IX. ANOTHER TREK the second trek we decided to do is called the langtang valley...it's much shorter, only 7-8 days, depending on how you do it...we took a bus to syabrubesi, stayed the night, and started the next morning...the first day was a 1000m climb (net)...it took us around 6 hours...there was a lot of up and down, quite a bit of it was steep, so we actually climbed more than 1000m...we climbed more than 1000m on the day...it was a relief to arrive at the "friendly guest house"...the next day was another 900m climb, this one much easier and faster...the third day was only 2 hours, though we knew it would be short...we were howeva, expecting three hours, and were quite surprised to come over a hill and see the village all of a sudden...we had been excited, as kyanjin gompa has a cheese factory...but because it's not high season anymore, it was closed...soooo disappointed...from our guesthouse we could see part of the langtang glacier, as well as two ridges in the himalayas...the kanja la himal, and i've forgotten the name of the other one...gorgeous...the fourth day we decided to stay in kyanjin gompa another day, and do a day hike...so we continued up the valley for three hours, and almost made it to seeing another glacier...by the time we got back, we could feel it in our legs...layna stepped into an icy river we had to cross, i can still imagine the cold!! the next day it was back down again, back to friendly guest house...(we skipped the village we had stayed in the night before first arriving in kyanjin gompa)...the 6th day we intended to descend 800m, then climb 600m to a village called thulo syaphru...but we didn't get to the turnoff until having been on the trail for more than four hours...i wasn't in the mindset to climb at that point...layna let me make the call, and we went to syabrubesi again...the following morning we walked back to that turnoff, and did the climb...steady, pretty steep for 3 hours...it was worth it though, the views of the valley were great...we could see how steep the langtang valley is, and appreciate the climbing and descending we had done earlier in the trek...that night there was a "jamboree" in the village of thulo syaphru...at least that was what the lady who owned our guest house called it...we had no idea what was going on, but it was great to watch...lots of singing...it seemed to move through the village, stopping in open areas in front of guesthouses...there was always a table in the middle of the area, and the same people lined up at the table each time...the men would sing, then the women...over and over and over again...they circled around a bit, and there were some men in some sort of costume beating drums and spinning around...the last day we walked to dhunche... during this trek we saw white monkeys, yay!! awesome to see animals in the wild...i've only seen monkeys in a zoo previously...well, there is a temple in kathmandu sometimes called the monkey temple because of the troop that lives around the area...but that's not really "wild"...those monkeys have figured out how to take food off visitors, they can even unwrap lollies!! this trek was cheaper than our first trek...because it wasn't as long, of course, and also because we didn't pay for our lodging 75% of the time...because we were trekking outside of high season, the people who run the lodges have a harder time getting people...they usually offered us a free room, and a bit of a discount on our food...(the food is where the lodges actually make any money)...not a huge amount, but still, it was nice...during this trek we also got our first taste of yak curd...SO GOOD...you all know i'm a huge fan of curd (yoghurt) in general, so i was happy to try it...the first time we had it, it had been made freshly that day, and was still warm...GOOD...the next morning, we had it again, from the same place, and it was still GOOD...the day we came back down the valley, from kyanjin gompa to the friendly guest house (in the village of lama hotel) we tried another place for yak curd...it was the best we had...AMAZING...i wish yak curd was available in more places, but i suppose it's best that it isn't...hee hee...the other food of interest we tried was a snickers momo...the owner of the lodge wrapped the snickers in pastry, and pan fried it...so when we got it, the snickers was melted inside the crust...heaven!!
X. "HOME" TO KATHMANDU we're now in kathmandu for the third time...we've done a few more errands, gotten permits and tomorrow will take off for our third trek...this morning we started the process for getting our indian tourist visas...it was my first time in the embassy of another country...lots of waiting around, (about 5 hours worth!...when they finally called our numbers, it only took a minute or so to do what needed to be done)...but oh well...we'll finish up the process when we return from this trek...we've stayed at the same hotel each time, they've gotten to know us pretty well...hee hee...they hold onto all our stuff we don't take with us, which is awesome...
18 December 2008
06 December 2008
nepal 2
VI. THE SECOND CITY
pokhara is the second city of nepal...much more tame, though still touristy...the world peace pagoda overlooks the town...one day we rented a boat and went out on the lake...you can see the mountains behind the city while on the lake...gorgeous...pokhara was also our first opportunity to use computers in nearly three weeks...we were both a bit overwhelmed with being in contact again...as this was only three days after the events in mumbai, it was especially intense...while we were in pokhara, we found out the dates for something we had read about in the guidebook, and decided we had to go...
