It’s nice to meet you.

Our very last morning in Nepal we scheduled an Everest Experience flight. There was no way we were leaving the country without a proper look at the tallest mountain above sea level.

It was touch and go for awhile with several flight delays. I was nearly resigned to giving up hope when our boarding call bleated out of the speaker.

The view from the plane was pretty incredible. You’d expect Everest to tower over the other mountains… but they are pretty tall as well!

The flight attendant pointed out Everest for us. It’s the one with the fluffy cloud bits coming off the right side of the peak.

The flight ended with a trip into the cockpit…

…and our very own certificates!

With our mission accomplished we headed back to Abu Dhabi.

xo, jill

“Stupa cool.”

On our way back from visiting Bhaktapur, we hit up Boudhanath. Boudhanath is the largest stupa in Kathmandu and a popular pilgrimage site for Buddhists. The colors were especially enchanting.

xo, jill

My legs resisted.

Back in Nepal, the afternoon of our second to last day we headed to Bhaktapur, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The city offers and impressive look at past and present Newar culture.

xo, jill

…that I don’t remember much about.

We hired a taxi to take us around outside Kathmandu on our final full day. We asked to be taken to Bhaktapur and he suggested we stop here on the way. Unfortunately for me, temple fatigue had already set in and I didn’t care to learn too much about it. I even forgot the name! Here are a few shots:

xo, jill

Spelunk.

When we arrived back in Pokhara, we had a little trouble finding a place to stay. The first few hotels we sought out were full. Luckily one of the employees walked us down the street to another good option… Hotel Unicorn. My favorite part was the painting of the unicorn. How could we say no?

After cleaning up from the trek, we scurried down to the lake to take out a boat before sunset. We visited a temple in the middle of the lake but didn’t stay too long. The light disappeared quickly. We (ok, Mike) brought the boat back in the dark with the boat attendant’s cigarette guiding us.

We ate dinner that night at an appealing looking restaurant with horrid horrid food. My appetite was confused from the trek which led me to order a plate of mashed potatoes and some sort of burrito. The mashed potatoes were a big mistake. Picture a huge portion of instant potatoes more closely resembling porridge. Gross. My mom would have been insulted.

The next day we had a few hours to spend exploring before meeting up with Molly and Frances to return to Kathmandu. We rented a scooter and scooted out to the Bat Cave. I was a bit nervous to enter at first. The guidebook warns claustrophobes of the tight exit and I still have vivid anxious memories of crawling through the lava tubes on Mt. St. Helens in fifth grade. In the spirit of adventure, I did it anyways.

Inside the bat cave there are… bats, duh. Lots and lots of bats! And poop. Lots and lots of poop!

The cave’s exit wasn’t quite so daunting once I actually saw it. It was very tight and required a lot of scooting around on my back and belly… but being able to see the light on the other side made it much easier to brave.

Our guide tipped us off to another lesser known cave in the area, Kumari Cave. We headed off and over a high bridge to check it out.

On the way to the cave we met up with our soon-to-be tour guide. Our guide showed us all the interesting sights inside the cave including, “This is where man comes and drinks alcohol and cigarettes. I don’t like it.” and in a very serious tone: “Don’t wake up the bats. They will eat my eyes!!!”

After the spelunking, we still had a little bit of time left over. We zipped over to the other side of the lake to see Devi’s Falls. The falls were named after a woman who was bathing near the falls and was pulled by the water to her death. Sad and believable. The water drops 100 feet down a well so deep you can’t see the bottom. But beautiful.

Next stop: airport.

xo, jill