A couple of days ago we took a bus from Kathmandu to Shyapru Besi, which is about nine hours and as bumpy as it can get... not the nicest journey but totally worth it, as it lead us to a picturesque hiking area: the Langtang Trek.

On the bus we met a lovely couple: Mihail (Polish) and Sydra (Malaysian) who live in Sydney. They didn't actually plan to do a trek but our enthusiasm somehow convinced them to join us ;) Mihail is a magician, film and opera maker, so we always have great shows in the huts in the evenings. It's low season right now and there are only a few tourists on the trek. We meet lots of locals - everybody is super friendly, possibly even more so because it's low season. Luckily the locals don't charge for the room if we have food at their guesthouse which is good for our budget.

Given that it's winter it's not actually that cold - during the day it's T-Shirt weather as long as you're in the sun, even on 3500m. And believe us, we try to stay in the sun as long as possible to charge our solar panel's battery on Steffi's backpack ;) In the night it get's quite cold, maybe around -5 degrees. But our sleeping bags and additional blankets keep us warm. The coldest time each day is when we have a "shower" (bucket of hot water).

We're writing this from the furthest point of the Langtang trek (Kyangin Ghompa), but that'll be a separate post as there's so many nice pictures again...

For fellow travellers who are planning to do the same: you can buy your TIMS and National park entry in Dhunche - the bus stops for tourists - just bring two passport photos and enough money (5k rupees at the moment in total). That means you can spend less time in Kathmandu ;) You should allow for about 1500 rupees per day in low season and 2000+ rupees in high season for accommodation and food.