VII. WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS
after two days in pokhara, we rode two buses to the village of meghauli...it's just outside chitwan national park...there is only one time of year, and one reason that foreigners ever go to meghauli...each december, for a week, it hosts the world elephant polo championships...how awesome is that??!! on the second bus,i got to talking to the man sitting next to me, and he offered to let us stay at his house...so we did...his house happened to be a 30 minute bike ride past meghauli, in an absolutely tiny village...we got off the bus at the last stop, then walked 20 minutes through fields to get to his house...attracting attention EVERYWHERE, of course...it was a traditional house, one room downstairs, with a ladder leading up to the one room upstairs...it had electricity, but no running water...the kitchen was a straw covered shack of sorts...in the middle of the front "yard" was a huge haystack...that evening our host took us to the house (a 40 minute walk through more fields, we were totally lost) of one of his relatives...she served us local rice beer, and a fantastic curry...obvioiusly, i didn't drink the beer, but layna said it was good, and it certainly smelled good...kinda lemony, though he said there was no lemon in it...walking back to his house was interesting, as it was completely dark...walking where you can't see is difficult, and we all know my level of coordination, even when i can see!!! the following morning we got up, and our host led us (all three of us on bicycles) to the grounds in meghauli where we watched the WORLD ELEPHANT POLO CHAMPIONSHIPS...it was AWESOME...the game moves a lot faster than you would think...there are 9 elephants on the field at a time...4 for each team, and a huge referee elephant...each elephant had two people on it...a player and a handler...the players were using mallets with 2m handles...funny to watch them try to hit the ball and make sure it didn't hit the feet of the elephant...the elephants seemed to know not to use their trunks to do anything with the ball...occasionally they would step on the ball, which of course frustrated the players...hee hee...we saw a lot of missed hits, sometimes three or four times in a row!! there was a team from new york there, it was their first time in the tournament...lots of locals turned out to watch the tournament, it's probably the excitement of the year in that area...there was a british guy doing play by play, he was amusing...he kept referring to "the greatest nation on earth"...hee hee...at least he knew the important stuff...lol...we had so much fun watching that we watched the entire day's worth of games...as we were leaving, i couldnt help but wonder, how exactly does one get into elephant polo? it's not exactly a worldwide sport...
VIII. BACK TO KATHMANDU we hopped two buses again, and made our way back to kathmandu...we had lots of errands to do, and wanted to see a few more sights...laundry, email, etc...we took a microbus one day to a stupa called boddha...it's especially important to the tibetan buddhist community here...it's HUGE...anywho, as we got off the bus, the guy who collects money tried to tell us that the fare was 200NRps each...when he first said the number, we both thought he was talking about the entrance fee to the stupa area...but he was talking about the bus fare!!!! we were both shocked, and weren't about to pay that...it was just another example of a local trying to rip off a foreign traveler...we paid 20, and knew we had overpaid by 5 or so...in american dollars, 200 rupees isn't a lot...but it's more than 10x the fare!!! he had no choice but to accept the money we were willing, but as he got back on the bus he kept calling us idiot girls... we also visited several travel agents in order to get prices for the permits and tickets we needed for the next trek we had decided to do...the last agent we visited was by far the best...he explained what we needed, and even told us we could get the permits ourselves...he also told us that the TIMS (trekkers information management system) cards are actually free...the other agents were telling us that they could get them for us for 500 rupees each!! in addition to their markup on the permits...needless to say, to book bus tickets we were happy to go to the honest travel agent...he told us the price of the tickets, as well as the commission he charged...we were happy to pay that...
pokhara is the second city of nepal...much more tame, though still touristy...the world peace pagoda overlooks the town...one day we rented a boat and went out on the lake...you can see the mountains behind the city while on the lake...gorgeous...pokhara was also our first opportunity to use computers in nearly three weeks...we were both a bit overwhelmed with being in contact again...as this was only three days after the events in mumbai, it was especially intense...while we were in pokhara, we found out the dates for something we had read about in the guidebook, and decided we had to go...
