I was lucky enough to be invited to a Nepalese village after bumping into a friend, Dorota, I had met in India who was traveling with a Nepalese guy, Kapil. We went to his village, Nangedada Tarigaun, for the major Hindu festival of Dasain. 

The story of our journey from Kathmandu to Nangedada Tarigaun deservs a section of it's own! Public transport was overcrowded and patchy during the festival period - we discussed transport options varying from hiring motorbikes to hiring a raft. Luckily, we managed to find a bus. These photos show: a typical bus scene in Nepal, Kapil, Dorota and I on the roof of our first bus (great views), the gourmet restaurant stop at lunchtime, walking through rice fields to the final bus stop... which is... in a river! On the road again... before stopping to change a tyre. The journey home was a nightmare even by Asian standards - the first shot shows us walking in the dark for hours after our bus totally broke down (those headlights didn't give us a lift...), which we got on after 7 hours of wating at the bus stop (final photo) - at least the kids were interested in us. 

 The above images in Kapil's village of Nangedada Tarigaun (5 hours walk from Nepal Tok) show: Kapil receiving tika blessing from his mother (my favourite photo from my trip), little boy, a man taking his buffalo to the watering hole, woman by fire, girl on swing, me attempting to wash at the communal water pipe - the only source of water in the village - which caused much amusement amongst all the women, the shaman (traditional doctor), man, Kapil's mother.

These images, which are not in chronological order, show my amazing trek in Sagarmatha National Park from Lukla to Everest Base Camp and Gokyo via Cho La pass show: the tiny plane to Lukla air strip, with no door between passengers and pilots. Prayer flag view, me and a very dirty yak, snowy prayer flags, a view at Gokyo, Everest Base Camp (5364m) - a very rocky home, another prayer flag view (I liked them!), a magical view taken from half way up Kala Patthar (5550m) early in the morning, Or standing on the glacier between Cho La and Gokyo, wooo - that's the tip of Everest (8848m) where the clouds part, a big group start crossing Cho La glacier (5388m) in the opposite direction after us, the Gokyo area seen from Gokyo Ri (5357m) - the lakes are an amazing colour, and this image shows the massive stone coloured glacier, one of many heart renching reminders of how dangerous the mountains are at Base Camp, Ama Dablam peak seen from Nangar Tshang, a mountain sunrise... somewhere entroute, Dawa - my guide - building Buddhist mani stones, me at the top of Nangar Tshang (5083m), Antoine - the funniest and bravest man I know, who attempted to summit Everest without oxygen, and survived a horrific avalanche accident at Camp 3.

These images were taken with a Canon G9 camera always on manual setting, and edited in Apple's Aperture.

I would like this to be more of a photo-journal than a blog, but if you do want to read stories behind the images, I have uploaded the emails that I sent home to close friends and family. Click here to read my first email from Nepal, click here to read my trekking email, and click here to read the email about the village. Click here to view a page with all of my India/Nepal emails in chronological order.