Bandipur, Nepal

After 3 days in Kathmandu, I have enjoyed the sights but had enough of the air and noise pollution. It suddenly got to me and I decided to head towards Pokhara which I heard is a nicer city and the perfect starting point for Treks and Rafting in the Annapurna region.

I took a 7h bus towards Pokhara, this is one of the busiest highways in Nepal, but in reality is a small winding road which runs along the mountain side. After leaving Kathmandu, the scenery is stunning and you can clearly see the mountain ranges with snowy peaks in the background with rice fields and rivers below.

Before reaching Pokhara I decided to stay in a remote mountain village called Bandipur. By getting off the bus early in Dumrae, I found a truck that took me up the mountain (on the roof) and a Dutch girl called Wendy also joined me. As we drove up the mountain the scenery kept getting more impressive. The countryside is very green with rice terraces, bananna trees etc and in the distance you can clearly see the snow capped mountains of the Himalayas.

The village of Bandipur was beautiful and over 70% of the buildings are still in an authentic Nepali style. The town centre has no traffic and consists of a small strip of old style buildings many of which have been converted into simple guest houses and open front restaurants.

I checked into a guest house with lots of old wooden features and a beautiful view down the mountain. Then tried to overlook the disgusting toilet and cold shower room which look as though it has never been cleaned. I also discovered that guest houses only change the bedding when it looks dirty, so I will be using my sleeping bag liner from now on. You can’t really complain when it costs £2 a night!

 I stayed in Bandipur for a few days and explored the surrounding countryside. Just a 2h trek through the jungle takes you to Nepals largest cave, where we were greeted by some unofficial looking men who were claiming to be the guides for the cave. Yeh, they look pretty dodgy but to be fair they did have some printed tickets.

The cave was actually very impressive and it was amazing that we were the only tourists. We clambered inside to see the stalactites and stalagmites. Unfortunately the guides knowledge was poor (that's putting it kindly). If you asked him what something unusual was, he would say something like "black rock!" .

We saw lots of Langur monkeys in the jungle. The other thing I remember most about Bandipur is the amount of HUGE spiders that were on almost every tree. Their webs were up to 20ft wide and most were bigger than my hand. Luckily there were none in my room this time.

Oh and I found this message painted on the side of a house. I think the government are trying to promote hygiene. It's just funny because I live by the same rule. haha