This was the third inaugural trip I have done and when will the planners ever learn. Most people had started their journey in the UK around 1.00 pm and we arrived at the hotel in Kathmandu at 4.30 the next afternoon. With 27 in the group it took a while to check in and change currency. A walking trip of Kathmandu was next on the itinerary and you've got to bear in mind it goes dark at 5.00 and the streets are not paved and lit like Oxford St. Fortunately the TM had this altered to the next morning, but of course this had consequences in compressing what was planned over the next couple of days. This left little time for relaxation and a beer before dinner. The TM also wanted seat rotation (2 rows back or up each day depending which side of the coach you were on) fortunately no one took any notice and we behaved sensibly.
Now to the nitty gritty. As said before the trip was full on but very enjoyable. I do not intend to go into detail as the brochure cover it all. I think there was something for everyone to enjoy, although as expected a surfeit of temples and shrines. The numerous squares were busy and interesting and work was everywhere on still rebuilding from the earthquake 4 years ago. A lot of this being funded by China. I'm not sure much of the funds promised by the West ever materialised.
One of the real highlights for me was seeing the sunrise over the Annapurna range of mountains, truely spectacular and the ever changing colours is no doubt where the title of the trip came from.
You could also go on a guided 2 hour walking trip with a picnic at lunchtime and another couple of hours walk along an easy trail to Chadbi Barahi (according to the itinerary) I suppose we should have been warned when we got a phone call 4 days prior to departure that strong shoes/boots and walking poles would be appropriate.
Fortunately you could stay on the bus (meeting up at lunchtime for the picnic) an adventure in itself and at one stage the driver had to drag a drunk from the middle of the track so that we could proceed. Apparently the last 25 minutes of the afternoon walk were particularly difficult being constant descent over rocks and boulders. these walks were said to be more strenuous than those in the Walking Nepal trip.
One disappointment was that whilst in Pokhara we did not visit the Gurkha Museum (we stopped outside to alight the bus) it surely would have been better than the uninspiring Seti Gorge and David's waterfall.
All Nepal is not mountains, the southern area of Chitwan is quite flat and we spent 2 nights at the Jungle Villa resort which included a safari (we were unlucky and didn't see much wildlife) and a canoe trip with plenty of crocodiles in close proximity.
We then flew back to Kathmandu in two groups as the plane could not take us all in one go. The flights were delayed 3 hours due to fog in Kathmandu which again impacted on the rest of the holiday.
We had lunch with a Nepalese family in Patan and invited to a Newari feast of 15 courses that evening, this whole day was a great experience.
All in all this was a really good trip made all that much better by a great TM and thoroughly excellent Local guide. If I've missed anything of importance out I'm sure my fellow travellers will put me right.
Three notes for future travellers:-
1. Please stick to the luggage allowance (the internal flights are only 20 Kg fortunately Yeti Airways allowed amalgamation of all the cases as long as the total did not exceed the number of passengers times 20 Kg. However I believe those travelling on to India did not find it as easy with Air India being very strict.
2. The bus is not as big as those in England and the driver and bus boy really struggled to get all the cases in, it could have been a lot worse as 2 people had cancelled at the last minute. So please take a case that is as small as possible.
3. Please check on the web site for the hotels as not all have all the amenities like tv, safe fridge. I had no complaints about any of the hotels.
