After finishing our epic journey across India we were both excited about the prospect of a new and perhaps more laid back country and some walks in the wilderness.

Unfortunately on arrival I realised I had finally caught the dreaded Delhi belly and we immediately had to start re organinsing our itinerary in anticipation of me needing time to recover. Our first impressions of Kathmandu were that it was very well set up for tourists with designated pedestrianised streets for ambling and shopping for fake north face gear!

But alas our first evening was spent in the hostel with me trying to fend of the Delhi belly!

The next day,feeling a bit better, we ventured out to get our trekking pass and explore Kathmandu. We hadn't appreciated that three years on from the earthquake the centre of Kathmandu was still under a lot of construction. Right in the heart of there are 20 or so very old small temples and pakoda type constructions that had taken a huge battering in the earthquake. We'd expect in the west such a significant set of land marks to be rebuilt but here things were still underway.

The next two days in Kathmandu ended up being bed rest days as Delhi belly took hold and we eventually had to find a travel clinic and get me some antibiotics. We had been assured that I would feel better within 24 hours so we decided to start the long journey to Serabubesi to start are hike. We rented bags and sleeping bags and bought gloves scarves and waterproof trousers in anticipation of the Nepalese winter weather.

The next day we rose early to catch the 8 hour bus. There are a lot of postings online about how horrendous the journey is by bus, with narrow windy roads around cliff edges, and yes there was that but I think it was over hyped. I slept through a lot of it! After a long journey we jumped off and walked to the first guest house we could find. The town was located in a little valley and apart from a few small shops it was a very unassuming place to start a major hike. The scenery around was stunning and we felt Very lucky to be tucking into some noodles as the sun set.

The next morning we started early, packing up and headed out early to start the Langtang trek. The first half of the trek was a small comedy of errors

About two hours in we started to get the hang of it, but prior to that I was worried we were a little in over our heads. Hiking looks easy, but when you put all the equipment on your back and have no option to head back to a car park to go home, it's much more of a challenge. The climb that day was around 1400 meteres and in total, with breaks included, oh so many breaks, we arrived at our first tea house in Langtang.

The tea houses are essentially huts with several bedrooms, shared bathroom and a communal eating area that hosts the only source of heat in the evening, a wood burning stove. It's as cosy as it sounds and we met a lovely group of people from Germany and Denmark and swapped stories of travels. The traditional hiking meal for dinner was Dal bhat. An unlimited amount of rice, green veg and lentil soup - accompanied with a saying 'Dal Bhat Power - 24 hour'. Essentially you should be able to hike with just this meal in your stomach plus snacks. We didn't try and put it to the test on this hike. We scoffed down some doughy bread with sugary jam for breakfast before starting day 2.

Day two of the hike was our favourite. The scene changed as we headed further into the valley and we were starting to be surrounded by snowy capped peaks. The hike was also a little easier on the thighs with a bit more of a flat terrain in places. Part of the hike also takes you through the area worst affected by the 2015 earth quake. It is now a landslide of broken stones that starts high up on the mountain. The quake was so powerful that true force of the side of the mountain collapsing blew down all the trees on the other side of the valley. Very eerie to see. 90% of the towns population died as well as 100+ tourists. It is really had to see how people could have been saved, by day two we were almost 16 hours walk from the 'main town' on an unbroken path.

At the edge of the landslide there is a small settlement called Lima Hotel, where we stayed for the evening. A very cute house with proper walls and some familiar faces from the trekking route.

Day three was our day to reach the end of the route before heading back. The final town in called kyanjin and is deep into the valley between numerous snowy mountains and a big glacier. It's hard to imagine people living here full time, where the only way to bring in goods are via a 2-3 day trek on donkey. It was here we made the decision to start hiking down on the same day. Although the village has a spectacular setting there was very little to do unless we stayed a few more days to acclimatise and then we could hike up to some much higher peaks. However we had in our mind to potentially do a small trek in Himalayas so we decided to start descending.

Descending was so much more difficult for two reasons, one, because we were pretty tired after 2.5 day hike and because down requires a lot more concentration. We hiked for almost 10 hours in total and reached a very small lodge to hunker down for the night. Both exhausted. The second day of descending we took an alternative route back that promised a higher view with stunning scenarios and it didn't disappoint. We came close to monkeys hiding high up the mountains, and walked along cliff edges pretty much the whole way back to the final large descent. This was a huge challenge for us both. 1000m down in one go was hard on the knees. The rain came in to give us an extra challenge but slowly and surely we made it back down. I've never been so exhausted, we both felt like we had pushed ourselves physically the most over those four days. That night, we drank Everest beer and ate two huge meals each! Thankful that the next day all we had to do was sit on a bus back to Kathmandu.

The bus ride back was uneventful but took 11 hours instead of 7. We got stopped for speeding once and the rest of the journey we seemed to go up hill in 2nd gear, painfully slow. So the speeding ticket at the end was just plain ironic.

From Kathmandu we transferred to pokhara, nepals second biggest city, set around two big lakes. Immediately the place felt very relaxed and pretty peaceful. Kathmandu is by no means stressful but it is very polluted with dust this time of year before the rains come. We stayed with a lovely family run hotel, who couldn't have been any more helpful for us. They even woke up to let us in after we had a late night clubbing in the town!

We did a lot in pokhara including biking around the lake, trekking for a day on the very famous Anna Purna circuit and climbing up to the peace pagoda to see across the city. We were also very lucky to be there for Holi day, to mark the official start of spring, people throw coloured powder and smear it on each other's faces and basically just party all day.