Nepal: Trekking Day 2 - Hile to Ghorepani

Day 2 was the beginning of our nightmare.

As we made our way up thousands of steps over the course of the morning, it became painfully obvious to us that we had underestimated the sheer steepness of the terrain in Nepal. To add insult to injury, local children would hop up the stairs between us wearing thongs (flip flops), while we struggled for breath in our Goretex hiking boots and state-of-the-art trekking poles. Our porter, who was carrying both of our luggage in one pack, barely broke a sweat as he leisurely made his way up the mountain while texting his friends.

Around noon, we reached the forrest part of the trek, where the route levelled off to a more reasonable incline. From there on, the afternoon became marginally easier as we were mostly walking in the shade, accompanied by a soundtrack of passing streams and waterfalls until we got to Ghorepani late in the afternoon.

At the altitude of 2775m above sea level, Ghorepani is the highest town on the Poon Hill circuit, and the ideal spot to rest the night before climbing up to the Poon Hill summit the next morning to watch the sun rise.

People can be rather divided about Ghorepani and Poon Hill. Some find it beautiful, and the highlight of the trip. Others find it too rowdy, too touristy, or lacking in authenticity.

I didn’t care. We were some 2700 metres above sea level, higher than the entire continent of Australia. We were surrounded by the snowy peaks of the Himalayas. We had a working hot shower, and a fire heated dining hall, in which we spent a merry night eating dhal bhat, drinking hot tea, and debating the best of Australian rock with perfect strangers. Touristy is good.

xx doots







Annapurna South peeking out in the morning. 





Reaching the shadier part of the trek. 





The gate to Ghorepani



Main street in town. There was even phone reception and wifi. HEAVEN. 

Nepal: Trekking Day 1 - Nayapul to Hile

In October, I went to Nepal with a friend. We did some volunteering at an orphanage in rural Chitwan, near the Indian border. After our short stint at the orphanage, we headed north into the mountains near Pokhara for the Ghorepani/Poon Hill trek. 

Poon Hill is one of the most popular short treks in Nepal, generally done over four to five days. We did ours in four, and hired a guide and a porter to save us the trouble of organising transportation, accommodation and meals along the way. I won’t go through a shopping list of the places we stayed at or the villages we passed along the way. Photos speak louder than words. 

But looking back, it’s amazing to consider how far I’ve come this year. I’ve never been an outdoors kind of person. Never had a great appreciation of nature. And yet this is my third trek of the year, a personal record.

Despite all physical challenges along the way, I found myself enjoying the simplicity of waking up every morning with nothing to do but walk. I loved the mindless physicality of the act, the ability to really think and hear yourself as you walked, and the fact that happiness can be nothing more than arriving at your destination each night, taking a hot shower (where possible), eating dhal bhat, and writing your travel journal in the kitchen with a hot cup of masala tea. 

The village of Nayapul, starting point of the trek.

In the warmer parts of the country, rice harvest was already in full swing. But here in the cooler mountains, the terraces were still fields of gold. 

Our room at the guest house: non-sound proof, no blankets, no fresh linen, no phone reception. One couldn’t look at the pillow too closely without feeling a sense of revulsion.

But after our stint in Chitwan, we were just grateful for a flush toilet. 

Oh. And the view wasn’t too bad.

Orient Express #4: Museum of Innocence - Part #2

Note: this is a delayed post about a trip back in June this year.

Getting tear-gassed in Istanbul wasn’t part of the Itinerary. 

Before we got to Turkey, protests had erupted over the development of an urban park in Istanbul into a shopping mall. Friends and family sent us worried messages: are you sure you want to go there? Are you going to be safe? 

I dismissed their concerns. 24 hour news channels have a way of sensationalising events, and urban planning isn’t exactly the kind of subject matter that inspires revolutionary fervour.

Besides, we weren’t stupid enough to insert ourselves into the middle of Gezi Park. Common sense gets you a long way, you know?  

And for the most part I felt perfectly safe in Istanbul, even though we stayed near Taksim Square where the protestors congregated. The atmosphere during the day was quite festive. People sung and danced, youths graffitied whatever surface they could manage to spray. At night, the sky above Taksim Square was lit up with fireworks set off by the protestors, the chants grew louder, more boisterous. But in general, most of the people there seem to be both protesting and having a grand time with their mates. 

On June 11 however, things turned a bit sour. 

We were returning to our rental apartment after a day of cruising on the Bosphorus when we decided to stop by Istiklal St - a pedestrian shopping strip running off Taksim Square - for a kebab.

