The three of us (Eric, Ian and I) are leaving on November 4th, for a three month trip to Nepal and India to hike, volunteer, climb, and explore! The impetus for our trip was this New York Times article that Eric discovered:
http://travel.nytimes.com/2010/03/21/travel/21nepal.html. Although we purposely don't have solid dates for most of our trip (we hope to take things spontaneously), we do have a basic plan as follows...
We'll start the trip by flying into Kathmandu, then traveling to northwest Nepal where we will hike the Annapurna Circuit. For some reason sources can't seem to agree on the length of this trek, but it seems to be somewhere between 130 and 190 miles long. Probably depending on side trips, etc. The trek should take 3-4 weeks and will take us through a huge variety of environments including jungles, pine forests, and glaciers...even up to 17,769 feet above sea level at Thorong La. From pictures it looks absolutely beautiful, and the mountains are amazing. After the trek, we'll volunteer near Chitwan National Park teaching Nepali children science and art lessons for a week and a half (December 10-20). Next up will be India. We hope to arrive around December 20th, and plan to travel by train to Varanasi, the Taj Mahal, Jaipur, Jaisalmer, and New Delhi. Hopefully we will be able to arrange another volunteer opportunity in India, but we are still in the process of emailing a few organic farms to discover our prospects. On our way back to the U.S. we will have a 4 day, 5 night layover in London, then be arriving home to Seatac on January 31st!
I've decided to create this blog to keep all of you (my friends and family) up to date and filled in on what I'm doing!! I may only have intermittent internet access, but as often as possible I'll post some pictures and update you on my current location and experiences. You can comment on my posts, and also email me at
kim.popek@gmail.com. Keep in touch :) Looking forward to this crazy adventure!!
The three of us (Eric, Ian and I) are leaving on November 4th, for a three month trip to Nepal and India to hike, volunteer, climb, and explore! The impetus for our trip was this New York Times article that Eric discovered: http://travel.nytimes.com/2010/03/21/travel/21nepal.html. Although we purposely don't have solid dates for most of our trip (we hope to take things spontaneously), we do have a basic plan as follows...
We'll start the trip by flying into Kathmandu, then traveling to northwest Nepal where we will hike the Annapurna Circuit. For some reason sources can't seem to agree on the length of this trek, but it seems to be somewhere between 130 and 190 miles long. Probably depending on side trips, etc. The trek should take 3-4 weeks and will take us through a huge variety of environments including jungles, pine forests, and glaciers...even up to 17,769 feet above sea level at Thorong La. From pictures it looks absolutely beautiful, and the mountains are amazing. After the trek, we'll volunteer near Chitwan National Park teaching Nepali children science and art lessons for a week and a half (December 10-20). Next up will be India. We hope to arrive around December 20th, and plan to travel by train to Varanasi, the Taj Mahal, Jaipur, Jaisalmer, and New Delhi. Hopefully we will be able to arrange another volunteer opportunity in India, but we are still in the process of emailing a few organic farms to discover our prospects. On our way back to the U.S. we will have a 4 day, 5 night layover in London, then be arriving home to Seatac on January 31st!