and it went away. Our free breakfast was the strangest medley of things I've ever seen on offer. I think it was all more traditional Taiwanese breakfast stuff, but it was all savory, such as chili chicken pasta in a white sauce, veg and sausage in gravy, what I thought were hash browns but were actually a creamy cron thing, and more. It was all pretty delicious though, and I tried everything. James was boring and just ate the toast and jam, boo. The tea here is super milky and sweet too, so I'm in paradise.

    We then headed off to a free walking tour of the old city. It was a pretty big group of mostly 27- to 40-somethings who all seemed neat and were traveling around East Asia. As we were listening to the guide, something tickled my foot. I looked down thinking it might be a fly or something, but to my horror, it was a centipede! I flipped, shaking my foot and jumping around and throwing off my sandal too. It went off pretty quickly, but I got the fear of it now and had to put James between myself and it. Of all the people's feet it could have crawled on, it had to be mine, who has the biggest fear of them, FFS.

    The rest of the tour was lovely. The guide was really good at simplifying the complicated past of Taiwan's many invaders and people, and I definitely came away knowing so much more than I did upon arrival.

    It was about 33°C out, and even in the shade, quite hot. In the middle of the tour, we stopped at a local stall and had a mixed fruit water drink that also comprised of a jelly, which was delicious! After that, James and I lost our concentration a bit, but we did chat to a guy from the UK who grew up in Catford (where we live) and now lives in Singapore. We ended the tour in the younger neighborhood, where the LGBTQ community also gathers. We then headed to a nearby cafe and got some lunch, and as we were tucking in, what seemed like a practice procession of floats went by banging drums and in a dragon costume.

    After our lunch break, we headed to Monument Square, before going back for a nap in our room. After crossing the roads, which take five minutes because they're so big, and picking a bus to take (they only come every 20 mins), we arrived at the square and were immediately struck by how HUGE the buildings were. We walked around admiring them for ages, craning our necks to see the beautiful decoration of the roof and sat on the steps of the National Opera to admire the whole scene while nibbling on some traditional biscuits we picked up on the way. We then headed to the furthest monument of Chiang Kai-shek, sitting on a chair, very similar to the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. The scale of everything was pretty stunning. We read the style had been brought over by Chiang Kai-Shek in 1949 when he came over from China. After wandering around the building, we headed back to our room where I napped for two hours.

    At 7 pm, we headed out to Shilin Night Market to get dinner. The area is famous for its many food stalls and night shopping, and it did not disappoint. We got out roughly £35 cash but only spent half of it and managed to eat about six different things plus a drink. We started with a Taiwanese sausage in a rice wrap, which set us up with unique flavors for dinner. We then had fried crab leg, which was delicious. I didn't realize the texture of crab meat was so soft. We then had the longest, straightest potato chips (aka French fries) ever, with mayo and seaweed, so crispy and delicious. I got a very tasty cranberry drink. Then we had a bun with pork filling, which was so good, but the bun was more bready than I was expecting. We then moved on to dessert, starting with an ice cream sandwich and then shaved snow (frozen condensed cream) with fresh mango on it. It was huge and a real showstopper. It was a delicious evening, and as we left, we were discussing coming back to try all the other things we missed. Overall, a fantastic first day in Taiwan, which is making us fall in love with this country a lot.    Read more

  • 2024 Adventure
    141
    Day 80–81

    Traveling to Hong Kong

    April 23 in Hong Kong ⋅ 🌩️ 25 °C

    Our journey to Hong Kong was probably the longest and most exhausting experience I've ever had. It started at 9 am in Pokhara (ace lasted more than 24 hours), where we took a very small domestic flight to Kathmandu, which was SO bumpy I was actually quite scared (the person behind me was also sick. James and I were both pretty nauseous too btw). We then waited in Kathmandu airport for ages as the King of Qatar's visit meant the whole airport was on lockdown until he left. We also went through a ridiculous number of checks and security, which became extremely aggravating. On our flight to Delhi, just as we were beginning our descent, when the captain announced that due to a thunderstorm (and extremely bumpy conditions) we weren't going to be landing in Delhi but in Lucknow, which was back half the distance we'd just travelled. Once landed there, we waited for 20 mins on the plane before being told we'd refuel here and take off again to Delhi. Our 2 hour flight became a 5 hour flight. We arrived so late in Delhi that there was no point going to our hotel, so we got a Domino's pizza and checked into our next flight to Hong Kong, departing at 4 am. Checking in was slow as the airline's systems were down and after no sleep and being exhausted, it was very hard to stay standing. After making it through security and into the departures area, we found no seats that did not have hard metal armrests, so it was near impossible to get any sleep, plus there were loads of mosquitoes there which I could feel and see biting me as I sat there.

