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Published: April 24th 2010
After a bureaucracy filled day in Kathmandu (getting visa extensions, trekking permits, paying various fees and so on) we managed to drag ourselves out of bed at 5.30 for Day one of our first adventure into the Himalayas.
Day One - Kathmandu - Shyepru We got to the bus station in the north of Kathmandu, bought our tickets (less than a fiver for us both for a nine hour journey) and were then told we had to go to the bus stop 15 minutes away!
We followed the directions of the man at the station to find some form of chaos on a street corner that might have been a bus station, children, water sellers, chickens and goats jostled for position to see our ticket and help us find the bus. Eventually, the bus was found, I had to climb on the top of it to deposit our bag (for this trip we had decided to put all we needed into one rucksack, weighing about 20kilos) Climbing the ladder with this on my back wasn't easy!
Anyway, we found our seats and the bus left promptly at 7am.
As it weaved it's way out of the
Kathmandu valley for the first couple of hours, it became obvious that there was going to be a few green faces. Rhi and me were both feeling a little sick, and so when the first pee break was announced, we gladly jumped off the bus!
As we went around the side of the bus, a local lady hung her head out of the window and let fly devilish red stream of vomit! That was enough time off the bus!
Rhian swapped seats with someone up the front so that she could see the road to help with her own sickness. I stayed at the back, it had become obvious that there were two main rules on the bus.
1. Leave your seat - Lose it
2. Stay in your seat - Share it
Rhian was eventually sick and was asked to sit next to the red vomit woman as this was now the designated "sick seat".
As more and more people ended up sitting on Rhian's lap, between her feet and on her shoulder, I was sharing with a pleasant gentleman who decided to lean across me every few minutes and spit out of the
window. On only one occasion did he hit me.
As the bus got further and further into the mountains it became more and more obvious that the bus wasn't just for transporting people, it was also a lifeline of food, drink and other necessities that were needed in the mountain valleys.
At the end of the nine hours, and some of the most skillful driving on the most dangerous roads, all manner of items were unloaded from the bus, rice, potatoes, garlic, onions, beer, water, coke, petrol and all sorts of other things were unloaded with everyone pitching in.
After a short while we managed to get on top of the bus and find that our bag had made it, intact, untampered with and despite my unfounded suspicions, not stolen.
We found the first hotel we could and checked in.
Day Two - Shyepru to Rimche We got up around 6.30 and eventually started moving at aroun 7.45. We went around in circles for about 20 minutes before finding the way we were meant to go just after 8.
We had our permits checked a few minutes later at the first checkpoint and
were directed towards a shaky looking steel rope bridge over the river.
We crossed the bridged and entered the village of Shyepru Besi, at 1,460 metres above sea level. Another Rope bridge and we were back on the south side of the Langtang River and climbing steeply. About two hours in, we found a Tibetan lodge/cafe and I had to take the bag off! My shoulders were aching, legs tired and heart pumping. We stopped for a drink in the cafe, chatted to some Swiss and German trekkers and then moved on. The second half of the morning was even steeper, we kept leep-frogging with the porters who were carrying water pipe, MDF sheets and Rice up the mountain valley, and I had a real respect for them. My bag was around 20 kilos, a bag of rice is 30. The wood and Pipes, I have no idea, but it must have been heavy. Towards the end of the morning we were stopping every 10 minutes and I have to say that in my life, I have never felt exhasution like it. My legs were throbbing, my heart pounding, my shoulders and back felt about 6 inches shorter. When
we arrived at Bamboo Lodge, I had to admit that I wasn't fit enough to go any further with the bag that day. Bamboo Lodge was at 1,990 metres above sea level, but it was up and down so the actual amount of climbing we did I don't know, but suffice to say, after four and a half hours, I could not lift the bag anymore.
We filtered the water and chatted to the owner of the Lodge about a porter for the next day and a half. Eventually we agreed on a price and her cook happily picked up the bag, chucked it on as though it was a carrier bag with four loo rolls and started walking off up the hill.