VII. WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS
after two days in pokhara, we rode two buses to the village of meghauli...it's just outside chitwan national park...there is only one time of year, and one reason that foreigners ever go to meghauli...each december, for a week, it hosts the world elephant polo championships...how awesome is that??!! on the second bus,i got to talking to the man sitting next to me, and he offered to let us stay at his house...so we did...his house happened to be a 30 minute bike ride past meghauli, in an absolutely tiny village...we got off the bus at the last stop, then walked 20 minutes through fields to get to his house...attracting attention EVERYWHERE, of course...it was a traditional house, one room downstairs, with a ladder leading up to the one room upstairs...it had electricity, but no running water...the kitchen was a straw covered shack of sorts...in the middle of the front "yard" was a huge haystack...that evening our host took us to the house (a 40 minute walk through more fields, we were totally lost) of one of his relatives...she served us local rice beer, and a fantastic curry...obvioiusly, i didn't drink the beer, but layna said it was good, and it certainly smelled good...kinda lemony, though he said there was no lemon in it...walking back to his house was interesting, as it was completely dark...walking where you can't see is difficult, and we all know my level of coordination, even when i can see!!! the following morning we got up, and our host led us (all three of us on bicycles) to the grounds in meghauli where we watched the WORLD ELEPHANT POLO CHAMPIONSHIPS...it was AWESOME...the game moves a lot faster than you would think...there are 9 elephants on the field at a time...4 for each team, and a huge referee elephant...each elephant had two people on it...a player and a handler...the players were using mallets with 2m handles...funny to watch them try to hit the ball and make sure it didn't hit the feet of the elephant...the elephants seemed to know not to use their trunks to do anything with the ball...occasionally they would step on the ball, which of course frustrated the players...hee hee...we saw a lot of missed hits, sometimes three or four times in a row!! there was a team from new york there, it was their first time in the tournament...lots of locals turned out to watch the tournament, it's probably the excitement of the year in that area...there was a british guy doing play by play, he was amusing...he kept referring to "the greatest nation on earth"...hee hee...at least he knew the important stuff...lol...we had so much fun watching that we watched the entire day's worth of games...as we were leaving, i couldnt help but wonder, how exactly does one get into elephant polo? it's not exactly a worldwide sport...
VIII. BACK TO KATHMANDU we hopped two buses again, and made our way back to kathmandu...we had lots of errands to do, and wanted to see a few more sights...laundry, email, etc...we took a microbus one day to a stupa called boddha...it's especially important to the tibetan buddhist community here...it's HUGE...anywho, as we got off the bus, the guy who collects money tried to tell us that the fare was 200NRps each...when he first said the number, we both thought he was talking about the entrance fee to the stupa area...but he was talking about the bus fare!!!! we were both shocked, and weren't about to pay that...it was just another example of a local trying to rip off a foreign traveler...we paid 20, and knew we had overpaid by 5 or so...in american dollars, 200 rupees isn't a lot...but it's more than 10x the fare!!! he had no choice but to accept the money we were willing, but as he got back on the bus he kept calling us idiot girls... we also visited several travel agents in order to get prices for the permits and tickets we needed for the next trek we had decided to do...the last agent we visited was by far the best...he explained what we needed, and even told us we could get the permits ourselves...he also told us that the TIMS (trekkers information management system) cards are actually free...the other agents were telling us that they could get them for us for 500 rupees each!! in addition to their markup on the permits...needless to say, to book bus tickets we were happy to go to the honest travel agent...he told us the price of the tickets, as well as the commission he charged...we were happy to pay that...
05 December 2008
nepal 1
I. INTRODUCTION
layna and i met in germany, she moved there a year after i did, in june 2002...who knows exactly when we met, but it was sometime not too long afterward...one of her sisters had already been there a few years...layna is a graduate of texas a&m...she went to yell practice regularly, but wasn't often a 12th man...she's way more impressive than me, in that she put herself entirely through school by herself...(a side note, the sister already in garmisch is a UT graduate...or, as aggies call it, TU)
II. THE BEGINNING
our first trip together was while we were living in germany...purely by accident we both had the same few days off, and while we didn't know each other well at all, thought hey, lets go somewhere...so we went to the travel agent, and ended up going to turkey...at the time our visa cost more than our flight!! sometimes being an american sucks...anywho, we loved the trip, and found that we have similar traveling styles...our next trip together was to russia (moscow and st petersburg) with the sister i already mentioned...another great trip...
i left garmisch in march of 2004, then traveled for 7 weeks in southeast asia, (including visiting hana who was living in the philippines at the time)...that summer, i worked in seward, alaska, home of the seward army resort...sometime during that summer, layna and i hatched the plan for this trip...we thought hey, wouldn't it be cool if we spent a bunch of months budget traveling all over asia...we originally thought we'd start it in late october or november of 2006...obviously that didn't happen...for various reasons, each of us pushed it back a couple times, always knowing that we were still going to do it...and finally, about a year ago, we said YES, WE ARE GOING TO START IN NOVEMBER...
