Nepal: Remembering Nepal before the April 2015 eathquake
I have visited Nepal in October 2014. This fast paced 9-day trip was actually a surprising birthday present from my fantastic friends and colleagues in Abu Dhabi (huge thanks to all those involved!). And the time there was no less fantastic and I cherish a lot of great memories. So felt really sorry when I heard about the 7.9 magnitude earthquake that struck the country in late April.
The Lonely Planet guide about Nepal mentioned an earthquake in the Kathmandu Valley in 1934 that killed almost 8000 people, injured 16000 and destroyed a quarter of all homes in the country. And that was in 1934! Now, the death toll has already surpassed 7000 people and the number is expected to grow by many including Nepalese government, because the rescuers are now reaching the remoter villages. For more updates on the situation, I follow the UN OCHA, the reliefweb and the IRIN. Alternatively, you can also check the news websites (the Guardian or the BBC have setup dedicated sections).
In October 2014, we squeezed a lot of action into these nine days with a two-day Himalaya hike (for the daring ones a three-day hike to Poon Hill), white water rafting on Trishuli river, visits to religious and historical places of Nepal (Kathmandu’s Pashupatinath and Boudhanath, Bhaktapur’s Durbar Square) and a decent degree of Himalaya watching (Nagarkot, Pokhara). During the trip we also met nice people and tucked into delicious food.
Below are some of my pictures from the trip in Nepal. The sites most likely look different now. Several servers also published some photographs before and after eaarthquake (like the BBC, the Guardian, the NY Times).
Pashupatinath, the hindu temple
Boudhanath, the buddhist stupa
Bhaktapur, Durbar square
Mt. Everest from Nagarkot (in the middle somewhere…;-) )
The Nagarkot view (second line) was supposed to be visible on the picture above. The view from Pokhara (the last line), is on pictures below.
Pokhara and view of the Annapurna range, middle Dhaulagiri, bottom Annapurna
4 Comments
marissafh
I didn’t get to Pokhara and the Annapurna, before my trip was cut short … I don’t remember seeing Mt. Everest from Nagarkot, though. Did you take the plane trip to see the mountains too?
Martina
Hi, sorry to hear your trip was cut short, but glad you are ok. Pokhara is really lovely. I hope there not as much damage as in Kathmandu Valley. We were told we could see Mt. Everest from that place in Nagarkot, but the visibility was not good. And then it was too late to book the plane trip around Everest. However, we flew from Pokhara to Kathmandu. That view of Himalayas from the plane was amazing.
Pingback:
Pingback: