Ghunsa has hot showers and wifi and i nearly cried

After days of very basic lodges from Amjilosa upward you get to Ghunsa at 3590m and there is hydroelectric power, shops, hot water. Our host gave us salty butter tea by the stove and her kids kept peeking round the kitchen curtain at us. The village people came from Tibet six hundred years ago and it still feels that way. Best two nights of the trek and one of them was the rest day.

Three permits, checkpoints everywhere, and none of it touched us

Tibet Travel Permit, Aliens Travel Permit and a Military Permit for the Kailash region, and you pass through checkpoints repeatedly on the drive west. Chandra organised all of it from Kathmandu and at every stop somebody simply handled the paperwork while we sat in the vehicle. Having both Nepali and Tibetan staff with the group made a real difference at those points and also when someone in our group was struggling at Saga. For a journey this complicated to arrange, we did almost nothing.

Free day at mansarovar is definitely needed

There is a full rest day at the lake after the kora and i will admit i looked at the itinerary beforehand and wondered if it was there to make the trip longer. It is not. After Dolma La your body is finished and you are at 4590m. We slept, ate, walked along the shore, did puja in the morning. Other groups we met were driving straight back the next day and they looked terrible. Whoever built this itinerary has done it before.

Dolma la at 5630m was the longest day of the yatra

We left Dirapuk before sunrise and the climb went on and on. Every step is heavy up there, you simply cannot rush and there is no point pretending otherwise. At the top there are prayer flags in every direction and people leaving things for family who have died, and everybody is quiet or crying or both. I did not expect to feel what i felt there. The descent to Gauri Kund afterwards is rocky and there was ice in places, harder on the knees than the climb was on the lungs. 18 to 20 kilometres, nine hours, and by Zuthulphuk i had nothing left. Our guide walked at the back with the slowest of us the entire day.

Added chitwan onto the end of our trek and it was the right call, Thanks Chandra

We had done Annapurna and were fairly wrecked and someone at the office suggested going down to Chitwan for four days rather than sitting in Kathmandu. Best suggestion anyone made. Going from 5000m to 150m and from cold teahouses to a lodge in the jungle is a strange and very good contrast. Chandra sorted the whole thing while we were still on the trail, transport, hotel, park fees. All meals included so we barely spent anything. Both halves of the holiday were better for it.

Elephant breeding centre visit was a good addition

Went to the breeding centre on day 3 and there were mothers with their calves, some only months old, and the staff explained the whole programme to us. My kids talked about nothing else for the rest of the trip. Worth going even if wildlife is not really your thing.

Full day jeep safari with a packed lunch

You go out for the whole day with lunch in a bag rather than coming back at midday, which means you get deep into the park rather than circling the edge. We found fresh tiger pugmarks in the dirt on a track and our guide could tell us roughly how old they were and which direction it had gone. Did not see the tiger. Saw four rhinos, a sloth bear at distance, wild boar and more deer than i could count.

You cannot go in without a licensed guide

I did not know before booking that foreign visitors are legally required to have a licensed nature guide for anything inside the core park, so you cannot just wander in. Having done a jungle walk on foot with rhinos around, i understand exactly why. The guide included in this package knew the park properly, not just where animals are but how to behave around them. Everything was arranged for us, park fees, hotel, all meals. I turned up and did nothing except follow instructions.

The tharu stick dance on the first evening was best

Went to the Tharu village and the museum in the afternoon, then sunset over the Rapti, then the stick dance after dinner. Our guide explained beforehand that the sticks were originally for keeping animals out of the crops, which changed how i watched it. Very loud, very good.

We saw rhino up close on the jungle walk

Our naturalist stopped dead and put a hand up and there was a one horned rhino in the grass just off the path, eating, completely unbothered by us. He had already told us at the briefing what to do if that happened, which tree to get behind, all of it, and i was very glad he had. We watched it for maybe ten minutes. Also saw deer, a lot of birds and crocodile tracks by the river. Two nights is short but that one morning made the trip.

Chandra met my demand as I have requested, thanks team

I told Chandra when enquiring that i was not looking to suffer at altitude, i wanted villages and people, and he pointed me at this instead of Langtang Valley which is what i had originally asked about. Correct call. Gatlang with the black stone houses and the carved wood, the hot springs at Tatopani, Thuman with its shaman traditions, and then Briddim. Everything under 3200m so no altitude worries at all. Our guide was Tamang himself and half the trek was him translating conversations for us. This route only opened in 2004 as a community tourism thing and you can feel that the villages are actually part of it.

Standing at rasuwagadhi looking across into tibet, thanks Mr Chandra

Day 6 takes you down through Timure, which was a stop on the old salt caravan route to Tibet, and then to the ruined stone fort at Rasuwagadhi. You can walk right up to it. The Friendship Bridge is there and on the other side is China. Our guide talked about what that border has meant to these villages over the years, trade going one way and salt coming back, and how much has changed. Strange and quite moving place to stand.

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