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Nepal - The Annapurna CircuitTuesday 15 April - KathmanduI am sitting here on a random planet of a random star in a random galaxy of a random cluster, in short in a random corner of the universe* in Kathmandu, emailing away, thinking I am "seeing the world". Only day two into my trip and I feel I have been gone for ages. On day one I felt a bit rusty regarding the whole travel and chill thing, but I am starting to get into the swing of things. Hooked up with Tim from New Zealand this morning to partner with on the Annapurna Circuit. We're off on Thursday morning.
After trying to organise my transport into Tibet, I went on a short trip into Thimi this afternoon where there was supposed to be a festival with guys piercing their tongues etc. (all in the spirit of the Nepali new year, Bikrat Yatra.
Monday started the year 2060, happy new year!). The festivities were over by the time I got there (in a chockabloc local bus which stopped just about everywhere and didn't drive very fast in between the stops either. I am beginning to miss Hong Kong were the people generally do not like to sit next to me. Here they preferably sit on top of you). Nevertheless it was an interesting trip. Initially I didn't like to whip out my camera as I was already an attraction being the only foreigner around. But as soon as I got
the thing out, EVERYBODY wanted to be in the picture.
Coming back into Thamel in Kathmandu I got hitched by a young Nepali man, the president of Save the Birds Nepal. After treating me to tea he invited me to his home for dinner. Not wanting to be rude I got into a taxi with him thinking it could either be fun or the last day of my travels :). It turned out to be very interesting, talking with his sisters, looking at pictures and sharing a meal in a Nepali residential neighbourhood. The sewage stench around made me bid a fairly hasty farewell, but otherwise it was a well spent evening. In spite of his assurance initially that he wasn't trying to sell me anything, he eventually was trying to sell me his services and pattern we see in Nepal continuously. Everybody either is a guide or porter or has a touring company or goods to sell or has at least connections with people who do. Kind of exhausting but who can blame them.
* Borrowed from Leon de Winter's "God's Gym" which I'm reading right now.
Thursday 17 April - Khudi (700m)Today we started our trek on the Annapurna Circuit and the first stop is Khudi, on the river the Marsyangdi Khola, which we are going to follow all the way until the pass, Thorung La, at 5400m. This morning we were still in Kathmandu, the dust and the heat, now we are breathing fresh air and it is quiet. My rucksack is way too heavy and I'm not looking forward to putting it back on tomorrow morning. Colin from Ireland has joined us in Kathmandu so now there is three of us. We can see the top of the Himachuli mountain. A snowcapped soaring mountain above the green hills.
Friday 18 April - BahendandaOnly a 3 hour walk the next day but with heavy rucksack and 500m climb up (not counting all the up and downhills in between) we were knackered anyway upon arriving at Bahendanda (1300m) at the top of a hill. Along the way we came across a porter carrying a sick person down in a basket suspended from his head. AMS? Fantastically located high upon a hill, Bahendanda has a 360 degree view over the surrounding mountains. It is already getting cooler and there is a nice afternoon breeze. 
We had a lovely garlic soup lunch and chapati's. (Garlic soup is supposed to be good against altitude related sickness AMS). The food is many times more expensive than the accommodation. Whatever isn't grown locally and every bottle needs to be carried up the trail by porters. I must admit I imagined 'trekking in Nepal' a bit differently. I imagined gravel mountain paths above the tree line and hardship in teahouses that are dingy, dodgy and stripped of all luxuries, scraping for food and our vitamines. Instead we are walking through lush landscapes, there are abundant teahouses to stop at and have food and drinks during the walk, there is a host of guesthouses to choose from and they are reasonably clean and comfortable', the good is great and even the shower is hot. But this will change along the way. Compared to a year ago the number of tourists have gone down dramatically, about 80% less according to the locals. We have plenty of choice between guesthouses and competition is fierce so prices are low. A few times we don't pay at all since the income generated with the food is so much more substantial. We eat every night in the guesthouse. By 9pm latest generally everybody is in bed and by 5am they are all scurrying about again. We try to get up every morning at 6am and to be off at 7am. After a bit of convincing I get my travel companions Tim and Colin to leave without breakfast for a 2 hour early morning hike before we have breakfast at a teahouse along the trail. Usually Tibetan bread or corn bread, porridge and eggs. Sometimes it is very young people running the places and preparing our food, boys and girls, no older than 12 or 13 and they are are great at it too!
