April 2020
Helpful, friendly, and competent team top to bottom! We started with yoga classes in KTM and Pokhara and all accomodations were very comfortable. Included meals were authentic and delicious. Hotel staff were always gracious and smiling. The yogi was wonderful as well, teaching an emphasis more on mental awareness over physical fitness/toning of western course I'd done in Berkeley and SF...Which was unexpectedly useful for the long trek to come. All day trips around Kathmandu were guided by a very professional and knowledgeable college professor with a good sense of making sure things didn't feel too touristy. Owner Rajan was usually personally available to attend to needs and questions. At dinner one night we spoke to him in the hotel to upgrade our trek to a custom private Annapurna Base Camp, and by breakfast the next day he had it all set up complete with an AWESOME guide + porter. We will never forget our wonderful guide, Barat, and our porter Sandisk. We ended up spending two weeks trekking the Himalayas with these two men and they were personable, friendly, and knowledgeable, and never too chatty, imposing, or pushy. (We'd noted some other groups along the trek with guides/porters that were boorish, incompetent, or unprofessional). Our guys handled our supplies, lodging, food, communicated well, even bringing an impressive array of emergency articles...EVERYTHING 100% pro and totally inspired confidence. We didn't have to think about logistics at all, and utterly enjoyed every moment. There are some things in Nepal that I didn't like seeing so much, such as certain groups of tourists unfairly haggling poor merchants, the oppressive pollution and traffic in Kathmandu, and those darn rolling power outages. But due to Earthbound's ways, none that stuff negated any of a wonderful experience overall. Thank you Rajan, Barat, everyone on the Earthbound staff, and all the associated vendors. You guys are the best!