III. THE PLANNING
all these years, layna and i would email every few months, and check in, that yes, each of us is still up for the trip...each making preparations, but not really coordinating anything...it wasn't until just a couple months or so before we were supposed to start that we even started emailing weekly...hee hee...but yes, we did get it all together...tickets bought, gear bought, etc...it helped a lot that each of us knew people who had trekked in nepal, so we knew who to ask questions...
IV. THE MEETING
we agreed to meet in kathmandu...originally, layna had a ticket that had her arriving on 5 november...but that ticket had her transferring through india, and apparently you need a visa to do that, which she didnt know at the time...so she got stuck in new york, and had to buy another ticket...(don't worry, she got most of the first one refunded)...so she ended up arriving the same day i did, 6 november...she found me in the airport, and our hotel picked us up, so we were set to go...
V. MORE PLANNING
since our flights arrived in kathmandu in the early afternoon, we actually had part of the day with which to do things..we went straight to the travel agent (there are gbillions from which to choose) to figure out details for the trek we had chosen...the annapurna circuit...it's one of the most popular (along with the everest base camp trek) as well as the longest...we originally thought of doing the everest base camp trek, but had both changed our minds w/out telling each other, so it worked out well...we knew that we could do the trek ourselves, w/out a porter, and w/out a guide, and we didn't want to pay for them anywho...(though porters and guides make a VERY small amount of money for all that they do...still, what they make is considerably more than the average nepali)...we got our bus tickets, and necessary permits
the next couple days we checked out a few places in kathmandu, and stocked up on what we'd need for the trek...i had showed up w/out a hat, and w/out mittens...fortunately, that stuff is available here, by the truckload, and super cheap...if you're good at bargaining, you'll pay almost nothing...i'm not as good as i'd like to be, since i rarely have any idea what i should be paying for anything...
VI. THE TREK
we took a six hour bus ride from kathmandu to the town of besisahar...the only reason foreigners go to this town is to stay the night before they start the circuit...the day we were on the bus was in the middle of a few holidays, so there were a LOT of people getting on and off...it occured to us that it might be difficult to find a room in besisahar, but it wasn't...we stayed at hotel mongolia, for what we thought was the bargain rate of 500Rps...($1USD = 75NRps)...the view from the back of the hotel was pretty good...or so we thought...our room had it's own bathroom, and two single beds with very thin mattresses...that's it...oh, and a couple windows...but it was all we needed...
the next morning we were up and ready to go (we even ate breakfast) before 0700...we found a bus to take us a little way (7km) down the road to khudi, where we would start walking...the road was, well, um, not good...not sealed at all...when you looked at the bus we were on, you wouldn't have thought it was capable of anything off road...but it was...i don't know if it was actually 4WD, but it certainly was expected to behave that way...the bus driver definitely knew what he was doing...we got off in khudi, and started walking...our first checkpoint (there are police and tourist checkpoints all along the trek) was in the village after that, though i can't remember the name of it...the first hour and a half were pretty flat, and we were both thinking it wasn't going to be as hard as we thought...we had tea around 1000...not too long after we started walking again, we started going up...not too bad at first, but remember that i haven't hiked regularly, ever...still, we took it slow and steady, which would become our mantra as the trek went on...we arrived in bahundanda around 1400...
most of our days ended up having the same routine, give or take hours or minutes...wake up, lay around and daydream, eat breakfast, trek for 4-6 hours, arrive somewhere new, relax and look at the menu and try to decide what we wanted for dinner, eat dinner, go to bed around 2000...(yes, i know, that's early)...in general, the first half of the trek was mostly going up...and the second half was mostly going down...some days were difficult, some were easier...after just a few days, we were sleeping higher than i ever was during 2.5 years in korea...(the highest mountain in south korea is only about 2000m)...day 7 was difficult, as we took the upper route from pisang to manang...it has a pretty harsh climb, but the views for the rest of the day are totally worth it...it was a 7 hour day, and we arrived in manang tired and hungry...manang is a town at 3500m or so, and nearly everyone doing the trek spends two nights there instead of one, to acclimatize...most of the world never spends time at this height, but it's when altitude sickness starts to show...there are several bakeries in the town, of course we had to try the goods...never has apple pie looked so good:)...
