News from San Jose

Trip to Nepal and Thailand

This year, Janet, Jenn and Joe went to Japan without me, so I decided to go on an exotic vacation by myself. Having been on very few vacations to other countries, I wasn't quite confident in my abilities to get around on my own, so I decided to join a Sierra Club tour, and Nepal was one of the least expensive. It won the contest by offering a hiking opportunity AND an opportunity to look for tigers in the jungle.

Our tour met at the LA International Airport for the flight to Thailand, with a stopover in Japan. I had a nice seat next to a Thai lady who spoke absolutely no English, so we communicated with gestures. It was especially comfortable since the seat next to me was empty, but I also enjoyed the service on Thai Air. Unfortunately, a man had a heart attack and we were forced to land in Hong Kong. We arrived in Thailand several hours late, and had only five hours to rest in our hotel room (without my bag, since it was checked) before we had to meet again to check in to our flight to Kathmandu.

We spent a few days in Kathmandu (mostly shopping) before our flight to Jomosom, about 10,000 feet elevation. We had a night to rest there before starting on our hike up, then down, the mountain.

The next day, we had a short hike, which was a blessing for me because I was sure feeling the elevation, and felt a little sick to boot. The day after that, I was all better and ready to go up the steepest part of our trek--a 3,000 foot elevation gain over six miles--on a horse.

Muktinath was a gorgeous temple, and I was quite glad I made the trek up to it, even though the land around it was absolutely barren. (See the picture above.) We stayed the night in the town nearby, and headed down the mountain the next day, when I promptly lost the cap to my water bottle. Luckily, it was easily replaced with a commercial 1-liter bottle cap at our lunch stop. Until then, our guide let me use his water bottle.

We hiked from barren mountains above the treeline down past lush countryside with gorgeous waterfalls and banana trees in about a week. Each night, we stayed at Nepali hotels, where warm water was infrequent and the food quality was unreliable. The most impressive thing was the variety of food they offered. Every hotel had an international menu! That and the tea was awesome.

When we got to the bottom, we took a bus to the jungle. There, I saw five rhinos, two species of crocodiles, a mongoose, and countless birds and butterflies. We also got to ride in an oxcart and on an elephant.

Finally, we flew back to Kathmandu for our last night, then to Thailand. Chiang Mai was an unofficial extension of our Nepal vacation, and I accidentally got myself on a different tour than the rest of the Sierra Club people. For the first day, I had a private tour of the temples and tourist shopping areas. At night, I joined my fellow Sierra Club vacationers for an authentic Thai dinner and shopping at the night market. The second day, I joined another tour to get a bamboo rafting trip and another elephant and ox-cart ride. The elephants were a lot shorter in Thailand!

We spent our last night back in Bangkok, but it was pretty late when we got there. It was about 90 degrees and raining, so I decided to stay in the hotel for dinner. I ate with my Sierra Club tour guide and his wife at a 50's style diner. The place was probably run by Americans, because the food was great. I don't think I missed American food at all on this trip--we had too much of it!

last updated August 5, 2004