Saturday 19 April, Chamje (1340m)Chamje is a small narrow village perched in a valley between steep mountains with a nice waterfall nearby. The omnipresent pack mules are sheltering from the rains that started in the afternoon under an overhanging slab of rock. We stay in the Tibetan Lhasa Lodge, which indeed has a distinct Tibetan feel to it, too bad there is also a very distinct smell coming from the toilet down the hall as well. While I was trying to do a drawing of the little town with the playing kids on the school courtyard a young girl joined me on the rock where I was sitting. Marisa soon took over my pen and notebook and finished some of my sketches and started drawing flowers next to it. She saw my feeble attempts at capturing the scene on paper were leading nowhere and wisely stepped in. We are having beers in the very dimly lit restaurant downstairs in the guesthouse. Ratna, the porter of a group of Israeli's is throwing longing glances at our merry table. After offering him a second glass of beer his 'client' is giving us a menacing look asking if we are trying to get her porter drunk. 'They are always like that' says Ratna. We hear many complaints along the way about Israeli travellers, about their habit of bargaining to the hilt and about arguments resulting in the porters getting fired. We meet many a porter on the way back offering their services to us after being let go. Later on we hear other stories as well, about porters getting lazy, demanding more money halfway or making sexual advances to female clients. We even hear of threats to push people off the cliffs and porters scheming all along the trekking route to get back at someone who had wronged one of them. We are oblivious of all this. Most of them seem perfectly friendly and we have many interesting encounters. Later on we do learn how efficient the porter grapevine is in a more positive way when one trekker got injured and separated from his trekking party. Messages are ferried back and forth along the trail from one person to the other and the telephone could almost not be faster and more efficient. Anyway, we have decided to carry our own pack since we felt it was more of an accomplishment to do the circuit carrying your own. But I can't help throwing jealous looks at people without packs along the way and some my happiest moments are when I spot people carrying even more than I do!
Sunday 20 April - Bagarchhap (2160m)On the way to Bagarchhap we come through Tal, a very pictoresque village in a sprawling flat riverbed valley with waterfalls left and right. The people are changing too, more Tibetan features and dark skin. It is here that we start seeing people riding sturdy little horses whereas before we only saw pack mules with the muledrivers walking beside them and porters. Lack of money makes the people here quite inventive. We get sent the wrong way, told the bridge has been flushed away, etc, to get us to stay at their guesthouse instead and an hour or two before Bagarchhap someone tells us there is great danger of landslides in Bagarchhap so better stay in his village instead. True, in 1995 there was a big landlide there which wiped away some lodges and many people died. But upon arrival in Bagarchhap the situation looked a lot saver to us than it had done in Chamje where we were staying right below what looked a mass of loose rocks waiting to come down on us. On top of that there was a big storm during the night which kept us out of our sleep. I must admit that a few times I wondered if I'd not better get the hell out of that place. Our guesthouse is quite nice but there are some very queer fellow trekkers staying as well. One of them was spying on Colin and me while taking a shower. Colin saw him peeping through the wooden wall panels from the toilet on the other side. I earlier didn't think anything of it when I exited the shower at the same time as he was exiting the toilet and made a remark about how nice the warm shower must have been. Hmmm, so these people go trekking as well.
Monday 21 April, Chame
The very last guesthouse after pretty much leaving the village and
going over the bridge is our find for the day. Every day we try to find a guesthouse with a bit of character and not too commercial or too many
guests already. Usually it's a sympathy vote but we all agree on what is a nice place to stay and each of takes turns in doing the selection
when we arrive at our destination.
