| Annapurna circuit: Tatopani to Pokhara (via Poon Hill 3200m) April 27th - April 29th So now for the last bit of our trek. It's been going faster than expected. From Tatopani, we will go up again (about 1700m) to Ghorapani. From there you can make a short trip (400m up) to Poon Hill where you have great views in the morning of the Annapurna range (or so they say!). We lazed around in Tatopani a bit. Onno soaked in the hotsprings again and I had a nap for about 2 hours after breakfast. After lunch we decided to do part of the big climb that day already. So we headed out. After about an hour we lost eachother. I just walked on up figuring that was the direction we were going in, but without looking too much around, I missed a turn apparently and Onno was waiting for me after the next intersection. So I thought: where is he? And he thought: where is she? So he walked back and somehow I managed to get on the right track again so when he was coming back up we found eachother again. After this, more and more uphill. I felt really that I had been trekking for a long time and lost a bit of my enthousiasm. The surroundings are still beautiful, but somehow the people in these villages seemed more hostile, not happy smiling and saying Namaste all the time. I didn't feel really comfortable. We reached the town of Shikha just before it started to rain. The rest of the night it rained and thundered as I don't think I've ever heard before. Really really loud with hail and spectacular lightning. Good thing we were not camping. Next day it was clear again, but the clouds came in soon. No rain though. The rest of the walk up was hard en hot again, but felt good. We reached Ghorapani before lunch and spent the afternoon relaxing. At night it started raining again and I was a bit worried we wouldn't be able to see anything the next day on Poon Hill. Well, I was right, the morning was covered with clouds and when we woke up at 5, we decided there was no use walking up there. I guess we have to see the views on a postcard (and many of them are available in every shop). Not too dissappointed (I mean, what can you do?) we started going down towards the end of the trek. We teamed up with a couple from the Czech Republic because they had heard that some people had been robbed on this part of the trek. Well, no robbers seen, but Onno did get attacked by a cow! He ran away quickly though. A long long staircase(but with beautiful surroundings again) down to Naya Pull (place where the busses leave). It's a bit of a shock to be in a dirty place like that again with the fumes of cars etc. We got hit by a bit of hail on the last stretch, but made it to the bus in time. The bus ride was allright, allthough I spent most of my time being prepared to catch a girl who was about to fall asleep next to an open back door. Arriving in Pokhara was nice. Turned out that Kim and her group had just reached pokhara as well (they walked down, bypassing Poon Hill, because they had done it on the way up already). Also the Helen, Malcolm etc (English/Aussie group) was there. Had nice sandwich at the Pumpernickel Bakery. Nice hot shower (which was cold the first time, but oh well) etc etc. Time for something else than trekking! Overall I really enjoyed this trek a lot. Sometimes I did notice I had been trekking for weeks already and lost a bit of the drive to really enjoy it. However, it was a great trek with great people. The surroundings were different from the Everest ones and because this trek is not at such a high altitude for such a long time it didn't feel as much as a survival trip. Because of this, it also didn't feel like as much as an accomplishment as the Everest one. Both had their charms though and I'm really happy I did them both. A last goodbye to my boots: Finally, my hiking boots, I donated to some porter. The smell left them a bit, but they needed resoling anyway and I think they served their purpose so far: Vulcans in France, Rocky Mountains in Colorado, Grand Canyon, New Zealand and two months Nepal. Back to Main Page Previous part of Circuit |
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| The Pictures: Top: Our trekking friends (from left to right): Ben, Helen, Debby, Malcolm and Onno Bottom: Monkey temple in Kathmandu |