So after a year of working and living in New Zealand we have left to start our next chapter of travelling. The last month or so in New Zealand we entered and completed our first ever team multi sport event with Rach and Chris, crammed in as much housemate runs and bonding time as possible even going to The local pub quiz we didn't do to bad since we had no tv in New Zealand, therefore we weren't up to date with local knowledge (Thanks to Katelyn and Cameron for the recommendation). I got to have a joint farewell outing with work for me and Greg who was off to Australia roughly around the same time as we were leaving . Paul did some crazy hours in his work to help out with training his replacement and the rest of the time was spent trying to say goodbye to as many of the great people we have met in Queenstown, thanks all for the great memories!
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| Petronas Towers at night..! |
So our first stop in Asia was Kuala Lumpur, we spent three night/four days there. The city has a real mixture of old/poverty and rich/modern right next door to one an other. Whilst we were there we managed to visit Petronas Towers, visit temples, see wild monkeys , visit the local markets and explore the Batu Caves. The temperature was between the late twenties to early thirties degrees Celsius the whole time we were there and the humidity was over 80 per cent at all times, so practically melted every time went outdoors especially when we were running , think it was worse for us as we have just come straight from winter , but even by the second time we ran we both found it easier than the initial introduction to Malaysia delights it may of helped that we found a less congested route so wasn't as much stop starting and dodging people and vehicles.
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| Batu Caves from the outside. |
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| Inside the amazing Batu Caves. |
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| Batu Caves security guard! |
Next stop Nepal. We landed at Kathmandu's airport and after getting our visas granted it was a short ride to Thamel the neighbourhood where we are staying. On the ride we noticed that there was a lot of military and police around as well as stray dogs it was already dark when we got to our hotel so we called it a night and waited to explore in the daylight the next morning. We were woken up early the next morning with the sunlight and pigeons that had decided to situate themselves outside our window. We decided to go and and explore!
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| Famous Nepalese flags.. |
Kathmandu weather is still in the mid twenty degrees Celsius but no where near as bad humidity compared to Kuala Lumpur. We managed to find the gardens and Durbar Square. There is a lot of hustle and bustle walking the streets as your are fighting for space with the locals which a lot of them have mopeds and unless you are in the main streets these are only the roads which are big enough for two way traffic and have pavements so it makes for some interesting navigation to not get in the way. We also saw two wild monkeys that made their way to the the Main Street and were hanging out on the electrical cables above us. Also a big thing in Nepal is they spend most of the day and night without power . You get allocated hours in the morning and evening where power is made available to you this also is the same for hot water so we have to work out or runs to coincide with this (which isn't a problem as we are waking up at the crack of dawn so we can get a run and a shower in before it gets to hot and get to freshen up before we lose the hot water for the day).
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| One of the most amazing sun rises we have ever seen! |
We decided to come out to Nagarkot for a couple of days which is a hour or so ride out of the hustle and bustle of the city and situated at 7200ft it offers one of the best views of the Himalayan range. And here is where we currently are as I write this post! We have been exploring the little mountain village with walks and runs and visited the world famous tea house here to and taking as many pictures as we can when these magnificent mountains reveal themselves , we are nearing the end of monsoon season so a lot of the time the mountains are hidden in the clouds we woke up to a cloud inversion this morning which made for some dramatic breathtaking views and it's making me and Paul even more excited for our trek when we get to go and play in them!
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| This is why we came to Nepal.. |
We head back down to Kathmandu tomorrow evening where we wait for the arrival of Marie and ultimately then the start of the trek to the Goyko lakes and Everest Base Camp so we will spend this time exploring the city a bit more and getting as many runs etc in as possible.
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| Peak a boo.. Mountain range pops out from the clouds. |
For anyone who wants to have a look at Paul's running related blog his link is here: http://paul-wathan.blogspot.co.nz
Until next time thanks for reading
Gem & Paul x
