Pain and Rewards

We returned to Pokhara from our trekking trip today. We spent four days going from Naya Pul to Ghorepani in Nepal. It's hard to say how far that is because no place along the trail was flat. The towns along the way were even on different levels. At one point we had to go up 3,280 steps. That took about two hours and we spent another five hours that day after that hiking to our destination.

The trek was a lot more strenuous than we had anticipated. As a result, we all have very sore legs. Unfortunately we had to cut our trip a little short, but none of us are too dissapointed. We made it to Ghorepani in two days, and on the third day, we were to get up early and hike to the top of Poon Hill to watch the sunrise over the mountains and then hike to Ghandruk which is about 7 to 8 hours away. Unfortunately, the night before that I got sick. I had an upset stomach and didn't get much sleep. I decided not to go to the top of Poon Hill because of my sickness. This was a major dissapointment for me. I did stay back in Ghorepani and watched the sunrise over the mountains. It was absolutely amazing. The view from Poon Hill would have been better, but this was still worth it. I will make sure to share some pictures at a later date. After dad and Phillip returned from Poon Hill, we decided to return the way we came instead of going to Ghandruk due to my sickness and dad's old man body. He did real well that day until close to the end when his bad knee lost its strength. He did make it to our stop with a little help.

We made it back the rest of the way this morning and are sore but doing much better than last night. Phillip has given me some medicine for my stomach, and I feel good today. Dad got a lot of sleep last night, and is doing well today.

Nepal is an absolutely beautiful country. The mountains are amazing. We saw several waterfalls and the water is vivid shade of blue. The weather has been wonderful. It has been in the 80's and sunny here. Tomorrow we head back to Kathmandu, and we fly back to Bangladesh on Tuesday.