    As soon as we boarded our flight, James and I fell right to sleep and woke after several hours hungry, but soon realised they didn't serve free food on this 5-hour flight.

    When we arrived in Hong Kong, it was like stepping into the future. After being in some chaotic and rundown airports, it felt weird walking through a pristinely clear space that had automatic flushing toilets with paper, tap water we could drink, and even showers all before immigration. Immigration was a breeze, and we collected our bags and found the bus stop that took us straight to our centrally located room. We got front seats on the double-decker bus and ogled the smooth roads and obedient cars. The hills surrounding Hong Kong are lush and beautiful, and springing up from below them are tall high-rise buildings which make it so interesting to just stare at.

    Our Airbnb room was located in Chungking Mansions, which I would recommend Googling as it's a bit of a notorious place that used to be considered a ghetto (though we didn't know this at the time). The room was... um...a room. We knew it wasn't going to be that nice as it was one of three places that was within our budget in the whole city that wasn't just a mattress on the floor, but we still hadn't quite expected what we got. The entrance was through rough currency exchange and Indian food stalls, to the lifts in the centre. Our landing was then extremely humid and smelled of fried food, and it smelt of BO and more food in the apartment hallway. The apartment had obviously been roughly divided into 6+ rooms. Ours was only just a bit bigger than our bathroom at home and consisted of a bed, toilet and shower room, and a wardrobe. It was tiny, and the AC unit was old and loud and had one setting; cold, and no window (well, a window to a shaft that we were too scared to look into). We both played it cool and tried to pretend it wasn't the worst place we'd ever stayed in.

    We quickly freshened up and headed out for some dinner at a ramen restaurant which cost us £45, more than we'd spent on a single meal for the whole trip.

    We then took the bus to Victoria Peak where you get a stunning view of the city skyline from atop a hill and then took the old (but now refurbished) super steep tram down.

    By now very tired, we then went back and slept to get rested for our trip to Disneyland the next day.

    P.S. we did not sleep well as the AC was freezing when on and humid and stuffy when off, plus I'd all but cocooned myself in my silk liner for fear of bed bugs or other creepy crawlies getting on me. Plus when we woke up it was as dark as when we fell asleep, so we had no idea what time it was all night when we stirred awake.    Read more

  • 2024 Adventure
    Day 75–80

    Pokhara - part 2

    April 18 in Nepal ⋅ ⛅ 28 °C

    On our final day of the trek, which was our travel back day, we woke up early to catch the 7 am microbus with Cecilia. We ate our breakfast in the Manaslu hotel front outside area. After we had finished, we said goodbye to Mitra, which was sad as we had spent so much time with him and got to know him, knowing we probably won't meet again.

    The journey was long and bumpy as usual, the only moment of note was when we got stuck in the more standstill chaotic traffic jam I've ever experienced. On a road with construction taking place, a truck and an oil tanker had collided while trying to pass each other on a dirt road. Nothing was much damaged, but obviously, it being an oil tanker, they were being very 'careful' with a digger trying to dislodge the vehicles from each other. This was taking up the entire road, and so the other half under construction road was being used to move either side of heavy traffic past, although this was not being managed by anyone and was super ad hoc. We didn't know this until passing by, so we got stuck further up, and it all seemed to be people trying to wiggle and pass each other for the whole length. It was also extremely hot, and we were in a mental box with no fan or AC, and with the car not moving, no air was getting into the open windows. We all quickly sweated through our clothes, and I began panicking that I'd get heat exhaustion and pass out. We were in the same spot for at least 1 hour. I was very close to getting out and walking past the traffic jam I was that desperate. Finally, we began moving inch by inch and got past it. Finally arriving in Pokhara, we said goodbye to Cecilia and got into our separate cabs to head to our accommodation.

    We found our place on the slope of a hill, at the top of a dirt path, with a stunning view of the lake and treetops growing around us. Our room was divine. Huge with a lovely bathroom, huge bed, and windows opening out onto the view, with our own private balcony.