the next difficult day was day 10...by far the most difficult of the trek...we spent the night in thorung phedi, at 4400m...the village consists of the two lodges for trekkers, (and porters/guides/etc) and that's it...most people go to bed very early, because you start the next morning in the dark...people eat breakfast around 0400-0430, and start up the mountain in the dark, at 0500...its neat to look up and see the line of head torch lights winding up the mountain...1000m later, (4.5 hours for us) we were at the top, the pass called thorung la...layna started the day with nausea, one of many symptoms of AMS, though she elected to try the climb anywho...as we climbed, she got worse, though she still carried on...at the top, there is a hut where quite a few people stop and have a cup of tea to celebrate where they are and what they've done...we didn't stop...we took the obligatory pictures by the sign, and started our way down...the last hour of the climb i had developed a headache, which i knew would go away as we descended...and it did...5.5 hours later, we arrived in muktinath, after a descent of 1600m+...my knees hurt a little, and my feet HURT A LOT...it was a long long LONG day, and we were exhausted...i was so tired that i kept kicking stones i should have been able to lift my feet over...we arrived around 1530, and stumbled into the mona lisa hotel...the next morning we decided to stay an extra day in muktinath, just because we could...(not having an itinerary is great)...there were a few things in muktinath that we wanted to see, and didn't have the energy when we arrived after the long day...we also used the rest day to rinse our clothes in the FREEZING COLD water...SO COLD...
then we continued going down...the next day we arrived in kagbeni, which has to be one of the windiest places ever...from the north side of kagbeni you can see into a tiny little area of the upper mustang region...we would have loved to go farther...there is a special permit fee to go there, a whopping $700USD...(birthday present for me next year? hee hee)...for a while, nepal has had 75 districts...for a number of years, one king ruled over 74 of them...another king ruled over the other one, known as the upper mustang region...i would love to see it someday...anywho, from kagbeni we continued on...this side of the trek has a road through a good portion, which isn't nearly as fun as the trail on the first half...plus, several of our days were much flatter...we weren't feeling the challenge nearly as much...but it was still amazing...the scenery was totally different, its much more desertlike...by this point, a 4 hour day was a breeze...we'd arrive somewhere and drop our packs and hike around whereva we were...
i don't remember the number of the day, but at some point we arrived in tatopani...the next day is a tough one, as you climb quite a lot again...after going down for days, it's definitely a shock to the system...tatopani itself means hot springs, and there are some right next to the town...there are also a few really good looking bakeries in the town...the next morning, we took off, and kept thinking "when do we start climbing?"...at some point, i looked at the map and realized we had missed the turnoff to the climb...whoops...so we walked back, found the turnoff, and started climbing...we only made half the climb, but that was okay...we slept the night at sikha, then continued the climb the next day, finishing at ghorepani...it actually worked out really well that we did the climb in two days instead of one...
the last morning, we got up in the dark again...ghorepani is at the bottom of what is known at poon hill...watching the sun rise from poon hill is great, so we figured, why not? again, climbing up in the dark with the line of lights from head torches...the sun rise was beautiful, and the perfect morning...cold, but awesome...we walked back down to the lodge, ate breakfast, and started going down even more...that last day we descended almost 2000m, down to the town of naya pul...from there we caught a bus (after saying no to a taxi who wanted WAY too much money) to pokhara...
one of our biggest concerns in doing the trek w/out a porter was how hard it would be to carry our packs each day...but our bodies adjusted surprisingly well...that's not to say it was easy, because it wasn't...but it wasn't as bad as we thought...and we didn't need a guide, except for the one time...hee hee...
layna and i met in germany, she moved there a year after i did, in june 2002...who knows exactly when we met, but it was sometime not too long afterward...one of her sisters had already been there a few years...layna is a graduate of texas a&m...she went to yell practice regularly, but wasn't often a 12th man...she's way more impressive than me, in that she put herself entirely through school by herself...(a side note, the sister already in garmisch is a UT graduate...or, as aggies call it, TU)
II. THE BEGINNING
our first trip together was while we were living in germany...purely by accident we both had the same few days off, and while we didn't know each other well at all, thought hey, lets go somewhere...so we went to the travel agent, and ended up going to turkey...at the time our visa cost more than our flight!! sometimes being an american sucks...anywho, we loved the trip, and found that we have similar traveling styles...our next trip together was to russia (moscow and st petersburg) with the sister i already mentioned...another great trip...
