Hanging out in Kathmandu

I have been in Nepal for a week now with my friend Andrei. We had to stop for a night in a small border town because of a bus strike, before getting the 18 hour busride to Kathmandu the next day. Since then we have been staying in Kathmandu, not doing anything special. We were supposed to go on a trek first a couple of days ago, but we postponed that by a day when we accidentally met Henrik, a Polish AIESEC trainee from Hyderabad, who wanted to come with us on the trek but needed some time to prepare. Then we had to postpone by one more day because I got fever last night. The fever was gone in the morning and we are trying to finally go on the trek tomorrow.

I have only three weeks left and then I am back in Finland. Time really goes fast. I will do this one trek and then possibly fly to Delhi to see a friend and then to Hyderabad to pack my stuff, have a farewell dinner with the others and then go home. I am quite ready to go now actually. 11 months is a long time to be away from home.

I am trying to find a flat in Jyvaskyla and a good friend of mine has been helping me with this. There is a small double flat on Puistokatu (Park street) that interests me at the moment. I have been trying to send an application for a student flat in Kortepohja for a couple of times but they always fail to receive it. It would be cheap to live there and there would be a lot of friends around, but then again a flat closer to the center would be nice, especially one that has not been inhabited by tens of students before me, like the flats in Kortepohja.

Sikkim

From Darjeeling I carried on to Sikkim, the largely Buddhist north-eastern corner of India, between Nepal and Bhutan and bordering Tibet in the north. Even more than in the northern part of West Bengal, I felt I was not in India anymore.

The cool north

Kolkata was big, congested and very hot. I spent a few days there going through the sights and eating well. On Thursday I met a friend of mine from Delhi. We went to see the Kali temple, had a traditional Bengali fish lunch and got on the bus going up north to Darjeeling. The 40 degrees of Kolkata changed to the little over 10 degrees in the evening in Darjeeling, the “quintessential” hill station in the north-west corner of West Bengal. The people here look more Tibetan than Indian and, I have to say, they are friendlier here. When somebody offers you a taxi and you say no thanks they say OK without any more hassle! Wonderful

On Monday I went on a five nights long trek in the mountains. I met a couple of other trekkers on the jeep on the way to the starting point of the trek and then did most of the trek with them. The route went up to 3660 meters where it was really cold but the views were great as well. We were really lucky to get clear weather almost throughout the whole trek. We were able to see the 3. highest mountain in the world, Khangchendzonga, very well and even Mount Everest from a far! We also saw a lot of rhododendrons, mountain flowers, many of which are as high as trees.

This day I will spend just relaxing and getting over the trek. Tomorrow I will go to Sikkim, which is the state just north of Darjeeling. After that I am planning to go to Nepal and maybe do the Annapurna trek. North India would be a very interesting place to visit, let’s see how I have time for that.

Go see more pictures from Kolkata and Darjeeling as well as the Sandakphu trek in the gallery.