Where In The World Is Evan?

I’ve just gotten back from my trekking expedition in the Annapurna Sanctuary. The trek was absolutely amazing. So much has happened since I last had an opportunity to contact anyone that I’m at somewhat of a loss as to where to begin.

Kathmandu is a truly unique city. It’s so much like what I expected - polluted, overcrowded, impoverished - yet also so much more - vibrant, alive, and altogether more real and organic than the tourist metropolis’ of Phuket and Bangkok.

When Mia and I arrived at Kathmandu airport we were plucked from the back of an at least 2 hour customs line by a well dressed gentleman who discreetly asked for our passports and the passport of another Australian that we met at the airport, Tim. This man then wandered down the customs line, entered the booth stamped our passports and returned demanding a tip. Having no local currency at this stage (Nepalese Rupees are not a globally floated currency and can only be purchased within the country) we could not tip him so he insisted that we go to a foreign currency exchange booth. Feeling a little uneasy about getting so quickly involved in bureaucratic corruption in a foreign country we decided to offer the guy a tip of 5 rupees each (which we later worked out to be about AU$0.14). He got so annoyed, either because we’d discussed his corruption with the currency exchange guy or because the tip was so low, that he wouldn’t take our money. Consequently we simply walked out of the airport without ever making a customs declaration or anything else.

From that point on a sense of surreal disorder settled over my experience of Nepal that has lasted right up until the present.

Nepal is a country of such amazing diversity, on some days whilst trekking we moved from sub-tropical jungle to snow capped mountains and then on to dry pine forests within the space of a few hours. The trek itself was pretty hard going at times, however overall it was physically manageable.

My experience of the Nepali people has been almost exclusively of a people with a kind and generous nature. Last night my trekking group was relaxing at a remote tea-house (more like a two story shack) and celebrating the imminent end of the trek with plenty of beer and some local hash. When the owner of the tea-house saw that there wasn’t enough hash to go around he brought out a one foot branch of dried marijuana buds for us to share - free of charge. He then kept the kitchen open late into the night so we could continue to order desserts and other munchies. This epitomises the friendly and relaxed attitude of the Nepali people.

Currently I’m staying in the city of Pokara and am planning on getting a bus back to Kathmandu on the 29th so I’ll have one more day to wander the amazing street markets before I fly out on the 2nd for a return stay in Thailand.

I trust you are all doing well, and will see you all soon.

Check out the Annapurna photo gallery.