Hi everyone,

Thanks for tuning into the blog and posting all the great comments! This will be my last blog post for the next 21 days as Shane, Nicola and I head high up into the Annapurna region. Nepal has been incredible, but now I’m ready to see the ‘real’ Nepal.

Right now we’re in Pokhara, and tomorrow morning at 6.30am we get a 4 hour bus with our guide and porter, and begin our 300km walk. Shane and Nicola have crushed my idealized opinion of walking ‘into the wild’ and I now see this as a grueling 21 days of pain in basic living conditions. On day 10, we ascend to Thorung La Pass which reaches an altitude of 5,416m, totaling 8 hours of trekking. Walking for 8 hours in one day is difficult enough, but combining this with an elevation of over 1,000m and 50% less oxygen in the air, I’m feeling rather ill prepared.

But we’re all excited by the challenge, and the Annapurna region is one of the most magnificent places on earth so I’m sure it will be worth it. I’ll be documenting the adventure in my diary which I’ll transcribe to the blog as soon as I get back.

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to upload the bungee jump and giant swing to youtube. I re-encoded the DVD to avi but I ended up with two files of 27mb each and it’s impossible to upload that on these connections. Might have to wait until we get to London! Some guy took some photos of me though so I’ll put them up after the trek (I’m waiting on an email from him).

I hope you have enjoyed reading the blog so far, and I thought I’d leave you with one last anecdote from yesterday.

I was sitting at the computer on the ground level of my hotel, chatting on MSN to Tali, when I heard a crashing/toppling sound from upstairs followed by an extended scream of agony. It sounded like a woman had fallen down the stairs and broken a bone, so I rushed up the flight of stairs with the hotel staff and looked around. Strangely there was no one around and we all looked at each other trying to identify the source of the commotion.

All of a sudden, the room door opposite mine is yanked open and a woman in her 30’s runs out stark naked screaming. Behind her was a white man who was very tanned with a outrageous beard that came to his nipples and black flaring eyes (true rage is held in the eyes). He was dressed in all the hippy gear and looked sufficiently wild. He kicked her hard in the bum on her way out and yelled some abuse in another language. She went running up the next flight of stairs in the nude while he cursed her from the doorway. Inside their room was a stifling amount of burning incense and some trippy music. I’m not sure if it was some perverse sexual act gone wrong, but it was quite bizarre. The hotel staff were very embarrassed by the nudity and the situation dissipated as quickly as it had begun. I walked back downstairs to MSN and typed “Tali, you won’t believe what just happened”.

That’s all folks. Hope to see you again from the 26th August onwards!