    We didn't get up to much while in Pokhara, mostly read our books, slept extremely well, wandered around to the local cafes and bars for food, and enjoyed delicious homemade granola made by our hosts.

    There were a few highlights though. We went up in the gondola, which was right by us, to the top of the hills, where you can normally see the Manaslu, Annapurna peaks but with the haze that engulfed the city the whole time we were there, we didn't see them. The gondola ride itself was fun though, very high and much longer than we thought it would be.

    We also rented a pedal boat for an hour and went out into the lake, but it was very hot and a lot of physical effort, most of which James was doing, though he didn't realize until we were almost done.

    And one evening we went to an outdoor screening of Amelie where we got served drinks and pizza all surrounded by a bamboo forest and twinkly lights it was lovely.

    On our final evening, we met up with Cecilia and had a fun evening dinner and drinks, catching up on what we'd been up to and what our upcoming plans were. It was a lovely way to end our time in Nepal, laughing and having fun with new friends.

    Our time in Nepal has been really magical. I've learned so much about myself and experienced things I never thought I'd do or see. The people we met have been amazing and friendly, and the country will definitely have a special place in my heart.    Read more

  • 2024 Adventure
    Day 74

    Day 12 - Manaslu trek

    April 17 in Nepal ⋅ ⛅ 29 °C

    It definitely felt like we left the mountains behind today, which was sad.

    By now, we'd all settled into our breakfast classics: Cecilia's porridge, James's eggs, and my muesli. Sadly, there was a big furry centipede-like creature in the sugar jar, so I had a little freak out first thing in the morning.

    After that, we set off promptly to the next village, Tilche, where we were to meet the jeep that would take us down to Besisahar.

    I chatted with Cecilia for most of the walk and spoke about how she found the love of her life, her husband, which was not a straightforward tale, but was really beautiful to hear.

    When we arrived at the jeep, James and I squished into the front seat, with Cecilia and two other Nepalese ladies and their two children in the back seat, and Mitra and another guy sitting/standing in the open-topped cargo area.

    Although it was bumpy for lots of the 4+ hour route, it was actually not bad compared to our Langtang return. The hardest part for me was trying not to roll onto the driver next to me, as I had no seatbelt available, and keeping my legs out of the way when he needed to shift gear.

    We'd heard tell that the Annapurna trek route went up roads now, and we saw this first hand as there were quite a few trekkers going up the road with all their gear while us and lots of other jeeps and lorries went by, throwing up dust and exhaust fumes. We definitely picked the better trek.

    As we got lower in altitude, it got steadily hotter. When we arrived in Besisahar, we found ourselves in a bustling city and us in our smelly dusty trekking gear. We ate a delicious lunch in the Manaslu restaurant and then stayed in their super cute blue guesthouse across the street. Our window view was of a cement wall, which was great for echoing the sound of other rooms' noise to us and making it super hard to tell where the goat bleating noise was coming from. Back in civilization, I felt very unsure of what to do with myself, without any mountain to look at and only a busy street to explore.

    At lunch, Cecilia showed us the new clothes she'd purchased as it was easier than trying to wash your clothes, and we chatted and exchanged tales. Getting to sleep was much louder and more chaotic than in the mountains, with the noise of someone watching Call of Duty footage floating up to us and someone deciding 9 pm was a good time to blast the latest Nepali hits, but we drifted off eventually.    Read more

  • 2024 Adventure
    Day 73

    Day 11 - Manaslu trek

    April 16 in Nepal ⋅ 🌫 4 °C

    James and I both slept solidly for more than 10 hours. It was glorious. We woke warm and well-rested; it was hard to leave our sleeping bags. After breakfast, we said goodbye to the Canadian group with Dil Man who'd been shadowing us for the last 5 days and began our further descent down to Gowa at 2550m. This was to be our last full day of walking, so we pledged to try and enjoy it as much as we could. Thankfully it wasn't hard to enjoy, as the mountains in the background were epic and the rocks quickly turned into lush floral forests, making it hard not to stop every five minutes and take photos. We hiked through lush flower forests, dense clifftop woodlands, through a burnt-down woodland (from where lightning had struck), and finally on a rough dirt road.

    Along the way, we bumped into hikers we'd met earlier on the trail, who'd also done the pass the day before. The German man told us how hard he'd found it and how he'd also nearly cried reaching the top. He was especially relieved to hear that we'd also found it incredibly hard.