I arrived at the courtyard and this little family of three young ladies and little girl and a baby were playing on matrasses in the sun in the court yard which borders on a fast flowing river with gigantic boulders. Here we get our first good view of Annapurna II, one of the Annapurna range mountain tops. But not only is the place nice and quaint. These little ladies manage to whip up a mean chicken sizzler in the evening! Probably the best one we ever had during the whole of our stay in Nepal. Generally we don't eat meat during any of the meals as its expensive and does not seem to be part of the general staple but this time we decide to treat ourselves to a bit of proteine. When I go post postcards in the village I come across one of the girls on the bridge and she is carrying a life chicken under her arm. Dinner! It is here in Chame that we start getting the hang of the traditional Nepali music. Love songs, of 3 women and 3 men singing together taking turns. First the men then the women, and v.v.. 'Harmonium' it is called. After initially thinking it's monotonous and that maybe the tape got stuck, I start liking it. The tape recorder in the kitchen of the young ladies plays a tape of atrocious quality and it is hard to distinguish any music at all.
In the meantime the shoulders and knees are beginning to feel the pinch. We like it so much in Chame that we decide to stay have our rest day here. We wash our clothes and ourselves next to the stream with hot spring water coming from a pipe in the rocks, the 'hotspring' of Chame.
Wednesday 23 April - Upper PisangToday the scenery changed dramatically. We walked along a so called 'velodrome' of a curved soaring snow capped rockface with razor sharp edge by the name of Paungda Danda which leads us from a lush valley into an open moonscape with a distinctly different ecosystem, very arid and dusty looking, not much grows here anymore. We are definitely approaching Tibetan like territory. This is so far the most impressive natural environment we have come through, reminding me much of the atmosphere in the film The Name Of The Rose. Well, less eerie maybe. 
We stay the night in Upper Pisang which from afar looks abandoned and gutted as it is perched against the hill. When we get closer we do see life, it is just the specific building style of the entirely wooden houses with open, shed like first and second floors and windowless ground floors with steep open ladders, ofter carved in one piece from a tree, to reach the different floors. We are staying in pretty basic 'rooms' with look more like ramshackle chambers of a shed. That night dinner is very basic, no matter what we order we get a conconction of cabbage and potato's on rice. Although we so far stuck to the traditional staple of Dahl Bhats with almost religeous fervour this would put us off the Dahl Bhats for pretty much the rest of the trek. Although electric light was sparse from the moment our trek started and often candle light is the only source of light, all of a sudden the lightbulb that hangs centrally on the open floor that serves as kitchen/dining room lights up. The first time in a year she has electricity the lady tells us! Still, with the 15 volt lightbulbs they seem to be using, the light does not help us to distinguish our food any better. Showers are a thing of the past from now onwards. The view from Upper Pisang is the most fantastic view of Annapurna II so far and it almost doesn't get better for the entire trek. The mountains are towering over us and make us feel humble. Thursday 24 April, Braga
We decide to have a restday here, for acclimatisation purposes but also because Tim is ill and is throwing up continuously. Trek from Upper Pisang to Braga was the hardest day so far. First a very steep uphill to Gyaru where we were rewarded with again fantastic views of the mountains, we continued over plains with sparse firs and wild thyme that seemed to come to no end. It was very hot during the day and we even decided to have a quick nap under the trees to regain strength.
In the afternoon I check out the old village which is high up against a hill. Archery competitions are taking place to celebrate the coming of spring. Girls are throwing juniper branches at men that manage to hit the mark. On top of the hill is a 1000 years old buddhist gompa that breaths mysticism with frightful looking masks hanging on the walls and all the scriptures rolled up and stored on colourful cloth wraps in the wall chambers.
The next day Tim is feeling a bit better. Colin is going to Manang to attend the recommended talk on AMS. Tim and I are going to walk to Kicho Lake, the ice lake, which is a stiff climb up to 4500m and is supposed to be a good altitude acclimatisation exercise. A proper path is hard to find and we err a bit now and again. We come across beautiful high plains with again firs and the sweet smelling wild thyme. After a couple of hours the path seems to go down again. This is not good we think, we should be going up! So we decide to follow a faint path up the hill where we can see something we think is mule dung. If in doubt follow the mule dung!
