Hello everybody… I have finally arrived safely back in Kathmandu after spending nearly 3 weeks at an orphanage in Surkhet, Nepal, 3 hours in two types of small aircraft, over 300,000 steps taken, 8 days at an elevation of 9000 feet, a ton of rice along with billion gallons of water consumed, attacked by both children and local plant life, 17 hours on a single bus ride, and in the end I have some photo’s to share for you. After my extent and AMAZING experience at Kopila Valley ( www.blinknow.org ) I headed up to a village called Simikot which is in the Humla district in N.W Nepal. This little village sits at the base of the Himalayas and the only real reason I decided to go there was because I saw a video on how remote it was and it looked like a different yet interesting place to go because there were no tourists. After mentioning my plans to fly to Simikot to a few people it turned out that my friend James (pilot) that I met here fly’s cargo trips to Simikot. So he pretty much said be ready to go at 6am and the next day I flew as cargo and off we went (Video coming soon…).

After about 45 minutes of flying we could see the gravel runway and the little village of Simikot which was situated on top of a little plateau in the middle of NOWHERE. After a very smooth landing by James, a quick taxi, and finally jumping over 100kg of rice to disembark the plane, I was greeted by a man by the name of Santos who James knew quite well and prior to my arrival in Simikot, James has given Santos the heads up and to make sure that I had a place to stay because Santos actually owned one of the few Guest Houses in Simikot. As we headed off towards the guest house I was in shock at the view’s that surrounded this tiny little town. The air was cool, the sun was out, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and you could still see snow on the mountain tops. Santos led me to my room which consisted of two beds and a table. The bathroom was located outside along with the communal sink and solar powered hot shower.

After taking the view and my surroundings in, I decided to take a quick walk around the town to clear my head, get my sense of direction and to take a walk up to a little tea house that was about an hours hike North of Simikot. I was shocked at how remote this place was along with the small little huts and other villages you could see in the distance. All I could think was man it would suck to walk this area year round. As it turns out there are no roads or access to Simikot, the only way you can get here is by plane or you can walk 10 days from the closest road to reach this spectacular place.

When I had finished my little hike I headed back towards the guest house to get some lunch. As I was waiting for lunch, I met a woman by the name of Nicky who was the CEO and director of an NGO called Foundation Nepal ( www.foundation-nepal.org ). Along with Nicky I met Tara, Katherine, Brian, Lee, John, John, Paul, and Rosalee. All these volunteers were from Ireland doing some work in some of the more remote villages outside of Simikot. We started chatting and they mentioned they were heading out in a couple days and they asked me if I wanted to tag along. I thought why not…. I’m always down for a trek. So on Thursday of that week a group of us headed off to a small village by the name of Burgaun and from there we would make daily trips to another village which was roughly a 30 minute hike down hill from Burgaun to a village called Thehe.

With 50lbs of gear on my back Paul, Tara, Katherine, John, John, Brian, and myself headed out towards Burgaun at 4pm just so it would be a little cooler hiking in the early evening rather than trekking in the afternoon scorching sun. The Hike was beautiful and with just over 2 hours of hiking we arrived in Burgaun at a woman’s house where we would be eating and sleeping and it turns out she has 4 husbands… Now that’s CRAZY.

We slept in tents on the top of a mud brick house where at night it felt as though the wind was going to blow you right off the top of this 20 foot dwelling in a matter of seconds and into a heard of cows in the pens below. Needless to say over the next few days most of us didn’t sleep very well.

Burgaun is a small little village compared to Thehe. Over the course of the next couple days we all made a few trips to Thehe as everybody had something to do. Now Thehe was very interesting place indeed. People lived in Mud huts that were all conjoined together like GIANT stairs lining and sticking out from the face of a mountain. You could kick a soccer ball and it would have traveled hundreds of feet down gradually hitting the odd roof on it’s way below and finally plunging off a few hundred foot cliff. It was a very poor town with swelled tummies from infants and young children, to people defecating anywhere and everywhere, no constant running water in some areas, lack of medical supplies, etc. Foundation Nepal were doing a bunch of very cool initiatives that included purmaculture, micro loans, education, nutrition, bio gas, and irrigation. Check out their website for more info and make a donation, contact them, and spread the word.

Foundation Nepal

( www.foundation-nepal.org ).

A huge thank-you to Nicky, Paul, John, Tara, John, Lee, Rosalee, Brian, and Katherine for letting me tag along…. You guys ALL rock!!- See you guys in Kathmandu!!

Cheers,

Jeremy

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