    With about an hour to our final destination, clouds began rolling in through the valley, and after a few very large drops, James and I put on our new ponchos. It was good to get some use out of them. We tried to quicken our pace as we heard lightning and thunder, and the memory of that burnt forest area came back to me, but after so many hours of downhill, our ankles and knees were protesting.

    We finally made it to our destination without getting too soaked, to our wonderful cabin rooms which had little skylights and en-suites (with a cold shower!) the luxury. After getting out of our wet things and taking a quick cold shower, we settled down to read and watch the rain. After an hour, James spotted the most humongous spider hanging out right above our heads. It was too big for me to get near (and I'm not usually scared of spiders), so James got it into a vessel and released it outside.

    We finally had full WiFi coverage so dinner was a bit quiet while everyone checked their phones, but overall it was lovely as we drank alcohol and ate some very tasty food. Mitra even arranged for us to sample some dried buffalo meat, as we hadn't had any meat for the hike. It was chewy but beautifully seasoned. Now used to an early bedtime of 8 pm, we all went to sleep in our last night in the mountains.    Read more

  • 2024 Adventure
    Day 72

    Day 10 - Conquering the Summit - Manaslu

    April 15 in Nepal ⋅ ☁️ 0 °C

    This was the hardest challenge of my entire life.

    We all managed to stay warm in the night, thankfully. However, we all slept pretty badly due to the altitude (it makes you sleep restlessly because there's little oxygen), so when we woke in the dark at 3 am, we were all kinda glad to begin.

    After trying to stomach some Tibetan fried bread with egg, which was a terrible choice for so early in the morning, we got ourselves together and began our most challenging experience yet.

    It was pitch black, so everyone was wearing their head torches along the path, and if you looked around, you could just see little lights slowly moving up the mountain. Mine and James' stomachs quickly started protesting the fried bread that morning, and with the combination of 55% less oxygen and little sleep, things already felt bad in our bellies.

    At about 5 am, the sun was starting to hit the mountain peaks, and the view began to look like a poster picture of incredible images. The orange and pink of the sky reflected off some of the mountains onto others, and it was probably one of the most incredible things I'll ever see.

    It was incredible but also somewhat hard to enjoy as all I could think about was how hard it was to put one foot in front of the other and get enough breath. It looked and felt like we were walking in slow motion.

    At 4,900m, (1.5h away from the 5,100m peak), the altitude hit me the hardest. I felt incredibly lethargic and light-headed. I started worrying I was going to faint or that I'd have to turn back. We stopped for a moment, and Mitra gave me some coke which didn't seem like it helped initially, but after 10 mins, I think it kicked in. By now, the snow was many feet thick, and it was a gamble every time you put your foot down if it would hold or your foot would fall deep into the snow. The sun had risen fully and was blinding against the snow, and we were getting incredibly warm in our down jackets and multiple layers.

    After my wobble, I set my mind to getting over the peak and just getting the hell down from here. This one thought of starting our descent, as we couldn't turn back and there was no other way to get down, was what drove me on and on. As we came to the peak, Mitra, who was ahead of us, exclaimed "You made it!" And James, Cecilia and I all started crying uncontrollably. We had made it. We all found it so hard, at moments we each felt like we weren't going to make it. It's hard to describe the relief and happiness we all felt to have actually achieved this mammoth task. We all hugged, cried, and took photos. Cecelia had promised she was going to do burpees on the peak for her bootcamp. Amazingly, she did 10 when she initially thought she'd only be able to do one.

    After 10-15 minutes, we began our descent, but it turned out the challenge wasn't over yet. Going down, the snow got very slippery and even after applying our crampons, when we got to a huge side of the mountains with slushy snowy switchbacks for 2 hours, we all hated it. I was so scared of hurting my ankle again. James admitted to me on the peak that he already had zero energy and so was slipping quite a lot due to the lack of energy.

    After descending 776m, we finally arrived at the first building after the pass. In a fog of tiredness and pain, we sat down, and then in shock at what we'd just achieved, we began laughing and crying hysterically.

    The food was the most glorious thing I'd ever eaten, and afterwards, we descended into a silent stupor. We still had just under 5 km left until we arrived at our tea house for the night. We actually tried to get a price for a donkey to ride us the rest of the way, but no luck. At this point, we realised we'd be awake and walking for 12 hours.

