Eastern Nepal is home to the popular routes to Makalu and Kanchenjunga, as well as an eastern route to Everest. The area boasts a cultural diversity like nowhere else and prosperous villages. Most villages are still largely untouched by tourism, only few travellers come into this area. To reach Eastern Nepal it takes either a bus journey or a flight to Tumlingtar, from where treks to the Makalu Barun National Park usually start, or Taplejung, for the Kanchenjunga treks.

The climate in Eastern Nepal reaches from the hot plains in the South to the cooler tea-growing area in the very East to high-altitude Alpine climate. This part of Nepal is rather wet, and even when the weather in the rest of Nepal is good it often rains here. The high precipitation however enables an extremely rich plant life in this region.

Makalu Barun National Park is the only strict Nature Reserve in the country. Here you can find plants and animals that are lost in other areas of Nepal, due to spreading human habitation. The National Park encompasses altitudes from below 1,000m to above 8,000m and therefore a great range of vegetation zones. Climbing upwards will never get boring with the ever changing fauna around you.

Header picture taken from Flickr CC, courtesy of mckaysavage.