Arriving at the Kathmandu airport, after departing from Almaty, Kazakhstan the previous day, jolted our senses out of their Central Asian slumber. Whereas in the former Soviet states, with the linearity and coldness of a planned state, our senses became somewhat dull - never expecting to be surprised, delighted or repulsed; here in Kathmandu we went almost immediately into sensory overload. Noise, colors, smells, vibrancy and decay meld together into a chaotic urban tapestry. We were thrilled to arrive and instantly felt that we had made the right decision to fly here and give ourselves time to enjoy this spectacular place during its prime season (i.e. monsoons over, but not too cold yet).
We were lucky to have friends and a place to stay with a family in Kathmandu. Bryan, Sheri's friend from grad school, is living in Kathmandu while working on his PhD and Bijan is a friend and ex-colleague of Sheri's from WWF. Bryan arranged our stay with the Joshis, a family he knows well. When we arrived, a bit disheveled from a long lay-over in the Dehli airport, Rama, the matriarch of the family, immediately made us feel comfortable and at home. After a few days catching up with Bryan and relishing Rama's excellent cooking, we set off to cycle to Chitwan National Park. We had to fight the traffic to get out of Kathmandu (which was crazy... see the photo of Sheri with the bus behind her to get an idea how she felt about it), but then we veered off onto a small road that took us straight up out of the Kathmandu valley and dropped us into the serene countryside on the other side of the hills. Gentle hills covered in rice fields pleased the eye in every direction, as we rolled through the valley, hardly noticed by the people. After Central Asia, where we often felt like a freak show on wheels, this was a relief. After a couple of days, we began our descent out of the hills and down into the Terai - the grasslands bordering India. In one morning, we dropped nearly 6,600 ft. on a winding mountain road that passed through alpine forests to dense tropical forests, to more dry, open forests and finally onto the open grasslands below. Arriving in Chitwan, we parked our bikes beside our hut and signed up for the full tourist experience: Elephant walk through the jungle, a visit to the elephant breeding center, a canoe ride up the river and guided walk through the jungle and - a highlight - bathing with the elephants. We got to sit on the back of an elephant, while its driver commanded it to give us a shower, then drop down and roll in the water to send us plunging into the river - several times. You would not believe how much fun this is!!
After Chitwan, we were in a time crunch to arrive in Pokhara for a 10-day meditation course. So, we loaded our bikes onto a bus back up the hill to Pokhara. Once there, we met up with Bijan and stayed with his family for a night, where we were treated to more Nepali hospitality and savored some more excellent food. Everywhere we went in Nepal, we ate delicious, healthy food, loaded with veggies and spices. But nowhere did we eat so well as when we were in people's homes, where meals are still prepared with time, attention and love. Spices are ground fresh, fresh veggies chopped just in time to throw in the pan and curries are simmered until bursting with flavor.
From Bijan's, we took a short ride out to Begnas Tal, a beautiful lake nestled in the hills, above which sat the Vipassana meditation center where we sat in silence for 10 days. To learn the Vipassana meditation technique, we had to meditate for 10 hours a day and remain silent for the entire 10 day period. We were expecting it to be hard - mentally, but we were surprised by how hard it was physically. By the end of the 10 days, Mario's butt was super sore and Sheri had a swollen knee - it took us longer to recover from meditation than from riding through Kyrgyzstan! Nonetheless, it was an interesting experience.
Once we were released from silence and sitting, we hightailed it over to the Khumbu region for a 3-week trek to Everest Base Camp and nearby valleys. We swapped out our panniers for backpacks and joined the throngs of tourists to take the scenic and adventurous flight into the mountains to Lukla (landing on one of the shortest runways we've ever seen - but we had a great pilot who made a perfect landing, luckily!). From there, it was all walking: up beautiful valleys, over a couple of 16,000 ft. mountain passes, even further up to a couple of viewpoints at about 18,oo0 ft. and back down to a Buddhist monastery for a 3-day festival called Mani Rimdu. The trek was unrivaled by all of our previous hikes; everywhere you looked there were amazing views and the scenery continually changed as we climbed higher: from Rhodedendrun and Juniper forests low down to rocky moonscapes and mammoth glaciers high above the tree line. And, of course, it was awe-inspiring to stand on top of an 18,000 ft. peak and stare at Mt. Everest (actually named Chomalungma by the resident Sherpa people) towering just on the other side of the glacial valley. Equally amazing was the amount of stuff that porters carry on their backs - those guys, and a few ladies, work so incredibly hard. We heard that some porters can carry a load of up to 100kg (about 200 pounds)! As we would creep along at our low-oxygen pace, these guys would nearly run past us in their rush to get the load to the next point. Everything that there is in the area - be it food, construction materials, everything - has to be either walked up or brought up by helicopter. So, especially during the high tourist season, there are plenty of things for the porters to haul on their backs.
The Mani Rimdu festival ended on November 5th and brought an end to our time in the Khumbu region. We made the 2-day trek back to Lukla, stopping to say goodbye to the owners of Pumori Lodge, one of the nicest families that we met during the trek. Back in Lukla, we had an exhilirating take-off - the plane gunned it, full throttle, down the approximately 1300 ft. runway so that it could lift off before plummeting off the mountain edge at the other end. Fortunately, we had another excellent pilot who got the plane off the ground in plenty of time - to the applause of the whole plane - and we had another beautiful flight back to Kathmandu.
We spent our final days in Nepal exploring some sights around Kathmandu, hanging out with friends and learning how to cook some of Rama's delicious recipes. We could have spent several more months in Nepal but, with only one month left before we need to be in the Philippines, we had to keep moving. So, sad as it was to leave, on November 20 we boarded a flight to Bangkok (we decided to fly again because we would not be permitted to enter Burma by bike), from where we will begin exploring Thailand.