Oh the views!

We took our sweet time waking up on Saturday, after having beers and playing American drinking games with our Nepali friends- they thoroughly enjoyed the games! We had some tea, instant coffee, granola bars, oatmeal and hobnobs (our favorite imported oatmeal cookie). At 11am we then took off for Nagargot, a town known for it’s spectacular views of the Himalayas- especially at sunrise. We ended up taking the trail with steep terrain and 1000+ steps that were up to my knees. To make the trek even more difficult, there were no villages for 4 hours straight during the most intense part of our hike, thus, no water. We stopped a couple of times along the way to chug what water we had and eat more hobnobs. We had, by far, the best weather during our trip so far. The skies were clear and the view of the mountains even clearer! The valleys were sprinkled with mustard fields and terrace farming was visible in every direction.

By the time we reached Nagarkot it was 4:30pm and we were parched and starving. We stopped at a fantastic restaurant and treated ourselves with anything our hearts desired- from ginger tea to egg chowmein to mo mo’s(steamed dumplings filled with veggies and/or meat) to pancakes with honey. We stayed at a hotel that Aarti had visited years ago called “Hotel at the end of the Universe.” What a spot! We woke up at 5:50am the next morning, put on a few layers and walked up 20 stairs to the hotel’s look-out. Stunning. Fantastic. Wonderful. Phenomenal. Worth-every-ache-and-sore-muscle-from-those-1000+-steps!

After drooling over the sunrise for about an hour, we headed to the guest house’s restaurant where we inhaled drip coffee, banana porridge (amazing!), eggs, potatoes and chapatti, the popular flat bread, with honey and jam. After giving our tastebuds the time of their lives, we packed up and trekked 3 more hours (with much easier, but still uphill, terrain) to Changu Narayan, a Unesco World Heritage site, where one of Nepal’s only Vishnu temples exists. Vishnu is one of the main Hindu gods commonly depicted in Nepali art and architecture. The temple (built/created from the 4^th-9^th centuries) depicts Vishnu in 10 of his reincarnations mostly via intricate woodcarvings. After taking in all of the temple’s glory, we decided our legs had had enough so we bused it back to Dhulikhel. It was such an awesome weekend trek. Even though I busted my butt and I was in pain, it was so enjoyable! It was good practice for our 4-day trek in Pokhara, beginning this Monday. According to Aarti, we’re attempting to complete this trek in less days than suggested by travel guides…we’ll see how that turns out! A few more days at Dhulikhel hospital before we’re off to KTM to bus to Pokhara for our trek (thankfully we were able to move our schedule around to fit in this much anticipated Annapurna trek to Poon Hill). Until then, xoxo.