"Eight hours??" we said, a bit dissolusioned by the thought another long bus journey after having finished the roughest one of our lives.
The travel agent confirmed: eight hours, but we knew it would be about nine or ten. The whole system was based on commision so half the words spoken were lies.
Southern Nepal was not a nice place. It was a lot like small town India but even more corrupt. We were being pestered at the bus station by men with amazing agression. But then we left that behind and started climbing into the hills and things started to get a little bit incredible.
We climbed our way up a track carved into the side of the hill. Amazing sheer hills covered in jungle, with palm trees and aloe vera plants on the side of the road. Roads like that are the inspiration for all the car chases you see in films. It went right up the side of the valley with frighteningly big mountains up ahead and a turqouise stream crashing through the middle of it. We went on. Little huts were dotted about all the way up. Real mountain people, and their rice fields spilled down the mountain sides all over the place. Then we stopped for a break on the side of the road, and for the first time, as if they were floating in the air, we could see the snowy himalayas, just visible in the distance.
Well now I'm surrounded by them, and Nepal is an incredible country. I really really never thought I'd ever be in the Himalaya, but now I'm quite amazingly on the verge of the roof of the world.
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