An Ocean on Top of the Mountains

Hi.  I've just been looking for fossils.  There are lots of fossils of spiral creatures called ammonites in the rocks in Dolpo.  Here's an ammonite that I found when I was on my trek.  (Do you see it?  It's next to my left hand.)

The funny thing is that ammonites are sea creatures.  So what are they doing on top of the mountains?Uncle Guy explained it to me and I'm going to try and explain it to Grace, Robin and Adam.  Here we go ...

Adam, Grace and Robin are very clever so they know where lots of places are, like France and Germany and Canada.  But I wonder if they know that countries move?!  This takes millions of years so Adam, Robin and Grace won't be able to see France or Germany or Canada moving around, but if they came back to earth in millions of years then all of the countries would be in different places!

Once upon a time, India was an island.  There was an ocean between India and the rest of Asia, called the Tethys Sea.  Then India moved north and crashed with Asia.  It was such a gigantic crash that the earth in between India and Asia got squashed and crumpled.  Have you ever seen a crumpled car bumper after a small crash?  Well it was a bit like that except millions of times bigger.  The squashed earth turned into the Himalayas, which are now the biggest mountains in the world.

Some parts of the Tethys Sea got pushed up onto the top of the mountains when India and Asia crashed.  This is why there are sea creatures like ammonites in the mountains.  

Here are some more fossils from the Tethys Sea.  Can you spot them?

Here are the mountains where I found the fossils.  I took this picture when I was over 4,000m above the sea, but the fossils were once on the sea floor.  Isn't that amazing?

Here's one last fossil picture.  Grace, Robin and Adam should be expert fossil spotters by now so they will probably spot the ammonites straight away.

A Monastery in a Cliff

Hello.  Sorry you haven't heard from me for a while.  I'm still in Nepal at the moment.  I promised to tell you some more about my long trek in Dolpo, so here goes...

In Dolpo, most people are Buddhists.  Buddhists often meditate, or sit in silence, to look for peace.  It's a bit like being Quaker in some ways, and Adam, Robin and Grace know all about Quakers in Birmingham.

Buddhists don't go to Meeting Houses though, they go to monasteries.  Can you spot the monastery in the cliff in this picture?

The white and brown statues in this picture are Buddhist monuments.  They are called Chortens and you see them at the entrance to villages in Dolpo.  The pile of stones next to them (Mani walls) have prayers written on them.  You have to walk to the left of the stones when you enter the village.  I wonder if there are any places where Adam, Robin and Grace always have to walk on the left?  Perhaps in their school corridors? Or when they get on the bus?

Dolpo is near Tibet, which is owned by China, and the people speak Tibetan not Nepali.  Here is the Tibetan flag flying outside a monastery.  It's very colourful, isn't it?

I've still got some more exciting things to tell you about Dolpo so you will be hearing from me again soon!

Eighteen Days of Trekking!

Hello!  Namaste!  (Namaste is the best way of saying 'hello' in Nepal.  I'll definitely be saying 'Namaste next time I see Robin, Grace and Adam so I hope they remember how to say it.  I'm sure they will as they are very clever.)

I'm sorry you haven't heard from me for such a long time but I've been trekking.  I went walking every day for eighteen days!  That's the same as going walking instead of going to school for three whole weeks.

I was in a place called Dolpo in Nepal which only has a few people living in it.  (I reckon there are more people in Bournville School - where Adam, Robin and Grace are busy being clever every day - than in some villages in Dolpo.)  

There were no computers where I could log on to the internet when I was in Dolpo, so I didn't get any screen time.  Oh dear.  I don't think Adam, Robin and Grace would like to go eighteen days without screen time!

The scenery in Dolpo was amazing though so I didn't mind.

The photo at the top of the page shows me at the top of the 'Kang La' which was over 5,000 metres high.  (This is more than half the height of the tallest mountain in the world, Mount Everest.)  While I was in Dolpo I went over three passes that were more than 5,000m high and there were amazing views from all of them.

I also passed a beautiful lake called Phoksundo Lake.  The people who live in Dolpo hang multi-coloured flags in special places, including the shore of the lake.  The flags are red, green, yellow, white and blue, as you can see in my photograph.  People in Dolpo think the flags give them special protection to stop anything bad from happening.

I slept in a tent every night during my trek.  It's hard work carrying a tent and sleeping bag and food for eighteen days.  (I wonder what Adam, Robin and Grace eat in eighteen days?  I wonder if they could fit all of their food in a rucksack?!)  We thought this would be quite hard so we took nine donkeys with us to help carry everything.

The donkeys had quite big packs at first but the luggage got lighter and lighter.  This is because we ate lots of food every day so the donkeys did not have to carry it anymore!

There are no roads and no cars in Dolpo, so animals carry most of the luggage.  Here is a picture of some yaks carrying wood to build houses in a local village.  Yaks are a bit like giant woolly cows!

I had an amazing time in Dolpo and I'm looking forward to telling you more about it soon!