i left garmisch in march of 2004, then traveled for 7 weeks in southeast asia, (including visiting hana who was living in the philippines at the time)...that summer, i worked in seward, alaska, home of the seward army resort...sometime during that summer, layna and i hatched the plan for this trip...we thought hey, wouldn't it be cool if we spent a bunch of months budget traveling all over asia...we originally thought we'd start it in late october or november of 2006...obviously that didn't happen...for various reasons, each of us pushed it back a couple times, always knowing that we were still going to do it...and finally, about a year ago, we said YES, WE ARE GOING TO START IN NOVEMBER...
III. THE PLANNING
all these years, layna and i would email every few months, and check in, that yes, each of us is still up for the trip...each making preparations, but not really coordinating anything...it wasn't until just a couple months or so before we were supposed to start that we even started emailing weekly...hee hee...but yes, we did get it all together...tickets bought, gear bought, etc...it helped a lot that each of us knew people who had trekked in nepal, so we knew who to ask questions...
IV. THE MEETING
we agreed to meet in kathmandu...originally, layna had a ticket that had her arriving on 5 november...but that ticket had her transferring through india, and apparently you need a visa to do that, which she didnt know at the time...so she got stuck in new york, and had to buy another ticket...(don't worry, she got most of the first one refunded)...so she ended up arriving the same day i did, 6 november...she found me in the airport, and our hotel picked us up, so we were set to go...
V. MORE PLANNING
since our flights arrived in kathmandu in the early afternoon, we actually had part of the day with which to do things..we went straight to the travel agent (there are gbillions from which to choose) to figure out details for the trek we had chosen...the annapurna circuit...it's one of the most popular (along with the everest base camp trek) as well as the longest...we originally thought of doing the everest base camp trek, but had both changed our minds w/out telling each other, so it worked out well...we knew that we could do the trek ourselves, w/out a porter, and w/out a guide, and we didn't want to pay for them anywho...(though porters and guides make a VERY small amount of money for all that they do...still, what they make is considerably more than the average nepali)...we got our bus tickets, and necessary permits
the next couple days we checked out a few places in kathmandu, and stocked up on what we'd need for the trek...i had showed up w/out a hat, and w/out mittens...fortunately, that stuff is available here, by the truckload, and super cheap...if you're good at bargaining, you'll pay almost nothing...i'm not as good as i'd like to be, since i rarely have any idea what i should be paying for anything...
VI. THE TREK
we took a six hour bus ride from kathmandu to the town of besisahar...the only reason foreigners go to this town is to stay the night before they start the circuit...the day we were on the bus was in the middle of a few holidays, so there were a LOT of people getting on and off...it occured to us that it might be difficult to find a room in besisahar, but it wasn't...we stayed at hotel mongolia, for what we thought was the bargain rate of 500Rps...($1USD = 75NRps)...the view from the back of the hotel was pretty good...or so we thought...our room had it's own bathroom, and two single beds with very thin mattresses...that's it...oh, and a couple windows...but it was all we needed...
the next morning we were up and ready to go (we even ate breakfast) before 0700...we found a bus to take us a little way (7km) down the road to khudi, where we would start walking...the road was, well, um, not good...not sealed at all...when you looked at the bus we were on, you wouldn't have thought it was capable of anything off road...but it was...i don't know if it was actually 4WD, but it certainly was expected to behave that way...the bus driver definitely knew what he was doing...we got off in khudi, and started walking...our first checkpoint (there are police and tourist checkpoints all along the trek) was in the village after that, though i can't remember the name of it...the first hour and a half were pretty flat, and we were both thinking it wasn't going to be as hard as we thought...we had tea around 1000...not too long after we started walking again, we started going up...not too bad at first, but remember that i haven't hiked regularly, ever...still, we took it slow and steady, which would become our mantra as the trek went on...we arrived in bahundanda around 1400...