Monday 28 April, Muktinath
After a stopover in Yak Karka we immediately push on to Upper Thorung Phedi at 4800m. That last 2 hour haul up a steep mountain we rather did now than on the same that we need to go over the pass and back down 1600m to Muktinath on the other side of the pass. The altitude was taking its toll though, we barely had any appetite left, our stomachs were slightly upset and our heads felt less than ok. We didn't sleep well that night.
The actual trek up to the top of the pass was relatively easy. It had snowed the whole day and night yesterday so the landscape was crispy and clean.
Wednesday 30 April, Marpha
In Marpha we find a bit more luxury and fantastic Mexican food! Mexican food turns out to be pretty much standard fare on the Jomson route which we are now on. Marpha is a little gem, it could almost be a quaint little Swiss mountain village with it's stone slab curving streets and little cafe's (where they sell apple tart after Dutch recipe). The Buddhist monastery is lovely, so sunny and cheerfully decorated it resembles a kindergarten. Lots of young monks are getting ready for the morning classes. Thursday 1 May, Kalopani
Finally we left the broad riverbed behind us we have been walking on the last three days. It's impressive but after days and days we long for something different. Heathrow Airport would have fitted in easily. At Kalopani it abruptly ends in a more narrow valley and continues as a proper white water river.
We have diner together with the family of the guesthouse and we talk. As so many times we are the only guests there and we like it. 
The next morning at 6am Persent the son of the guesthouse owner takes us up the hill to witness a yak blood drinking festival. It turns out it is a whole encampment with men, women, children, horses and dogs. Whole villages camp here for 10 consecutive days and nights to drink yak blood in the morning which they hope will make them strong. Man and women alike drink the stuff by the cupfull. 
We are offered a cup but decline politely and try yak milk instead. The boys are having an archery competition and are pretty damn good at it too! Persent joins in and turns out to be a master shot.
Monday 5 May, Siprong This morning in Gorepani we said goodbye to Colin who is going back sooner, Tim and I continue to the Annapurna Base Camp trek as the icing of the cake on the trek. Somehow we are not yet ready to return to 'civilisation'. The trek from Tatepani to Gorepani yesterday was one long hard slug uphill, 1300m uphill in total if I'm not mistaken. Today was a long downhill with a steep uphill awaiting us afterwards. After a couple of hours my knees were protesting loudly and we decided to camp overnight in the "Ex-British Gurkha Lodge" where young boys where preparing fresh pasta and french fries in the courtyard when we came by. For some reason the trail leads us over all the guesthouse courtyards now instead of past them. So we need to climb over gates and almost go through houses in order to proceed on the trail. br>But it's a lovely family run guesthouse with his father as ex-Gurkha military man working in the US and his older brother working in Hong Kong. His mother is currently in Kathmandu to attend the funeral of his uncle who got a deadly injury during a robbery at the Hong Kong bank he was guarding. So Om who cannot be older than 19 himself is running the show with 7 younger sisters and brothers who are being naughty around us, tugging our clothes. We play along and swing them around when we catch them. Eventually the situation gets semi 'serious' when one of the brothers goes out after them with a stick and chases them into the paddy fields. Rocks are being thrown but it's all in mock. Neighbours come by trying to sell their chicken to young Om. The menu is promising us all sorts of exotic meals like Oil Oil Pepar Spagatti and Mushroom Nine Inchellitas. We choose the last one and we are not disappointed. In the dining room there are many pictures of his brother's family in Hong Kong and Hong Kong souvenirs adorn the walls. Wednesday 7 May, Macchapuchhre Base CampThe valley leading up to Macchapucchre Base Camp is in my opinion not very interesting compared to our trek around the circuit, but once at MBC the view of the 'sacred mountain' the following morning is magnificent. Easily the most impressive mountain shape wise. In the meantime it keeps snowing which adds to the magical atmosphere. On the way to MBC we come across Anand from Singapore who injured his knee on the trail. He missed his girlfriend and their porter as he was retracing his route after going the wrong way. He went back to Deurali and we delivered a message to his girlfriend Bina at MBC. The rest of the afternoon, evening and morning message are going back and forth couriered by the porters and guides going up and down the mountain. A good crowd has gathered in the guesthouse and for dinner we are enjoying the best Dahl Bhat we have had for ages. 
