….cannot believe 9 whole months ago the seed was planted!

Nine whole months of planning, waiting with various emotions such as excitement, fear, anticipation, anxiety….and now the day has arrived!

Possibly just realised what we have actually gotten ourselves into…it’s a bright, big, bold bundle of noise, smell, excitement, colour and taste…

…..KATHMANDU! We have arrived in Nepal.

“The start is what stops most people”…but we’ve started. After 24hrs of travelling and arriving at Kathmandu airport we finally made it to our hotel after enduring a 30 minute taxi ride from hell through the streets of Kathmandu. This is clearly a place where no rules of the road apply and it seems to be a free for all on the streets between cars, bicycles, pedestrians and dogs and with no pavements in sight for pedestrians it’s a battle of the wits – who dares wins!!

After crashing in hotel (almost literally) for 2 hours to catch up on some much needed sleep we hit the streets of Thamel to get our bearings, see some sites and pick up souvenirs – this involved much haggling with the locals which we clearly need to improve on!

Although it’s a fairly hectic and busy city everyone appears friendly and happy to help, especially ‘mr incense man’ who managed to sell me 10 packets of incense sticks after having me smell every packet in his shop!

During this time we managed to drop by to see Ram Krishna from Himalayan Scenery Treks to finalise our trekking permits and sort out a visit to Chitwan National Park. Even got to sample some homemade chai which is their national tea.

Back to hotel now to get sorted for our 5am start to Chitwan National Park….who said this was a holiday?