Round the World Journal
by Matt Donath
Sept 5. The famous Annapurna Circuit trek has been a dream of mine for about twelve years. Now we are on a bumpy mini-bus heading towards our start. Sybil describes the view: "It looks just like the Rockies... except for the rice terraces and all the naked brown people." I've decided to start our trek from Begnas Tal, rather than the traditional starting point of Dumre. This means a longer trek in, but less time on these unpleasant buses. In addition, we'll be off the tourist track for awhile.
Leaving the bus at the junction, we hike for about an hour in to the small town of Begnas Tal. Then we climb up a ridge between two lakes: Begnas Tal and Rupa Tal. Here we find the small, family-run Dinesh Guesthouse. Accommodation here is rather basic: the bucket mandi in the bushes, pit toilet that leads down the hill, and a foot long (!) centipede in our room. A leech latches onto Sybil as she climbs down to the toilet.
The view is breathtaking though! High atop a hill on a ridge, amidst a fragrant garden that includes orange, lime, pomegranate, and papaya trees, as well as many flowers, I peer down at two beautiful lakes surrounded by trees and terraced rice paddies. The mountains go on forever in the background. Wow! What a fabulous start to our trek!
Some of the garden plants are sacred. Sybil learns this the hard way when she starts to wring out a sock on a holy basil plant. Some Nepalese take moribund people near this plant to expedite the release of their soul to heaven.
The real treat to staying here is meeting the friendly Dinesh (Adhikary is the family name) people. They make us some popcorn and lemon chutney. Yum, this could catch on! We have some milk (from their buffalo) tea and chat for a long while.
Dinner is a special, enchanting event -- a rare treat, especially in a Brahmin household where some would consider us "untouchable". (Actually, I later learn that there are two untouchable castes in Nepal, with the higher of the two lording over the lower. I wonder which we would be placed in? :-) We sit cross-legged in their tiny kitchen (too short to stand in) as Mohan Devi dishes out dhaal bhat cooked over a wood fire. Most Nepalese eat dhaal bhat twice a day, every day. At its most basic, it consists of rice and lentils, but a good cook like Mohan Devi can make it delicious. She adds side dishes of pickled bamboo, green beans with potatoes, and a spinach-like vegetable. For dessert, she ladles some warm buffalo milk into some plain rice and gives us small bananas to mash into it. We eat with our hands, Nepalese-style, and find the simple meal extremely tasty. A tremendous storm knocks out the electricity, so we eat by candlelight.
Later, while cleaning my eating hand out in the rain, lightning strikes a wire attached to a pole, just above my head. The air sizzles around me and my hair stands on end.
Sept 6. The three banes of trekking in the monsoon season (rain, mosquitoes, and leeches) have put a slight damper on my wild enthusiasm. The rain continues relentlessly throughout the day. Sybil and I are both bitten by leeches and numerous mosquitoes. I don't notice one leech for awhile so my sock and shoe become blood-soaked and sticky. We remain upbeat during our soggy hiking, cheered by the idyllic scenery of streams, waterfalls, and rice paddy valleys surrounded by lush hills.
The going is slow, as the rain has swollen the streams we need to traverse. Off come the shoes and socks each time. (Although isn't this pointless in the rain? Sybil insists it isn't.) Leeches always seem to be lying in wait on the other side of the stream, inch-worming their way towards our warm blood with incredible speed. In a few places the path has been washed away by landslides, making for a mucky and treacherous slog across.
At one point, we see some barbells fashioned out of stone and a homemade sit-up bench. We later learn that a local boy is in training to join the Singapore police! Turns out many Nepalese try to join foreign armed forces and police.
One negative thing you quickly notice about Nepal is that the women do many of the unpleasant laborious tasks while the men tend to sit around drinking liquor. The illiteracy rate for women in Nepal is eighty percent! Unlike most Asian countries, many of the women smoke. Women definitely seem to do most of the wood fire cooking - a difficult and lung-polluting job.
We stop at Sharkabhanjyng (what a tongue twister!) for the night. Our beds are in a Spartan, bedbug-plagued, side room off the "D,Pab Restaurant." Dhom, the owner, tearfully tells us how he was roped into an arranged marriage out of respect for his 95-year-old grandfather. The poor guy is also recovering from Typhoid Fever. Yikes!
Sept 7. Finally a sunny day! We need it too because just about everything we own is wet. We hike for a few hours past streams and fields, but make little progress as we have to ask directions often and wind up chatting with people. A few locals can speak English fairly well. Approaching Karputar (which could possibly be reached in one day of good weather and serious hiking from Begnas Tal) we ask some villagers for some dhaal bhat. They tell us it will take an hour to prepare, so we put up a clothesline and hang out our wet clothes. Some villagers chase pigs and chickens back and forth, away from the front of their houses. A man twists bamboo to repair his shack. Another weaves a net for fishing. Ducks swim in a rice field just in front of us.
Setting out again, we see many interesting birds and plants. A gang of monkeys raid an orchard, coming away with some fruit. School kids laugh at us as we slip and slide down a hill. One kid gives us incorrect directions and we wind up going far out of our way. Some other kids take us back to the correct route. One of them shows us his rather difficult English language book. It contains stories on pollution, the tourist industry, and the king. The boy says he is twelve but looks about seven.
We can find no place to spend the night, so some people suggest we try the Himalayan Rescue-Dog Squad in Shyauli Bazaar. HRDSN was founded by a Dutchman named Ingo Schnabel in 1989. He plans to build an experimental commune with solar energy and moneymaking alternative crops. Right now, there is a school attached to HRDSN, for the education of the children of its local employees, and a German industrialist donated money to build a hospital. The HRDSN people take us in for the night. We sleep in hospital beds in their large, one-room infirmary.