We walked for another two hours until we reached Rimche, at 2,455 metres above sea level. We'd gone nearly a kilometre up and it was definately time to stop.
Our porter told us he'd be back in the morning and was going to stay in the next town and he trotted off as though in someway this was normal after lugging that bag up the valley!
We choose some food, Vegetable Chowmein I
think, and went to bed at about 6.30. Both completely exhausted.
Day Three - Rimche to Thangsyap We woke up at various points in the night, partially due to being in bed before it got dark! We eventually threw in the towel and about 5 am and started getting ready for the day ahead. Our porter arrived half an hour ahead of schedule, obviously keen to get on with the days work so that he could get back to work that evening.
We left around 6.15, somewhat refreshed and the climb didn't appear as steep as before, we stopped after half an hour for some porridge made with Yaks milk and our porter had obviously clocked us for what we were and set us on ahead of him.
Rhi had started to get a dodgy tummy by this point and our progress was stuttered as she attended to this, I managed to befriend a stray cat for a short while and he led us out of the village of Lama and up the hill towards Gordatabela.
Our Porter caught up with us not long into our trek and overtook us, more porters with water pipes,
rice, gas canisters and other such things overtook us and the final few hours were a real struggle, we finally reached Thangsyap around 1pm where we paid our porter, tipped him, and said goodbye.
The tip immediately went on beer and Rakshi (a Tibetan whisky) which was downed pretty quickly before we once again said goodbye and saw him racing down the hill.
Rhi then set about scaring two English guys about Altitude sickness, with tails of what might happen to them. They both looked a bit shell shocked and went on their way!
Thansyap is at 3,111 metres above sea level, and we were both getting some headaches and thought it might be mountain sickness so decided we'd take a day at Thansyap to acclimatise. We had another 650metres to climb before reaching the end of our trail so it made sense.
We chatted to the owner of the lodge we were staying at and she offered us a hot bucket of water or a solar shower! We opted for the solar shower, and amazingly the water was piping hot. There is very little electricity in the mountains, and it is all provided by either
solar power, or car batteries. Both of these have been brought up the mountain on the back of a porter, after a few days you get a sense of how much work and effort has gone into the building of these lodges.
The use of renewable energy isn't a choice up here either, it's just the only way it can be done. It's an amazing feat that they have harnessed a technology like solar power and used it so well to improve not only their own lives but to improve a tourism product that is the lifeblood of their economy.
Day Four - Thangsyap Day four is our rest day. Though we went for a small walk to help our bodies adjust to the altitude, we really didn't go far, instead we spent the day reading books, chatting to locals and other travelers.
Rhi spent some time talking to the lady who owned the lodge, we were both a little stunned to find out that she was only 27, though she had three children, two of them were in Dunche, a stop on our bus route to Shyepru, and would stay there for five months at
school. The third was too young, and wandered around the lodge site in various states of undress and cleanliness.
We also met an Australian guy called Steve, who spent six months a year in Nepal working on a project to provide clean drinking water to the people of the valleys, this explained all the water pipes. He was typically Australian, and you just know that he would have had the stingray that killed Steve Irwin in a headlock before it struck it's barb, but he was ultimately a very likeable character, if something of a chancer!
It turns out he is married to a Tibetan woman and when Rhian asked him if he had any children he replied "Maybe. they're pretty liberal up here."
Day Five - Climb to Tunjin Gumpa and back An early start was planned to get us up to the top and back down so that we could pick up our bags and head further down the valley that evening.
So we left around 7am, heading up a nice incline for the first hour, on our way towards Langtang, over another steel rope bridge we kept climbing and climbing until we
reached the mountain town of Langtang, to call it a town seems absurd as it would barely register as a village on a a map back home, but this was the largest grouping of dwellings we'd seen in a number of days and so it really did feel like a town. We decided we'd have breakfast here before heading up the steep climb towards Tunjin Gumpa.
As we were heading to the centre of the town we bumped into Steve again, he was on a mission to check on some valves for his water pipes further up the valley and told us he'd take us to a good place for breakfast.