The next day we proceed to Annapurna Base Camp together with Portugese Pedro. It is only a 2 hour hike and there arrived we bask in the hot sun listening to the background noise of the avalanches thundering down around us. As hot as it is during daytime, during the night we are freezing our butts off and we have a hard time leaving the dining room with the burner under the table and the blanket over your legs to keep the warmth in (like a Japanese kotatsu). We don't envy the two climbing teams we know are currently scaling resp. the Annapurna I (Japanese team) and the Singu Chuli (Dutch team).
Tuesday 13 May - Pokhara
The next day we had only a silly half hour to walk down to Jhinu, enjoy the hotsprings and just chill. Anand with his bad leg and his three porters (two of them who were really cooks taking up the opportunity to make an extra buck) who carried him on their backs while sitting on a stick suspended from their head also showed up as did the Danish couple we met at ABC. He tried to hitch a ride on the helicopter that was chartered by a bunch of Americans that could not be bothered to walk down again but alas the helicopter left without him. The following day was a long hot last day to Naya Pul where we took a taxi to Pokhara. Strange day as all you think about it finishing the trek, but still quite a good and interesting hike. We bumped into the other trekkers now and again and at the end just before a tropical storm broke loose we befriended a dog of the Rotweiler type we see so much along the trail. He followed us for a long time until our lunch break and after the storm had abated somewhat and we wanted to continue he got up and followed up again. Until we came at the bridge which would lead us out of the valley. The time had come to really say goodbye and it was quite a heart breaking little scene where I kept telling him "go home, go back, you cannot come with us!". Eventually he understood, turned around, his sad eyes looked back one more time and he left. Tim said it reminded him of the film Bridges over Madisson Country. Pokhara is quite different from Kathmandu. The city itself is sprawling, fairly messy like most S.E. Asian cities and from what I could see nothing special. However, the "tourist gettho" is pictoresquely situated at a big like with good views over the surrounding hills and even the snowcapped mountain tops in the distance behind them. Wide streets, not much happening except for lots of shops and restaurants and cafes with outdoor seating, the perfect place to lazy about, which is pretty much what we did. On the last day before I left I went paragliding, which was fun up to the moment the instructor took us spiraling which caused me to lose my lunch right after the landing. Friday 23 May - KathmanduTime has flown by since I arrived in Kathmandu from Pokhara on Monday. On Wednesday Tim and I went to Patan, an ancient capital with monumental Buddhist and Hinduist temples. Durbar Square is as impressive as Durbar square in Kathmandu with its concentration of temples and palaces. Kathmandu is great, it's easy to lose track of time and just stick around, but tomorrow I will fly off to Thailand for the next travel destination. I was supposed to go to Tibet last Saturday but due to the SARS and all, this was off. I'm now turning around my travel schedule. A quick stop in Thailand and next to Malaysia and Indonesia. Hopefully I will be able to try going to Tibet and China again in September! More Nepal pictures |
And not just once. It is very hard to take a picture though because everybody tries to get in it while you are trying to take one. Dignified older men shoo shoo the kids out of the picture. It was supposed to be their 5 seconds of fame alone.
I am trying to remember what I thought Kathmandu would be like. I guess I thought it would be more modern. What I see is a place that makes me think it could be Europe in the middle ages. Many narrow unsealed streets with big potholes. Loads of people on the streets at all times, wheeling and dealing just about anything. Wooden facade low ceiling three or four storey houses with carved latice shutters and people hanging out of them.
At the same time you can eat anything western here, specifically in the Thamel neighbourhood. It is even almost difficult to find some Nepali food and the streets are crammed with souvenir shops and outdoor gear with brand names on them (good rip-offs). Norah Jones has replaced Bob Marley but not for long me thinks. Too bad I cannot buy anything as the crafts on sale are really nice.