I have mixed feelings about HRDSN. On the one hand, I think it's great that wealthy individuals try to help the poor people of Nepal. Especially when they want to build things like hospitals and schools. Moreover, they took us in for the night and for their generosity, we gladly make a donation. However, the HRDSN only went on two rescues last year. We were told that they rarely find people who are alive (they have one celebrated exception) and that they charge the families of foreigners for their attempts. The HRDSN newsletter says that 70-90 people a day receive treatment at the hospital. In a day and a half, we saw less than a handful receive aid. Only one injured person slept in the infirmary. The other dozen or so others sleeping with us just seemed to be locals or workers who needed a bed.
It just seems that perhaps the foreigners (mostly Germans) who are donating money to HRDSN are not given a completely accurate picture of where their money is going. The same might be said for many charities though. Perhaps HRDSN is simply laying a foundation and will be able to help more people once all of their goals are met. I wish them the best of luck. Some of the people there told us that Maoist terrorists had attacked people in the area. HRDSN has six full-time guards watching over the compound.
After starting out with two days of rain, we roast with two days of merciless sun. Sunburned and sore from yesterday, we hang around HRDSN until mid-afternoon.
Be careful with directions given by children! Once again, we are misled as a bad little boy sends us off in the wrong direction after we refuse his demand for a "pen." Even kids with the best intentions can be trouble. One group of tots "guide" us towards Nalma the only way they know how to go - first through dangerous goat trails steeply down to their village, and then up, up again from there! Clearly this is the long way round but these kids are holding our hands and insisting on the way. These cute little Nepalese children hike barefoot for hours through the hills on their way to and from school.
At the end of our "kidnapping," two of them insist on a compensatory ransom. We have a tough choice. We hate to propagate the unfortunately common perception that Western visitors are creatures to get things from: pens, five rupees, or whatever. The early tourists who came through Asia with backpacks full of pens and small change should be roasted on a spit! I hate to promote begging and normally refuse the endless requests we are besieged with.
However, it is almost impossible to refuse a request from two cute little beggars who have so good-naturedly tried their best (in their eyes) to help us. We give one a pin from a US ski resort (found in Kathmandu) and a Singapore coin to the other. They seem more interested in the coin.
So, after another day of little progress along the trail we reach Nalma Phedi. We attract a lot of attention while eating at a local grocery shack. Two young children tug at the hairs on my arm in amazement. We stop for the night at a family house just past the bridge.
Sept 9. Who would have guessed that hell would look so heavenly? The Laxmi (named for the God of Wealth) Guesthouse sits high over the junction of two scenic rivers, affording marvelous views. Unfortunately, we are once again chewed up by bedbugs. I thank Sybil for bringing this to my attention. She awakens me from uneasy sleep, yelping about the bugs. Once made aware of the fact that I'm being eaten alive, I can also go sleepless.
In the morning, we climb slowly and groggily up to Nalma following some strange shaggy human forms. Are they yetis? No, just grass cutters with huge loads piled on their backs. They turn around to laugh at us.
At the top of the hill (we soon learn that "phedi" means below wherever it is we want to go) we find Nalma and decided to quit early for the day. We stop mainly because the only other place with lodgings before Khudi is Baglung Pani and we've heard these are quite basic, meaning more bedbugs. The Annapurna Guesthouse in Nalma is by far the best place we've seen so far on the trail, offering stunning views on either side of a narrow ridge. Moreover, it's just about to rain again. The real clincher is that this place has a reasonable toilet and the beds look bug-free.
After another hellish storm, we eat dhaal bhat while the kids of the Annapurna owner "chant" their school lessons - sounding like Vespers. I tell Sybil that this is just like watching a cultural documentary during dinner. This is one of the real treasures of the Begnas Tal route, especially in the off-season. We are the only tourists and can interact with the locals to a much greater degree than on the "usual" trail.
Sept 10. Cereal in the morning for Sybil! This is the first time we've have something other than dhaal bhat. Her hiking becomes much more energetic. We need that energy too because we have a steep climb, then a nasty bit through the most slippery and leech infested trail I've ever had the misfortune to experience! Despite a Deet drenching and plucking leeches off my boots every few meters, some of the beasties still manage to latch on to me. Sybil escapes the leeches but takes a wicked, jolting fall on some slick rocks.
The only good news is that we don't get lost for once. We find our way to Baglung Pani, thanks in part to a man driving a pack of donkeys with bells on their necks. At Baglung Pani, a crazy Tibetan guy "shows" us a place to eat. He's a bit drunk and Sybil doesn't like him, but he isn't too much trouble.
From here, there are two ways to Khundi. One is more direct but contains more slippery rocks and leeches. OK, we'll take the long way. Turns out to be a good choice. We have gorgeous views and a fine trail. Sybil's amateur entomologist bent finds fascination in the many colorful beetles, butterflies, and grasshoppers. She picks up a praying mantis and later finds a giant Rhinoceros Beetle. The latter is a truly exquisite specimen. I tell her that if we take it to Japan we could sell it for hundreds of dollars as these are prized pets there. Of course, we leave him where he belongs.
After fording a rapid river, we walk through a fantastic valley, so beautiful it sometimes seems like I'm walking in a dream. The trees, the river, the rice fields, and even the rocks each hold special interest for me. At the end of a long day, we stay at the Thorung La Guesthouse in Bhulebhule. This place even has a shower! We have now joined the main track for the Annapurna Circuit.
Next: Part Nine or see Table of Contents