So we followed the guy for half an hour up some pretty steep trails until we came to a house just off the track and ate porridge and drank tea. All the while Steve was flirting with some young Tibetan women working in the fields and we watched as a pair of Ox worked the field relentlessly.
We then left the house and carried on up the trail, with the peaks of the mountains in our sights. It took us another two and a half hours
to reach Tunjin Gumpa. The view of Langtang Lirung was amazing, it is over 7,700 metres tall, far too high for us to climb, but the whole of the himilayas seemed to surround us, we sat in the middle of this tiny village, 3,751 metres above sea level and it was hard to believe that we were still dwarfed by these giants of mountains on all sides. The wind whispered through the valleys into the village and various animals including horses, buffalo and dogs went about there business as we ate ommlettes for lunch and marveled at the views.
We rested for an hour or so, before climbing up to see a Buddhist monastery and then headed back where we came from.
It seemed to take us forever to get back, and eventually we arrived back at Thangsyap around 5pm and decided that was enough for one night.
Ten minutes later, the rain set in and we knew we had made the right choice. About half an hour later a German and Italian pair of blokes showed up and decided on the room next to us. The Italian was one of the rudest people to ever walk
the planet, practically barking his orders to our Tibetan host, and arguing everything. Fortunately he calmed down when his German companion offered him some hash and they went to sleep.
Day Six - Thangsyap to Bamboo Lodge Having got up pretty early to start our main descent we noticed that we were joined for the morning by the boys from Eurotrash and so we set off as early as possible to avoid having to talk to them.
Going down was much quicker than up, and I managed to carry the bag without much hassle, a little more fitness and a lot less incline seemed to do the trick!
We soon went past our initial resting place at Rimche and made it as far as Bamboo Lodge where we originally picked up our porter. We had showers and then half an hour later noticed that the boys from Eurotrash had joined us at the same hotel.
We were about to go and get some dinner when we left the room only to see Germany's answer to Male Twiggy bent over in his tight red hot pants doing his laundry in some sort of housewives porno pose.
Undeterred, we ordered food and then chatted with the two young lads who were working at the lodge.
One was 11 and his mother owned the lodge, the other was 13 and was his friend. The 11 year old was going to school in Kathmandu but his friend couldn't go as his parents couldn't afford to send more than one child to school. He did however manage to show us some magic tricks with a pack of cards that had only 4 aces, 4 kings, 3 queens and 4 jacks. None of them were particularly successful and we found out from his friend that the rest of the pack had gone missing in a previous magic trick where the cards had actually dissapeared.
Our Italian friend then came in, ordered some tea, sprinkled hash in it and argued about the price. He then sprinkled a few extra herbs onto his dinner and hotpants joined him.
After learning one to ten in both Hindi and Tamang languages we retired to bed.
Day Seven - Bamboo Lodge to Shyepru Besi We were eager to start out before our European friends as we were going to the Hot
Springs and didn't want to get there after they'd sprinkled hash in them, unfortunately, the hot springs weren't where we thought they were and so we never did find them!
We carried on to Shyepru Besi, not before we came across a goat that had just given birth and saw the new calf still struggling to walk. We'd just passed some local children throwing the uterus off a bridge!
We made it back to Shyepru Besi and booked our tickets back to Kathmandu where we now sit, waiting to start our trek to Everest!
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Amanda
non-member comment
AMERICAN MISSING, LANG TANG
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=122096637808141 My cousin AUBREY SACCO, age 23, is MISSING in NEPAL. She took a bus from Kathmandu to SYABRUBESI on April 19, and began the 7-8 day LANGTANG trek in the Himalayas on April 20. She planned to follow the Lonely Planet guide. She should have returned to Kathmandu between April 30-May 1. We have not heard from her since she began the trek. Have you seen her? Please check our facebook page for photos and information. If you can pass this along to anyone along the trek or other travelers that may have seen her, we would be most grateful. THANK YOU!