Kathmandu is a nice city, no doubt, a great city to come to if you are tired of foreign India. Walking in the Thamel area you will meet tourists of all nationalities, and if you are lucky a Nepalese or two. When you come to Kathmandu, see the Durbar squares and the Buddhist stupa at Boudanath, and then leave. Take it from us; we stayed two weeks. Nepal has so much more to offer.

Trekking is obligatory when going to Nepal. We did eight days of marvellous trekking in the Annapurna region, north of the city of Pokhara. Looking back, trekking is probably highlight number one from the world trip.

Having stayed too long in Kathmandu, and after some days in the Royal Chitwan National Park (photos), we only had about a week left for trekking. We decided that the famous Annapurna Circuit Trek (photos) would be too long, so we settled for the Annapurna Sanctuary Trekk. The Annapurna Sanctuary is actually the bottom a horse shoe of mountains of 6000 meters and more. On the map below you can follow the horse shoe from Machhapuchhara (Fishtail Mountain), north to Annapurna III, west along a high mountain ridge to Annapurna I, south to Annapurna South, and back east toward Machhapuchhara. The entrance to the horse shoe is from the south along the river at the foot of Machhapuchhara.

You can follow our trek from village to village on the map. We walked through Dhampus to Landrung the first day. The second day we lingered a bit in the Hot Springs before reaching Chhomrong (2000 meters) in the evening. The third day was the hardest, we walk up and down the hillside of a narrow valley before we finally stopped at about 3000 meters' altitude, somewhere between Bamboo and Dovan. The fourth day we reached the Sanctuary itself at A.B.C. (Annapurna Base Camp) at 4000 meters,

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and we descended back down to the same lodge as of the night before. The fifth day we walked back to Chhomrong. The sixth day we chose to cross over to Tadapani, coming to Ghorepani the seventh day. The eigth day we descended the valley back to Birethanti, where we caught the bus back to Pokhara. Notice that we walked the opposite direction of Scott A. Yost who made this map (visit his excellent site on trekking or click on the map to visit the original interactive version).

In the village of Chhomrong on the way to the Sanctuary, we met a man that would have severe impact on our planned itinerary for Thailand and China. From his home in Alaska he seemed to have pretty much covered the globe. It was one of those backpackers that had done virtually everything (and not everything virtually). So we discussed our travelling plans, and he let us know how boring they were. Espesially for China where we had intended to visit Canton, Shanghai, and Beijing. "Hopeless!", our new friend told us. "You're going to see three boringly similar Chinese cities." "Go west," he said, "go west." So he drew the map of China, marked the interesting places and sent us along.

We also discussed relegion with our Alaskan friend. And he advised us to read Peter Matthiessen's "The Snow Leopard" (Profile and interview), in order to get a Western's viewpoint on Buddhism. Once back in Pokhara I picked up the book, and let it follow me to Buddhist Thailand. It is a beautiful book, and I recommend it to anyone with the slightest bit of interest for the spiritual side of being.

I can't write about trekking in Nepal in the month of March without mentionning the rhododendrons. The Rhodondedrons of the Annapurna region are trees. In March they blossom in beautiful red. On our way up to the Sanctuary we marvelled at these scattered trees. Choosing another route when returning, we walked into rhododendron forests! Entire hillsides were painted in green and red, and the white Himalayas in the background gave the scenery epic dimensions.