Nepal Challenge by Steve_Shears

It was great to get back to Pokhara - as much as I loved looking up at awesome Himalayan mountain-scapes and huge valleys, I was ready to stand under a constant stream of hot shower water and have the cooling air of a ceiling fan (when the electricity was on). My next task was to get some money out of the bank to contibute to the 'tip' we were going to give to the porters and empty out all of the clothing and equipment that I was going to contribute to the general giving fest taking place tonight. We knew that whatever we donated would find it's way into the economy of the village that the guides and porters came from. So my walking poles, Brasher Hillmaster boots, fleece and everything else went into the mix. This was all divided up into 'lots' with numbers by Dan and as part of the appreciation ceremony the guides and porters drew a numbered lot and collected the divied up money in an envelope. Sean said a few words of appreciation to the guys on behalf of us all - not sure if they all understood what was said but I think they got the general gist of it all and that we knew we would not have made it without them. That done, we all cleared off for a night out to the restaurant, where the guys were our guests - this was a good night! I finished the evening on the balcony of the hotel having a little chat to Mark - one of the trekkers from the Exodus group that had been on the same route as us for a large part of the trek and had now ended up in the Fairmont at Pokhara. He had taken most of our group photos on top of Poon Hill with about 8 different cameras and had showed great patience as he kept getting new cameras thrust at him!

The next day we flew back to Kathmandu on Yeti Airlines - it was a slightly larger plane than last time and Emma had told Dan there was no way she was going to go in the really small planes anymore. We had a few days left now before we up sticks and returned to the UK and I still had a mission.....