A return to Nepal after more than 30 years.

Hi Amanda. I guess you love Nepal!
I was quite blown away with the place and the people when I was there back in 1981. As part of a small band of Service Trekkers. One of our team was a Dentist and one of our goals was to check on ex-Gurkha soldiers who had had treatment `back in the day` and to see how it held up. I was designated to be the dentists assistant Amanda and it was quite surreal setting up the `surgery` (wooden chair) in the centre of villages high in the Annapurna and seeing the Dentist abstract the odd tooth here and there. Once, whilst dealing with a patient a huge Eagle swooped down right next to us and picked up a chicken and flew off with it. What a commotion ensued as one poor young lad gott a loving kick up the bum to go and give chase. He was supposed to be watching the chickens, instead though he was watching these foriegn people taking the locals teeth out. Quite early on we learnt to give the extracted teeth back to the patient so that they would be in order to enter heaven etc. My most loved possesion is a Mandala which I paid over £25 for and is the most beautiful thing. The scenery whilst trekking was amazing, as was Kathmandu. We left KTM to goto Pokhara on a mini-bus, we got 10 minutes down the road before it broke down. The driver got out, loked under the bus and came to tell us, with a big grin and said "I am very sorry, but the elastic band has broken". We also got invited, high up in the mountains, to a fantastic event. A very colourful, sombre, but amazing cremation. Yes, a ccremation. A wonderful experience. Anyway Amanda, we have been married for almost 28 years and I always said I would take Shirley there, yes, things will have changed, but I think the magic will still be there. We are doing 12 countries in 10 months, Nepal is No 2 on the list and we will be there for 2 weeks. We want to look around KTM for a few days and then catch the bus to Pokhara and look around the area. We have NOTHING planned or booked yet and are open to suggestions from anyone, accomodation, tours, things to see etc. One thing I would like us to do is this.... When we left Pokhara we walked the Jomson Trail, now, I am no longer 21 years of age but I do recall that the first part of the journey led us along a long wide valley and at the end it rose (so did us sweaty serviceman) quite steeply to a place where there were Hangliders doing their stuff. We then, headed fro Pun Hill, but that was some way off. I now live in Spain but in my daughters house in the UK, in the cellar is the diary of the trip, I may ask her to send it. And so, four weeks before we fly to India, a few days in Mumbai then its the Choo-Choo to Nepal. exciting stuff. Take care, any advice, as said, invaluable. John and Shirley.