    We arrived at the cutest tea house we'd stayed in yet, all of us with our own little cabins and a glorious hot shower. All the ladies washed their hair. We then all gathered in the dining hall where the fire was roaring, and we tucked into our dinner, and then promptly went to bed at 7 pm because we'd been up for SO long.    Read more

  • 2024 Adventure
    Day 71

    Day 9 - Manaslu trek

    April 14 in Nepal ⋅ ☁️ -2 °C

    Today was going to be a very short day as we were just heading to Dharmasala, which was the final settlement before we went through Larkya La pass and the highest peak of the trek. We began early, setting out by 7 am. However, sitting at 4,500m, 500m higher than where we started, the whole route was uphill and with the altitude, the air was becoming very thin and hard to breathe in. So it took us nearly 4 hours to go 6 km.

    It turned out Dharmasala was more of a camp than any kind of settlement. There were two or three rows of prefabricated shelters with many rows of tents beside them. It was like being holed up in some kind of temporary shelter. The three of us were sharing a room, which was just a row of mattresses next to each other covering the entire space, and in front of us was the "dining hall," which was another prefabricated room that had a window missing. The whole thing was incredibly basic and at this altitude, incredibly cold (prob like -10). We arrived at 12ish, and after eating our lunch, we then had NOTHING to do until bedtime. There was a hill nearby that lots of people, including James, decided to climb, but otherwise, there was nothing to do and no comfortable place to be. Everyone there was there because they were going to climb the pass tomorrow, so looking around this desolate outcrop, you just saw bored, antsy hikers milling around trying to stay warm and look for something to do. Because of the altitude, you're also not supposed to nap as it can make the acclimatisation worse.

    By 3 pm, Cecilia, James and I were going crazy. We ended up speaking to a young man named Josh from Canada who was doing the trek with just himself and his guide. When Mitra found us, he managed to find us a deck of cards and taught us a Nepalese card game which managed to keep us entertained for at least 2 hours before our food arrived.

    Thankfully, our food managed to warm us up and then we all retired to our room to try and sleep before our 3 am wake-up the next day to begin our hike through the peak of our journey, Larkia Pass.    Read more

  • 2024 Adventure
    Day 70

    Day 8 - Manaslu trek

    April 13 in Nepal ⋅ ⛅ -1 °C

    Today was a short day to Samdo, just three hours up to about 4,000m. We left late at about 8am and the road was a very gentle incline. James was not having a good day, his stomach was not great in the morning and then his back was aching from the bag today so it was a relief to finally arrive into Samdo.

    We requested a double bed room this time as we have been in twins the whole way and are missing our cuddles and the comfort of sitting next to eachother.

    As James wasn't feeling well, he tested in the room while we enjoyed a tasty lunch in the teahouses rooftop conservatory like structure which was warm in the sun. And then rested before taking a little 1 hour hike up to a ridge at 4,100m. It was pretty steep and I knew as we were going up I was not going to enjoy the decent. When we arrived at the top I didn't not like how steep it felt, I felt like I was on the edge of a cliff, which I guess was kinda true. The views of the mountains and the town and valleys bellow were incredible though and it was worth it just for that. Almost immediately as we deccended I became panicked, with my fear of slipping in the dusty rubbly path almost immobilized me, but with James there Cecilia was very encouraging and we made it down uninjured.

    I returned to James feeling a lot better and we ate dinner and firmed up or plans for the remainder of the trip.    Read more

  • 2024 Adventure
    12111
    Day 69

    Day 7 - Manaslu trek

    April 12 in Nepal ⋅ ☁️ -2 °C

    Today was the best day so far! It was an acclimatisation day for us, so we were heading up to about 4,200m and then back down to sleep at our hotel at 3,500m. As it was just a day hike, it was nice not to have to take our full bags.

    As we hiked the steepish climb towards Mt Manaslu Basecamp, the view just got more and more amazing. Once we got about halfway up to the basecamp, we stopped at a cave with prayer flags and paused to take in the view. There were no words to describe it. While taking it in, we watched the glacier break off and avalanche down the mountain.

    Once we'd rested and taken in as much as we could, we headed back down and then took a detour to see the lake formed by the glacier. The water was SO cold but so beautifully blue it looked like it could be tropical. Cecilia stripped down to her underwear and went for a cold water swim. In comparison, I took off my shoes and socks and put my feet in, which I could only do for like 30 seconds.

    We then headed back to town via the massive monastery and arrived just in time to enjoy lunch outside in the sun. We spent the rest of the day chilling until dinner.    Read more

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