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...