Suddenly we saw protestors running towards us, their faces covered in masks and before we knew what was happening, a tear gas grenade had gone off, and we were paralysed by the heat. I couldn’t breathe through my nose, I couldn’t breathe through my mouth, I couldn’t open my eyes. It burnt up my nostrils, into my chest, it stung under my eyelids, it stung at the back of my throat. I stumbled through the streets half blinded, surrounded by footsteps. 

Suddenly someone grabbed my arm, “LADY!” he yelled, pushing hair out of my face, “look at me!" 

I looked up just as he sprayed some antacids in my face. As I blinked, the stinging stopped, even if it did leave me with the appearance of having toothpaste on my face. 

Realising things were only going to get worse, I grabbed my friend and ducked into an alleyway running off Istiklal. The sole bar in that alleyway was closed, but the owners were banging on their glass windows and motioning us to come inside. The door opened and we walked into a room full of protestors, sitting in front of the TV, smoking and watching live footage of Taksim Square on CNN. They handed us masks, water, napkins and gave us a minute to breathe. An awkward silence descended.

"Welcome to Turkey,” I said, wiping toothpaste and eyeliner off my face. And suddenly, everyone was laughing, shaking their heads in exasperation.

Two girls emerged from the back who spoke fluent, American-textbook English, and they took us to the roof top where we watched from afar as the riot police - in line formations - slowly cleared the protestors out of Taksim Square with water cannons and tear gas. 

I didn’t want to take sides or hold an opinion on the domestic politics of a country I was visiting, but it seemed hard to justify such heavy-handed tactics on perfectly legitimate protest. What was even harder to understand was the rationale behind the plan to turn public green space, which benefits local residents, into a profit-generating mall that benefits private enterprise.

It just seems to be the kind of dystopian world once described by a wise lady called Joni Mitchell: “they paved paradise, put up a parking lot …" 

Media van at Taksim got completely trashed. 

The one episode above aside, the rest of our time in Istanbul was splendid. At Istanbul Modern, the city’s gorgeous contemporary art gallery, I jotted down this poem on the wall, which aptly described what I had seen, heard and felt up to that point on my journey. 

And thus spoke the place: 
Bring me the thrills of the first time you saw me,
Each of which became a path for you in a different work.
Bring yourself to me. 

The remains of every single piece, mixed up in the earth.
Bring me a piece of my old guests,
That piece you used to love to dearly.
Bearing the faces of 19 people lined up side by side, looking at us.

Sculpted in solid wood by Kurimbu villagers,
The story of each suspended in faraway places, like empty suitcases.
Bring me 19 suitcases,
Each concealing the memory of a different person. 

Bring me all the moments you were lost in,
The moments you will look through lenses to seek the traces of time.
Bring me back my old chairs, 
Each will unite me with a different memory.

Bring me that poem of Rumi.
That beings with the lines, "How good to migrate anew everyday.
And how beautiful to settle anew everyday." 
And ends saying, "So many words that belong to yesterday.
Now we need to say new things." 

Bring me the people,
May each be the storytellers of their home towns. 
Bring me your dreams,
Those dreams that turned me into you, head to foot, as I lived. 
Bring me my own memory
That memory I yearn to meet.
Bring me everything, 
Each thing the everything of something else. 

Suleymaniye Mosque was my favourite in Istanbul - partly because it was far quieter than the Blue Mosque, and partly because it was situated in an area where every single street sold just ONE thing: there was a mop street, a rope street, bucket street, screw driver street … you get the drift.

Ain’t no way to do capitalism, Istanbul. 

On the Bosphorus cruise with a group of school kids who kept on shouting "KONICHIWA” in my face. Geez friggin Louise, at least pick the right stereotype. 

I can attest to the fact that EVERYTHING at the Spice Market was DERICIOUS. 

Orient Express #4: Museum of Innocence - Part #1

I meant to finish writing about my travels back in June this year, but life has taken a turn for the cray cray: I’ve changed jobs, started studying again, taken on more language classes and began dedicating every remaining spare second I have to recovering from the sheer enormity of each day.

It took a while for me to get around to sorting the photos from Istanbul, so long in fact that when I finally did, they made me want to go back to that hazy, sparkling, topaz-coloured city that is neither here nor there. A sui generis stuck between Europe and Asia, with traces of the Romans, the Byzantines, and Ottomans littered all over the city.

We spent a week in Istanbul (with a quick trip to Gallipoli - a story for another time), and it was easily the best time we had on the entire trip. I kept a written notebook this trip, and pages and pages of it were filled with stories from Istanbul, accounts of the food we ate, the sights we saw, the history and stories we heard, or the wonderfully passionate people we met along the way.

But for now, I’ll just let the pictures tell the tale. The place really did have such stunning shades of blue, and not just because of my tendency to oversaturate my photographs.