trees at 3000m ?

Namaste,

I just arrived one hour ago from my trip. I tell you I am fuc.... tired but it was an awesome time!

I left Delhi on Friday night by bus to Nainital which is located in the north of Delhi just a few kilometers away from the Nepalese border. I was not really a comfortable drive and it took ten hours until I finally arrived there.
On the bus I met a Belgian Guy, called Gill. We decided to look for a place to stay together. So walked through the village and finally found a nice place. After that we went to the center, watched a cricket match and had a little lunch. For the afternoon we wanted to go to Snow view which is a mountain there about 2270 meters. But first Gill wanted to sleep for a couple of hours because he sat the whole bus drive on the floor and could not get any sleep at all.

During that time I walked around the huge lake there and it was such a nice view. I went to a Hindu temple and was invited to a Hindu celebration. This was quite interesting and the only guy who could speak some English explained everything to me.



After that I tried to find someone who knows if and where to climb. I actually find someone, called Harry (it was his nickname). He said he would go climbing with me the next day. Awesome!

So finally at one o'clock Gill and me started our little climb. It was quite a walk and when we finally arrived on the top I was a little bit disappointed, because you could not see any snow on the mountains. It was a bit cloudy and there were trees everywhere. We were above 2000 meters and still there were so many trees!
Then someone told us, that there is an other mountain which is called Naina peak which is about 2611 meters high. So we decided to go there, too. I was really exhausted when I reached the top and still there were trees! But this time you could see the Nanda Devi for a short time, because the clouds opened up for a while. My first Mountain over 7000 meters!




When we reached Nainital again we had a huge dinner and went to sleep after a while. It felt really good to meet somebody my age and we had so much fun.

The next day I went to Harry and he and a friend of him took me to a climbing resort. When we arrived I felt my heart beating faster :) They had a big artificial climbing wall, also rocks and boulder blocks. Most of you would not understand what I am talking about when I explained everything from that day. So to make it short: I climbed the whole day till my hands bleeded. The best thing at all was that I did not felt like a tourist. In the afternoon it started to rain and we chilled in their little barrack had some snacks and talked about climbing.
After that we went to Nainital again and Harry invited me to have dinner with him. I tried to pay for that but he would not let me. We also had the typical Himalaya tea (they just put the tea in milk).



So I met Gill again at seven o'clock and we took the bus to Delhi again. It was an awesome weekend and I so enjoyed it to care about nothing and have nothing important to think about.

So, that’s it so far. I am still leaving for Bangalore on Wednesday and Harry gave me the number of a friend of him there with who I probably can go climbing again.

Take care