hopefully, that is. We’ve been waiting for my Indian visa to come through and now that I’ve got that, Ben (G) and Andrew have got “tummy trouble” and don’t reckon they can manage the 7 hour bus journey down to Pokhara. There are stops on the way but one quick glance at the toilets is all you need to make you decide that actually maybe you can make it without. Except they can’t. I think they’ll be ok tomorrow but then I thought Ben (P) would be ok the morning we went rafting and he wasn’t so my diagnosis and prediction skills have obviously yet to be perfected. So - rafting. Ben was ill and so didn’t come which was a great shame but he would have been iller if he had come so all in all it’s best he didn’t. We booked it through this guy at our hotel and paid him 50 usd and he told us we’d need sleeping bags and that someone would come and pick us up at 6.30am. sure enough there was someone at
6.15am and as a precaution we each packed a change of clothes (trousers and t-shirt. Then we were taken to the bus (same one that goes to Pokhara), sat down, and the bloke who’d brought us left. That’s when I started thinking maybe it wasn’t such a good deal and that we were going to end up in Pokhara and go tumtitum, what happens now. Then I got chatting to the people in front who, as it turned out, were in the same situation as us and had equally little idea of what was going on.

Eventually the bus stopped and dropped us off on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere and we still had no idea but at least there were about 10 of us with no idea together - safety in numbers. Then we were told to change into our sandals and shorts which we’d been told to bring. Except that we hadn’t. There was a tiny shop
selling flip-flops and me and ben tried on nearly every pair they had only to find that 9 was the largest (we’re both 12) but we bought them anyway. Eventually we got under way and it turned out to be really good. Our guide/bloke was really good and the people we were with were nice except this american bloke who was about 50 and spent the entire 4 hours rafting talking about himself.

The rafting was great then we stopped for lunch and the food was great then we carried on and the rafting was great then we stopped and everybody left except us three (Ben’s ill remember) and our guide and our three chefs who went straight to work making what BenG is sure was the best dinner we’ve had since we’ve been here. It was mighty good especially considering it was cooked on a beach with river water over a wood fire. Then we sat around the camp-fire and did nothing for a bit. The next day was also cool, not least because we ended up with two young Danish ladies who, as it turned out, were camping about 100m away from us on the beach but we hadn’t realised.

The river was much tamer though so it wasn’t quite as good as the first day in that respect. For those who know, we ended up in Mugling where another fantastic lunch was awaiting us.

The trip home was made in an overcrowded Nepali bus with the treble portion of Hindi pop blaring out of the speakers above my head.

So as I said, it should be up to Pokhara tomorrow and then off on a short trek but that remains to be seen.

Gonna get back and see how the sick boys are getting on…