Thanks to Orla, Bex for organizing everything and to Nick for making sure things got organized when we arrived. We spent a wonderful get-away weekend at the renown The Last Resort, located 3 hours away from Kathmandu, on top of a green river gorge close to the Tibetan border.

Rafting was initially on my radar but seeing as this time of year was apex of the monsoon season, we decided to forego the idea as the rapids were extremely high and rough (even our Nepali guides at the resort seemed reluctant to go as well). Some of us went canyoning, a few of us spent a couple of hours at the spa, while the majority of us did the high ropes activity.

The 7-station high ropes activity, although not as thrilling as rafting when you first look at it, definitely had it’s WTF moments. It was probably the most mentally and physically challenging thing that I have ever done.

In a nutshell, each station, perched onto a tree that was at least 4 storey’s high had different rope apparatuses set up in order to get to each station. For most of us, the hardest station was the initial ladder climb as it required some arm strength and for me, my own patented swinging-foot/mounting technique (offline). The skateboard station really needed a lot of balance because the rolling skateboard-on-the-ropes thing was moving in every direction, making it difficult to get over the “heights” factor. I almost flipped out during  high-wire-walk-on-poles station and the high-wire-hanging-ropes station was profoundly psychedelic (really).

Although these were personal challenges, each of us were not alone. We each did the rope activities in partners (thanks Nick), thus allowing us to coach each other through the motions (as our Nepali guide has said, “Four eyes is better than two”).

Of course, we had harnesses and safety ropes/carabineer attachment training – which was very, very useful to know (you don’t really want to accidently detach BOTH your carabineers or your partner’s).

Things to note for next-time: wear closed-foot shoes and perhaps pants and or long shorts. You might get scratched up or cut during the activity. If you go during this time of year, watch out for leaches.

Overall, the trip was worthwhile and otherwise very relaxing. I learned a lot about myself when I someday need to jump from tree to tree using ropes, how I suck at charades, and I’ll definitely have to come back again some day for the rafting and perhaps the bungey and swing as well (maybe).

The buffet food was excellent, the service was great, the tents and beds were very comfortable and the well-timed heaviest rainfall of the year during the night was a nice touch as well.

Bought the t-shirt too.