most of our days ended up having the same routine, give or take hours or minutes...wake up, lay around and daydream, eat breakfast, trek for 4-6 hours, arrive somewhere new, relax and look at the menu and try to decide what we wanted for dinner, eat dinner, go to bed around 2000...(yes, i know, that's early)...in general, the first half of the trek was mostly going up...and the second half was mostly going down...some days were difficult, some were easier...after just a few days, we were sleeping higher than i ever was during 2.5 years in korea...(the highest mountain in south korea is only about 2000m)...day 7 was difficult, as we took the upper route from pisang to manang...it has a pretty harsh climb, but the views for the rest of the day are totally worth it...it was a 7 hour day, and we arrived in manang tired and hungry...manang is a town at 3500m or so, and nearly everyone doing the trek spends two nights there instead of one, to acclimatize...most of the world never spends time at this height, but it's when altitude sickness starts to show...there are several bakeries in the town, of course we had to try the goods...never has apple pie looked so good:)...
the next difficult day was day 10...by far the most difficult of the trek...we spent the night in thorung phedi, at 4400m...the village consists of the two lodges for trekkers, (and porters/guides/etc) and that's it...most people go to bed very early, because you start the next morning in the dark...people eat breakfast around 0400-0430, and start up the mountain in the dark, at 0500...its neat to look up and see the line of head torch lights winding up the mountain...1000m later, (4.5 hours for us) we were at the top, the pass called thorung la...layna started the day with nausea, one of many symptoms of AMS, though she elected to try the climb anywho...as we climbed, she got worse, though she still carried on...at the top, there is a hut where quite a few people stop and have a cup of tea to celebrate where they are and what they've done...we didn't stop...we took the obligatory pictures by the sign, and started our way down...the last hour of the climb i had developed a headache, which i knew would go away as we descended...and it did...5.5 hours later, we arrived in muktinath, after a descent of 1600m+...my knees hurt a little, and my feet HURT A LOT...it was a long long LONG day, and we were exhausted...i was so tired that i kept kicking stones i should have been able to lift my feet over...we arrived around 1530, and stumbled into the mona lisa hotel...the next morning we decided to stay an extra day in muktinath, just because we could...(not having an itinerary is great)...there were a few things in muktinath that we wanted to see, and didn't have the energy when we arrived after the long day...we also used the rest day to rinse our clothes in the FREEZING COLD water...SO COLD...
then we continued going down...the next day we arrived in kagbeni, which has to be one of the windiest places ever...from the north side of kagbeni you can see into a tiny little area of the upper mustang region...we would have loved to go farther...there is a special permit fee to go there, a whopping $700USD...(birthday present for me next year? hee hee)...for a while, nepal has had 75 districts...for a number of years, one king ruled over 74 of them...another king ruled over the other one, known as the upper mustang region...i would love to see it someday...anywho, from kagbeni we continued on...this side of the trek has a road through a good portion, which isn't nearly as fun as the trail on the first half...plus, several of our days were much flatter...we weren't feeling the challenge nearly as much...but it was still amazing...the scenery was totally different, its much more desertlike...by this point, a 4 hour day was a breeze...we'd arrive somewhere and drop our packs and hike around whereva we were...
i don't remember the number of the day, but at some point we arrived in tatopani...the next day is a tough one, as you climb quite a lot again...after going down for days, it's definitely a shock to the system...tatopani itself means hot springs, and there are some right next to the town...there are also a few really good looking bakeries in the town...the next morning, we took off, and kept thinking "when do we start climbing?"...at some point, i looked at the map and realized we had missed the turnoff to the climb...whoops...so we walked back, found the turnoff, and started climbing...we only made half the climb, but that was okay...we slept the night at sikha, then continued the climb the next day, finishing at ghorepani...it actually worked out really well that we did the climb in two days instead of one...
the last morning, we got up in the dark again...ghorepani is at the bottom of what is known at poon hill...watching the sun rise from poon hill is great, so we figured, why not? again, climbing up in the dark with the line of lights from head torches...the sun rise was beautiful, and the perfect morning...cold, but awesome...we walked back down to the lodge, ate breakfast, and started going down even more...that last day we descended almost 2000m, down to the town of naya pul...from there we caught a bus (after saying no to a taxi who wanted WAY too much money) to pokhara...
one of our biggest concerns in doing the trek w/out a porter was how hard it would be to carry our packs each day...but our bodies adjusted surprisingly well...that's not to say it was easy, because it wasn't...but it wasn't as bad as we thought...and we didn't need a guide, except for the one time...hee hee...
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