High Places Travel

An Introduction to Nepal trekking, sightseeing and a safari day.My wife and I spent two weeks in Nepal with High Places. At the start and end of the holiday we had two days’ sightseeing around Kathmandu (Bouddhanath Stupa, Pashupatinath Temple, Bhaktapur, Changu Narayan Temple) with a guide and driver, as well as plenty more time to explore by ourselves, whilst staying at a wonderful old, but well equipped, guest house with a great garden and restaurant right in the centre of the city. We took a flight to Pokhara and found ourselves heading up a hill side by the afternoon, with a guide and porter, at the start of six days of comfortable trekking. We walked into the hills, up and down, but slowly gaining height. We were never rushed, there were always places to stop for a break, including tea houses when required, either in a village, or in the forest; and always a great place to stop for lunch with a view. By mid-afternoon we were usually at our destination, tea house, lodge or hotel. These were quite varied as you would expect, some very old and simple, some more modern. All had comfortable beds, good menu and wifi. Where something was not as we wanted the guide was able to resolve the problem, for example there was no hot water in our bathroom at one lodge, but the proprietor offered a hot shower at the end of the block. As the trek progressed we got increasingly good views of mountains including, Machapuchare, Annapurna South and Nilgiri culminating, on the last but one day, with an early morning walk up Poon Hill joining the throng to see the sunrise over a vast array of mountains.Next were two nights and a free day in Pokhara. There was plenty to do; lots of relaxing cafes and restaurants; we took a boat trip on the lake. The hotel was fantastic, a good choice of breakfast and a swimming pool.Then on to Chitwan National Park for 2 nights. The highlights were visiting an elephant breeding centre, a lovely, quite, boat ride down a river (whilst keeping our hands safely inside the boat so as not to encourage the crocodiles), and a 4hr vehicle safari in the forest. We saw more crocodiles, birds, lizards and best of all, rhinos. The guide for the safari was very experienced, taking things slowly and allowing the animals to shows themselves. This wasn’t the first Rhino sighting of the day, however, as we had already seen one one taking a nap in a football field, much to the amusement of a bus load of school kids.All in all a perfect introduction to Nepal.

High Places has arranged several holidays for us including tailor made itineraries to Kashmir, Ladakh, Kolkata West Bengal and the Sunderbans. Our latest trip included ODI world cup cricket matches in Delhi and Dharamsala as well as trips to Amritsar and Corbett national park.Sunny at High Places has always been very accommodating and patient with our requests and we have always been satisfied with arrangements. We have found the mix of putting in our own requests for specific accommodation and tour aspects along with his suggestions has worked really well.On our latest trip the airline lost our luggage which was very challenging. Sunny and the High Places team plus the Indian agents swung into action and went above and beyond to find and retrieve the bags.We unhesitatingly recommend High Places.