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!

Going trekking!

Hi.  I've been travelling around Rajastan in the west of India.

I've had a great time looking at big fortresses on the tops of hills and lots of beautiful palaces.  I've been such a busy stuffed traveller that I haven't had a chance to download my pictures yet.

I'm going trekking this afternoon and I won't have internet access for three weeks.  (Just imagine three weeks without screen time!)  You'll hear from me again in October.  I'll upload all my pictures from India then.

If you want to look on a map, I'm going to be in Dolpo in the west of Nepal while I'm trekking.

Bye for now!

Walking on Fire

I've just visited Kandy, which is one of the biggest cities in Sri Lanka.  It has a beautiful botanical garden.

I got a very good view from this tree.  It's lucky that none of the fruits fell down on my head!

In the evening I went to see a Sri Lankan dance.  There were lots of people playing drums and wearing masks like this one.  Can you see all the cobras (a type of snake) on the mask?  Lots of Sri Lankan masks are decorated with cobras and some are decorated with peacocks.  I preferred the peacock ones because I'm a bit scared of snakes!

At the end of the performance, some of the dancers swallowed flames.  I was worried about them getting burned but nobody was hurt.  It was very impressive.  The flames were definitely real as I could feel the heat from where I was sitting.

(You have to be a specially trained Sri Lankan dancer to be able to swallow flames without getting hurt.  Nobody else should try it!)

Some of the dancers also walked across burning coals!

It was a very interesting evening, but I don't think I'll take up flame-swallowing as a hobby.  I prefer travelling around and writing my blog for Adam, Robin and Grace.

I'm going back to India soon.  I'll blog again from there!  Bye for now.

Hillsides and Tea Plants

I've just visited a tea-making factory.  There are lots of tea plantations in Sri Lanka where they grow tea leaves.  (Did you know that tea comes from plants?)  At the tea plantations, they pick the leaves then dry them, put them in packets, and send them all around the world so that people who like drinking tea can buy them.

I wonder if Adam, Robin and Grace's mum and dad drank any tea this morning.  Perhaps it came from Sri Lanka?  (If you want to ask them, it might be useful to know that Sri Lankan tea is sometimes called Ceylon tea.  I'm sure Granny Kath has some in her kitchen!)

Here's a picture of me in a tea plantation!

Here's the tea factory.

The tea plantations in Sri Lanka are in the centre of the island, where it's quite hilly.  The weather is much cooler and wetter.  This makes it a bit like Birmingham!  In fact, there is a town in Sri Lanka called 'Little England' (Nuriwa Eliya in the local language) because it's a bit chilly and it rains quite often!

There are some nice walks and beautiful views in the hills.  This viewpoint is called 'World's End' because there's a big cliff and the path through the hills suddenly stops, so it feels like the end of the world.

There are also some big waterfalls in the hills.  This one is called Baker's Falls.

I enjoyed seeing the hills and the tea plantations but I'm looking forward to going back to the beach where it's sunny.  After all, I can get rained on as often as I like when I get back to Birmingham!

Going on Safari

I've just been on a safari in Sri Lanka.  It was very exciting.  I saw twenty-nine elephants!

Male elephants live by themselves but female and baby elephants live together in groups.  I saw males, females and babies.  

Things are quite tough for the elephants at the moment because there hasn't been any rain for months and months.  Lots of the plants have died and there isn't much food for the elephants to eat.  Next month the rainy season will start again, lots of plants will start growing, and there will be much more food for the elephants.

Here's a picture of me with a male elephant.

I saw the elephants in a place called the Uda Walawa nature reserve.  All the animals in the reserve are wild so it's very different from going to a zoo.  We drove around in a jeep and tried to spot as many animals as we could.

The animals in the reserve have to look after themselves.  Humans don't feed them like they do in a zoo, but no one is allowed to chop down the trees or damage the environment in the reserve.  This helps to make sure that the elephants have a good place to live.

Here's one of the tracks that we drove along in our jeep.

I saw lots of other animals as well as elephants.  There were loads and loads of monkeys!

I also saw lots of birds.  Look at this peacock!

I've decided that stuffed travellers quite like going on safaris.  In fact, I enjoyed it so much that I went on another safari the next day, at a place called the Bundala Reserve, where there were lots of different types of birds.  Soon I'll be an expert on the wildlife of Sri Lanka!